Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Lord Snape Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 30A in my name. I thank the Minister and his team for their engagement during this part, including an email sent rather late last night. Since we last discussed this Bill, about 16 people per day have been injured in bus accidents and one person is killed per month in London alone according to TfL’s own figures. TfL has a Vision Zero policy for bus accidents.

I am sure the House will join me in sending best wishes for a full recovery to those 16 people hospitalised in the recent Victoria bus crash, including my noble friend Lord Alton. As he said to me, you do not expect to pick up a broken back on your Oyster card on the 8.15 journey to Westminster.

I am greatly heartened, however, by the Minister’s response, and I am glad that the Government are sympathetic to the Motion. The road safety strategy sounds like it is going to be a good thing, as long as it looks at this idea of zero tolerance towards accidents, and at Vision Zero. Having seen how much this has been successfully adopted elsewhere, I look forward to the road safety White Paper.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly on these amendments; first, about safety. I bring the House’s attention to the fact that, although we had a debate in Committee on the question of safety with regard to blind and disabled people, particularly at bus stops, to speak from memory, my noble friend the Minister said that he would take away the concerns expressed in that debate and come back later. There is a particular problem—and it was debated fully in Committee—about what have been called floating bus stops, so I do not intend to go into it at any great length now. If safety is to mean anything, it must apply to those who wish to use buses as well as those actually on the vehicles.

Since that debate, my attention has been drawn to British Standard 8300-1 of 2018, headed “Design of an accessible and inclusive built environment”, and to paragraph 6.2.2 on bus stops. It was drawn up in January 2018, and the paragraph on bus stops reads:

“Bus stops should conveniently serve key facilities and services by being located within a reasonable walking distance. They should be adjacent to, but not obstructing, pedestrian routes; and pedestrians should have access to and from the bus stop without crossing cycle routes, including where these run between the pedestrian route and the vehicle carriageway”.


I draw my noble friend’s attention to the fact that concern was expressed from all quarters of the House about the design of floating bus stops and the problems that such a design causes for the blind in particular. The BS that I have just quoted was drawn to my attention only today by the National Federation of the Blind UK. I apologise for raising it at the last minute, but it is a relevant point with regard to this amendment, and I hope that my noble friend will be able to satisfy my concerns as well as those of other noble Lords on this problem.

The other point that I wish to make is about the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, although he has not said very much so far. Listening to him earlier, I felt nostalgia sweeping over me at the fact that this legislation and other legislation in the transport field was drafted at the behest of the trade union movement. He did not actually name which trade union he had in mind. A feeling of nostalgia came about because I remembered the days of “reds under the bed” that the Conservative Party was obsessed with at one time—and that has obviously returned. I wonder whether the noble Lord will tell us not only the names of the unions that have such enormous power that they draft legislation these days but those left-wing local authorities to which he referred.

As for the noble Lord’s amendment, it was originally drafted by my noble friend Lord Woodley, who unfortunately could not be present in Committee to move it, so it was never actually discussed. The fascinating thing is that, having attacked these wicked trade unions, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, should pick up an amendment that was tabled by the former general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. It is a pleasure to see the noble Lord advocating trade union matters, although he will forgive me for thinking that it is a somewhat cynical approach on his part.

Indeed, I looked at the amendments that the noble Lord moved throughout the passage of this Bill, and most of them demanded inquiries, committees and reports to Ministers. I calculated that at least 40 or 50 new employees would be needed to draft responses to all the requests that he made. The Conservative Party would be the first to complain about the addition of bureaucrats, as it would call them, and the unnecessary recruitment of such people. But one can only describe the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, as a one-man employment bureau with regard to bureaucracy. Few of his amendments have had any relevance for bus passengers or the bus industry—and I look forward to him rising shortly to advocate the policy of a former general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Snape. I endorse everything that he said about British Standard 8300. We had a long and extensive debate around floating bus stops and the difficulties for accessibility and inclusion as well as for safety, as the noble Lord rightly points out, for all prospective bus users, not least the blind and sight impaired. Does the Minister believe that current floating bus stops comply with BS 8300, and does the Minister believe that they should? Does he believe that local authorities should comply with BS 8300? What does the Minister see as the role for the British Standard, which clearly sets out a key phrase—although there is much in it—about being able to access the bus without having to cross a live cycle lane.

