Bus Services Bill [Lords]

Louise Ellman Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

New clause 1 calls for a national strategy that sets out various targets and objectives. I feel sure that the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), sees one of the targets as the need to have accessibility for all who use the buses. I understand that the Government have already considered that issue after it was raised in Committee, and that they have very valid reasons for not going forward with a national strategy. However, by tabling the new clause, the hon. Gentleman has raised several important issues, and I want to mention some of them briefly.

In particular, there is a need for consistency. I welcome the change the Government have made with regards to information for bus passengers, which will help all our constituents. Some of my constituents have contacted me about the importance of having information available on the routes that they are taking. That is important not only for partially sighted or blind passengers, but for one constituent with autism and special needs who contacted me. This will help that individual, as well as a broader group.

As my noble Friend Baroness Campbell pointed out in the other place, other issues of national importance for people who use buses would fall within the national strategy proposed by the hon. Gentleman, such as wheelchair priority and access policies more generally. The Minister’s comments in Committee on wheelchair priority are very heartening. Following the Paulley case, it is important that an advisory committee will be set up. I hope that the Minister will confirm that he has given further thought to the composition of the group’s membership. Does he intend to involve the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee? He should consider that carefully. The Minister did not touch on that detail in Committee—perhaps it had not been all worked through at that stage—but perhaps he could take this opportunity to assure the House that, subsequent to our debate in Committee, the discussions as part of that advisory group will be acted on quickly and that all relevant people will be involved.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that these measures in the national strategy would give bus services the status they deserve and recognise the fact that so many more people travel on buses, and make more bus journeys, than they do on trains, which are much more widely recognised in national policy making?

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point about the difference in the way trains and buses are treated. I do not necessarily agree that there is a need for the national strategy to ensure parity, but she makes an important point. There should not be undue differences in how we treat bus operators and train operators, in particular on disability issues. I will take that point one stage further before I finish.

When the Bill was discussed in the other place, my noble Friend Baroness Campbell said that there is a need for an accessibility policy with teeth to ensure that it is effective. As the hon. Lady said, there is a real contrast between how the Government treat buses and trains in respect of disability access and the conditions for licences for those who operate these important public services. It is a condition of a train operator’s licence that they comply with disabled people’s protections policy and state how they will protect the interests of disabled customers. That is enforceable by the regulator, with fines associated with lack of compliance. Why, therefore, is that not the case for bus operators? Perhaps in the absence of a national strategy, a condition could be put in place to ensure that such provisions exist for bus operators. Buses are an important way for disabled passengers to get to work and to social engagements, and to be a part of the community. Such provisions for bus operators would ensure parity between train operators and bus operators in how they support disabled people.

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The new clause may well not be accepted today, but I think that in the fairly near future, when the Bill becomes an Act and the benefits of re-regulation are seen, we will move towards regulation throughout the country.

[Mrs Ellman]

My hon. Friend is making some important points. Does he recall that, over three Parliaments, the Transport Committee has investigated bus deregulation on five occasions, and does he agree that that reinforces the case that he is making for fundamental reform, starting with this Bill?

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[Sir Henry Bellingham]

I simply say to the hon. Gentleman—for whom I have a huge amount of respect—that I have listened to bus operators and passengers in my constituency. We now have more bus services in our remote communities and villages that we did, say, 20 years ago, when the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) was standing for election to a rural Norfolk seat—and he nearly won that seat in 1997; I think it was Mid Norfolk—because SMEs have stepped up to the plate.

I have taken enough of the House’s time. Let me simply say this to the Minister. I believe that the amendments go a modest way towards improving the Bill, without undermining or sabotaging parts of it. I think that they will help bus operators—especially the smaller ones—and passengers and local authorities by providing clarity.

[Mrs Ellman]

I want to talk about the new clauses and amendments relating to franchising, including amendments 14 to 23, 26 and 27.

The strength of the Bill lies in devolution, and its proposal that decisions on how to provide local bus services should be devolved to local transport authorities, which should consider what works best in their areas. It is important to remember that the Bill has come about because of dissatisfaction among members of the public—people who want to use buses—with the way in which the current system operates. There have been a number of attempts to change the Transport Act 1985, which deregulated transport services, but none of those attempts —which have been made under successive Governments—has resolved the problem. The Bill is important because it tries to address the difficulties that the public have experienced, and to create a thriving bus sector.

The Transport Committee examined the Bill in detail from the perspective of passengers. We welcomed the possibility of new and smaller entrants to the bus market, but what worries me about the new clauses and amendments is they may prevent the proposed devolution from taking place. There are two aspects of that. The first relates to combined authority areas with directly elected mayors having the power to proceed with franchising. There is a lack of clarity about the regulations that will be introduced, or imposed, to impede the ability of the mayors to do that. Will it be an absolute right, or will onerous, complex and perhaps unknown regulation be imposed? I hope that the Minister will clarify that issue, because it relates to a fundamental part of the Bill.

Secondly, the Bill proposes that transport authorities in areas that are not run by combined authorities with directly elected mayors may have powers to introduce franchising in certain circumstances. The amendments make that proposal extremely complex. It would be impossible to assess whether the transport authorities would be able to proceed with franchising if they wished to do so. The Transport Committee looked at good practice, and concluded that transport authorities should consider existing ways of operating in partnership with operators before moving to a franchising system, but we did not think that that should be part of the regulations. This proposal introduces new hurdles, but it is not fully specified what those hurdles are, or—this is equally important—how they would be assessed before the authority could adopt the franchising system. That, I believe, strikes at the heart of the Bill.

