Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, first and foremost, I declare my interest as chairman of Transport for the North, as set out in the register. I very much associate myself with the remarks made by the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, on Baroness Randerson, who was a formidable transport spokesman. She never missed the opportunity to make the case in this House for better transport links, both in her area and in the world. The House will be the poorer without her presence.

Much reference has been made to the last buses Bill, which was in 2017. I had some responsibility for that, as the Secretary of State when it was introduced to the House of Lords in 2016, but I was not around as Secretary of State by the time it completed all its stages. I accept a responsibility for its birth, but I am not sure that I am quite responsible for its final framework when it passed.

The background to how that particular Bill came about is quite interesting. It was partly a Bill promised in a deal done by George Osborne, Sir Richard Leese and Howard Bernstein on the whole way in which devolution and mayoral powers were to be introduced and eventually transformed. We have had a lot of reference this evening to the Bee Network in Manchester, which really was the trailer, and that Bill allowed it to happen. We see it now in operation, with clear leadership from Andy Burnham as to what he wants and expects, leading a drive to see more people use public transport. It is worth remembering that a double-decker bus can take something like 70 cars off the road, and possibly be quite effective in reducing congestion.

I also think it is important—it has come through in today’s debate—to think about what we do not require. We do not need a straitjacket, because we need to allow local flexibility. I remember my mother’s life being transformed when a bus started to run around the estate. It enabled her to go into town, do her shopping and get back on a small bus that ran through the estate. That was not a community bus, but community bus transport is an area in which we can see possible improvements, particularly in rural areas.

When I was Secretary of State, I brought in a scheme to support community buses. They had to be small organisations; the larger ones could not take advantage of the scheme because of certain competition rules. Those were partly EU rules. We are free from those rules, so I urge the Minister to look at that scheme and see whether it can be resuscitated, because I think it is important.

There is no doubt as to the important role that buses can play, both in local economies and, as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, said, in the opportunities for employment prospects. There is also the fact that it is still one of the most used forms of transport today—not the train but the bus. I have seen the figure of 11 million journeys a day. The Bill extends bus franchise powers beyond metro mayors to all places and accelerates the franchising process, so there will need to be some very specific guidance.

In reading the debate on the Bill in 2016, which became the 2017 Act, I was interested that there was some criticism that it gave the Department for Transport a few too many powers as far as delegated legislation was concerned. As chairman of your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, I read with interest some of the attacks made on that Bill about those delegated powers. But there are some areas where delegated powers are absolutely essential, because things change and we should not be forced to wait for further primary legislation.

Buses remain the most used form of public transport in England. However, bus journeys have been in decline for many years in most of England. They dropped from 4.6 billion in 2009 to 3.6 billion in 2024. Journey numbers are also yet to recover to pre-Covid levels. In the year ending March 2024, bus usage was around 12% lower than in the year ending March 2020. It is important to remember that public funding accounts for 44% of all bus industry income. That is with the overall concessionary bus pass, other allowances and grants given by the Department for Transport. The rest of it comes from fares. This is similar to pre-pandemic funding levels.

Bus mileage is used as an indicator of how many bus routes there are. In England outside London, bus mileage in the year ending March 2024 was around 29% lower than in 2005. However, bus mileage in London has remained fairly stable over the same period, so London has managed to keep a level of service that the rest of the country has not seen. As far as the north is concerned, the latest figures for 2024 show that the north has 33% less bus mileage since 2010, including a 22% reduction since 2019, the last full year prior to the Covid pandemic. Bus patronage in the north grew to 703 million passengers in 2024, 8.1% more than in 2023, but was still some 18% lower than in 2019.

As we see more devolution, with more powers going to metro mayors and a growth in the number of metro mayors, they will take much more interest in how these services are being run and the opportunities there will be. I hope we can look at what happened in Manchester and understand some of the difficulties it faced, but also give guidance as to how the other areas can take forward their plans. We should not give a straitjacket saying that this should happen in all areas, because some areas will be different, particularly rural areas and county areas. What you can do in Manchester, Leeds or Sheffield is not the same as what you can do in some remote parts of Lancashire or Cumbria. Those areas need to be addressed as well, and opportunities in those areas need to be found.

I was encouraged by the way in which the Minister said that it was not one size fits all. On that, we are speaking the same language. We should give mayors—where there are county mayors or mayors of combined authorities—a good chance for the grants that will be available. We should also encourage different solutions in different areas, remembering that a journey does not necessarily stop at a county boundary. How you overcome that county boundary, so that workplace areas become much more important, will be one of the vital challenges.

For us to meet some of our environmental requirements and targets, public transport will need to play a very important role. I very much regret that the Government felt they were unable to continue with the £2 bus fare cap, but that decision has been made. We still need to find ways of encouraging more people to use the bus service, by giving them the confidence to use it and making it a reliable service. One of the most important things for public transport is for people to know it is reliable. If they know it is reliable, they will use it. If they think it is unreliable, they will not use it.

I wish the Minister well in his task. We are right to hold the Government to account on where the money will come from for future schemes, and exactly how that money is going to support a better public transport overall for the people of this country.