It is the lived experience for blind, sight-impaired and indeed all prospective bus passengers, with an increasing number of these floating bus stops being tragically laid out and commissioned up and down the country, to have to cross a live cycle lane or, worse still, to stop going out, to be effectively planned out of their local communities, a public realm that was previously accessible before the laying out of these so-called floating bus stops. So, I ask the Minister, when he comes to sum up, what is his view on BS 8300? Does he believe the Government should be very supportive of the work that British Standards do and should it not be that all local authorities and, indeed, all those in planning any public realm, when it comes to bus stops should be fully compliant with this very well thought through, very clear, very comprehensive BS 8300.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Motion 31A and declare my interest as chair of Amey, which works with councils to identify and capture data on road defects. My motion this evening, however, is on a completely separate issue. If I may respond to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, as much as I could see that all the praise he was lauding on my noble friend Lord Moylan with regard to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, was wholly appreciated on the Front Bench here, it was me who raised the subject when we were last engaged on it and I would say that, as the noble Lord, Lord Snape, knows, when it comes to safety in any aspect of life, praise where praise is due and collaboration where collaboration is needed, across party lines. I had no hesitation whatever in praising the unions for their response to the Piper Alpha disaster when I was Minister for Energy, and that has been a characteristic throughout all my political work.

Tonight, however, I am focusing on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, because I thank him and indeed the unions who supported him for first introducing this amendment. I think it is an important amendment, and I have to say that it beggars belief that Labour Party MPs in another place should be voting down the considered and well-argued wishes of the unions on this subject. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, asked me to name the union. I understand that the RMT did a lot of good work in drafting the original amendment.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

The fact is that the amendment was never actually debated in Committee because the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, could not be present. The fact is that it has now been adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who I suspect—I hope I can say this without upsetting him too much—is doing it more for political purposes than concern about women and children. The fact is that when men, women or children are assaulted on public transport, those assaults are recorded by the police, so there is no need for that particular amendment, which was never moved in the first place.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that this was never mentioned by my noble friend Lord Moylan. He did not even respond to it, if memory serves me correctly, when we did debate it, and, as he knows, it is perfectly proper and in order for anybody to move an amendment in Committee and people do so. I was intending to speak on it in any event, but, in his absence, the opportunity arose for me to move it because, sadly, the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, was not here for what I think was an extremely important issue.

We heard earlier this evening about the number of people who are on buses, as opposed to trains, and the safety of people on buses, particularly the vulnerable—not just the women and girls. I appreciate what the Minister said about the initiative that he is taking for women and girls, but it is also about the vulnerable, the disabled and the children. Many people face abuse and even violence in incidents late at night, in particular on buses, which I think should be a matter of concern to the Committee, which is why I raised it in the first place and why I believe that the unions were right to demand stronger sanctions. Late-night shifts expose drivers and staff to higher risks of violence, abuse and anti-social behaviour. Existing protections were seen by the unions, by the Cross-Benchers and indeed by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party as being inadequate. They all called—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Snape, would as well—for increased action against the night-time risk; against underreporting and poor follow-up; against the lack of a legal mandate. There is a need for accountability and, above all, for protection for vulnerable passengers.

The Minister in another place argued that the clause duplicates work done by the Home Office, and again the Minister this evening highlighted that point. However, I do not think that that bears comparison with what happens in the world of rail. The Railway Accident Investigation Branch, the RAIB, which does very good work, was introduced in order to recognise and to fill the void that existed in terms of what normally happens with police reporting. We needed to go further on the rail, and I believe we need to go further, as I am sure the unions did in helping with this amendment, when it comes to buses. According to the Unite survey last year, 93% of UK bus drivers experienced abuse, with 79% saying that there had been an increase over the previous year and many reporting an inadequate employer response to assaults. I think it is time for action and I think that this modest amendment can go at least one step in the right direction.

The Liberal Democrats were very supportive in another place as well. I will quote Steff Aquarone, who said:

“Here lies the point: at present, too many of those incidents go unrecorded, or are not handled consistently across different operators and regions. Clause 40 would put a stop to that, creating a clear and consistent duty that, if an operator is contracted to run services, it must record this data and share it with the local authority. That is the very least the public expect. Furthermore, the inclusion of a duty on a local transport authority to consult with relevant trade unions regarding issues of staff safety arising from the data collected is a good step. It will ensure that the data is used in practice and could lead to increased safety for staff and passengers”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/7/25; col. 231.]