The Bill is intended to improve transport services in localities and devolve to local transport authorities the ability to act on the needs of their areas, but the hurdles introduced by the amendments might enable future Ministers to impede its objectives, and I am sure that present-day Ministers would not wish that to happen. I am extremely concerned about the amendments. I hope that the Minister will tell us more about what they mean, and will make clear whether the Government intend franchising to go ahead, as they have stated, without introducing complex hurdles which would make the proposed system extremely difficult to achieve.

[Graham Stringer]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), who chairs the Transport Committee. As she said earlier, the Committee has considered this issue on a number of occasions, and—my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) mentioned this—we have never been able to find a reason why London should have one system and the rest of the country should have another. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) grins at that, and I do not blame him, because the regulated system in London is superior to the system in the rest of the country.

I listened to the responses of the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) about his not wanting to wreck the Bill, and I take that at face value. However, I do not think the amendments reflect the reality of the nature of bus services, certainly in urban areas. I am not an expert on bus services in Norfolk and suspect the hon. Gentleman knows more than I do about Norfolk, but if he is concerned about small bus companies, he should support this Bill as it is or seek to improve it, because what has happened in the west midlands, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, Greater Manchester and the great urban areas of this country is precisely the opposite of what he wants: small companies have been driven off the road by large companies.

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[Sir Henry Bellingham]

I just wish to say that I am grateful to the Minister for his response to my amendments in the previous group. I was not quick enough on my feet to catch your eye at the time, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I have been in this place long enough to know that one should quit when in front. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that my amendment 25 is going to be incorporated in the guidance and for the useful reassurances he has given me on amendments 15, 26, 27 and 28. I was disappointed on the issue of compensation, but, as he pointed out, there can indeed be scope for the authorities to compensate if need be. On that basis, I will not seek to press those amendments to a vote, although I say so a touch belatedly.

[Mrs Ellman]

I rise to support amendment 1, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). This is all about devolution and local transport authorities deciding what is best for their areas. No good reason has been put forward for not permitting new municipal operators as an option. The Government have expressed concern about possible conflicts of interest, but that cannot be taken seriously. We need look no further than the experience in Nottingham, as cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), and in Reading to see that there is the perfect ability—this has already been done in those areas—for the proper distance to be established between the local authority as a local authority and the transport operator as an operator in terms of letting out franchises. The Bill is about giving more local choice, and it is entirely unjustifiable to remove from local authorities the option of having a municipal operator. The Department has found a way to put forward complex regulations on franchising and if it still has concerns about this topic, regulations could also be introduced on setting up municipal bus operations. I therefore urge the Government to think again.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I support amendment 1, and we had a long discussion on this issue in Committee. I spoke then and on Second Reading about the success of Nottingham’s municipal operator, and so, much as I love Nottingham City Transport, I will restrain myself and not repeat myself.

I continue to question the Government’s motivation for their determination to ban local transport authorities from establishing new municipal bus companies, as Ministers have simply not made the case for such a ban. The Transport Committee, chaired so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), describes it as a “disproportionate response”. Clearly, this measure is anti-localism and it prevents councils from acting in the best interests of their residents. In Committee, the Minister said that there should be a split between the commissioning and the provision of bus services. I do not disagree on that, but this ban goes far beyond that. As was noted in Committee, local authorities with municipal operators have proved themselves very capable of managing just such a split when tendering for supported services.

In Committee, the Minister also suggested that the existence of municipal bus operators

“could easily deter investment from the private sector”.

When I asked him what evidence he was drawing on in making such an assertion, he admitted

“of course we do not have any evidence for it. I am just looking at what the risks may be.”––[Official Report, Bus Services Public Bill Committee, 14 March 2017; c. 67.]

The Minister’s risk aversion is simply unnecessary and can be shown to be such. Nottingham has an excellent municipal operator, but it does not deter private sector investment; as the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) mentioned, we have excellent private sector operators in Nottinghamshire, such as trentbarton. I hope that even at this late stage the Government will rethink their commitment to what I can only describe as an ideological obsession, and take this opportunity to end their unreasonable position and accept amendment 1.

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[Mrs Ellman]

The Bill is an important step in achieving a modern, thriving bus sector, and I welcome it. In doing so, I pay tribute to the Minister and his colleagues and to the shadow team for the work they have done. I also commend all the members of the Transport Committee for the work they did in scrutinising the Bill. Although some of the points we made have not been acted on, some have been considered, and this is now a better Bill.

I first spoke on bus deregulation a very long time ago. When it was introduced through the legislation in 1985, I was the leader of Lancashire County Council. I opposed the legislation very strongly because I was concerned it would result in a reduction in bus patronage outside London, and the intervening years have indeed shown that it did. The Bill does not repeal that legislation, but it does make substantial changes to it, which I very much welcome.

A thriving, comprehensive bus network across England is not an optional extra but an absolute necessity. The basic principle of the Bill—that there should be more devolution, and that local transport authorities should decide what is best for their areas—is the right one, and I welcome it very much. Although I am disappointed that the Government have not gone as far as I would have wished in some areas, I welcome the Bill as we have it now.

I welcome the provisions on the accessibility of buses, and particularly those on access and information for people who are impaired. If information about bus services and the operation of individual buses is made more accessible to people who have a disability, everybody else benefits as well, so it improves the bus sector as a whole.

I thank everyone who has been involved in the Bill. It makes major strides in producing better bus services for the people of this country—those who currently use our buses and those I hope will do so in future—and I am pleased to support its Third Reading.