Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Lord Snape Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches were saddened that the Government cancelled the £2 bus fare cap. It was an incredibly successful scheme that saw an increase in passengers on buses and made bus travel more affordable. I have an amendment to bring back a £2 bus fare cap scheme, which we will debate next week. I believe it is far stronger than this amendment before us today.

However, I am glad to see that His Majesty’s Opposition are highlighting this issue through an assessment of the scheme. As I said earlier, the key issue here is always the level of funding for bus services and, indeed, the costs to the passenger. If we want more people out of their cars and using buses, we need to ensure that fares are more attractive and services are provided where passengers need to go. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s thoughts on this amendment.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said that he deplored the fact that the £2 bus fare had been increased to £3. This is, even for him, an act of great cynicism. The £2 maximum bus fare was introduced by the last Conservative Government on 1 January 2023 —coincidentally, of course, in the run-up to the next election. It was initially introduced for three months. There is nothing that makes the bus industry despair more than this sort of short-termism. You cannot plan ahead for three months so far as bus services are concerned.

That £2 limit was increased on numerous occasions in the run-up to the election, and if the Opposition spokesperson is going to tell us that it would have remained at £2 in the foreseeable future, I would be more than impressed. I suspect that this is a plot that has succeeded in luring the Liberal Democrats into the same Lobby. The House would be better served if we waited for the actual debate on the Liberal Democrat amendment rather than suffered what is, I repeat, a cynical operation on the part of the party opposite.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make just a few points about the former £2 national bus fare cap. The first is quite obvious. The previous Government left no forward funding for that scheme at the time of the election and, indeed, left a rather large hole in the public finances, which, in effect, prevented its continuation.

The second point is that it is very easy to assume that somehow the maximum cap of £3 meant that all fares went up by 50%. The vast majority of travellers on bus services travel for a short distance and many of them paid less than £2 in any event. Fares between £2 and £3 went up only by inflation, and the cap still applies to longer-distance journeys that would cost more than £3.

In any event, in February, the Government published an evaluation of the first 10 months of the £2 fare cap. Evidence from that suggests that the scheme had a relatively greater impact on leisure trips compared with those for education and employment and was, in fact, rather poor value for money. So I believe that a legislative requirement for further evaluation is unnecessary and, on that basis, I would ask for the amendment to be withdrawn.