Community Transport

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of community transport.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall. I am delighted to have been successful in securing my first Westminster Hall debate on such an important issue. Community transport lies at the heart of our community and is greatly valued by many of our constituents. It occupies a unique central ground between the passenger transport industry and the voluntary sector, providing innovative solutions to the otherwise unmet transport needs of local residents.

When we think of community transport, our thoughts immediately turn to the elderly and disabled as the two main user groups, and in large part that is true. Services such as community bus services, hospital transport and dial-a-ride help the elderly and the disabled to lead independent lives and participate fully in their communities on a daily basis. However, community transport services extend further to support other user groups such as schools, working people and scout and guide groups with schemes such as wheels to work and minibus hire. Community transport fills the gap when conventional transport services cannot fully meet the needs of the public.

I am pleased to say that last year, Erewash Community Transport in my constituency celebrated 30 years of service to local residents. Sadly, last month we learned that Derbyshire County Council is to cut Erewash Community Transport’s funding from next April, which will see the group lose nearly £150,000 and will spell the end of both the dial-a-bus service, which transports people to shops and supermarkets, and the active travel service, which takes people to medical appointments.

Erewash Community Transport, together with other Derbyshire community transport groups, organised a petition to request that the county council review that decision. However, the council simply refused to listen and instead reverted to its default position of blaming the Government. The truth is that at a time when the Government have committed to invest £25 million in new community transport minibuses, Derbyshire County Council continues to waste vast sums of taxpayers’ money while cutting vital public services.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the council has spent more than £150,000 with a London-based public relations company run by a former assistant general secretary of the Labour party, and it paid £219,000 to get rid of its former chief executive. The new post of assistant chief executive costs £83,000, each cabinet member has received an allowance rise of £3,000, and 107 council employees are accredited to take time off for trade union duties at the local taxpayers’ expense. The list goes on.

This is a council that mismanages its finances for political gain while the elderly, vulnerable and disabled of Erewash are left to suffer, yet its accounts clearly state that it has more than £55 million stashed away in general reserves. The Government back anyone who wants to save, but, when it comes to the loss of services such as community transport, surely it is far more prudent either to use some of those reserves or, better still, cut some of the waste, so that Derbyshire’s community transport schemes can be supported at least until other funding streams can be secured.

We should consider two other key factors when discussing the loss of community transport services: the cost to the local economy and the impact on service users’ physical and mental health. Schemes such as dial-a-bus are used frequently by our elderly and vulnerable people to access local town centres, supermarkets or even pubs, helping them to retain their independence. In turn, they contribute to the local economy and provide a welcome boost to many of our high street shops. If the service were to stop suddenly, that income would be greatly missed by our small retailers, many of whom rely on regular, loyal customers to survive.

When it comes to health, community transport helps local health and wellbeing boards to deliver their obligations under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which cannot and should not be ignored. We have not even considered the benefits to the many community transport volunteers, who are often the newly retired, such as helping them to keep fit and active with a purpose in life.

I understand the need for organisations such as Erewash Community Transport to diversify their funding streams, but the pace and scale of Derbyshire County Council’s changes concern me. With effectively just a four month notice period for a dramatic cut in funding, Erewash Community Transport does not have the time or capacity to look for alternative funding streams, which are out there for it to find if Derbyshire County Council would give it a longer stay of execution.

Recently, as a member of the Select Committee on Health, I visited Halifax as part of our primary care inquiry. I was able to learn about the diverse funding streams that Community Transport Calderdale has managed to develop. That organisation lost its local authority funding a number of years ago, yet it is now thriving. It works closely with Calderdale clinical commissioning group to help deliver its vanguard project, as well as with other third sector organisations such as Age UK. It gets funding from the CCG to provide transport for emergency visits to hospital for respiratory patients, which prevents the need for in-patient stays.

Community Transport Calderdale also provides “home from hospital”, a free-of-charge service that helps elderly and vulnerable residents in Calderdale and greater Huddersfield with transport home after a stay in hospital. The service provides a safe, supported, wheelchair-accessible journey home from hospitals in the region. Patients can also be met at home by Age UK, which offers immediate help and arranges further support for those who need it. I am sure that Community Transport Calderdale will be viable for many years to come.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. Her example demonstrates that community transport is not just for rural areas, but for urban and suburban areas. Does she agree that examples from across the country, such as Norwich Door to Door and its hard-working volunteers, should be included in the debate because they serve many different types of communities?

[Maggie Throup]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Community transport services are valuable throughout the country, whether in rural, urban or suburban areas. It is a shame to see them being put under such pressure and cut, taking away vital services. She gives a good example from her community.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that part of the reason for the changes, and the pace of those changes, is that her Government have imposed budgets on Derbyshire Country Council that take something like £60 million from its budget, while she has identified only tens of thousands of pounds of potential savings in areas such as the chief executive’s salary?

[Maggie Throup]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but it is not just tens of thousands of pounds from getting rid of or changing the chief executive—

[Neil Coyle]

Sixty million pounds.

[Maggie Throup]

But we are talking about £150,000 for Erewash Community Transport, so the council would not need to manage its finances much better to pay for that service. I therefore disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It is quite well within Derbyshire County Council’s ability to fund the service for longer.

I conclude with a short story provided by the Community Transport Association, which does fantastic work in supporting local community groups and lobbying Government effectively on their behalf. It illustrates perfectly the impact the services in question have on people’s lives and why we should do everything we can to support them. Jenny from Green Community Travel, which operates in South Gloucestershire, says:

“We had a passenger who did not have any family living locally to him, when his spouse was admitted to hospital it was very difficult for him to visit her. I know we all think about getting older but I can’t imagine how difficult it must be after spending every day with someone for over 50 years then having to find ways to see them or not be sure if you can see your spouse on that day!”

That was at Christmas, and the gentleman was anxious about not seeing his wife on Christmas day—it would have been the first Christmas they had spent apart in 50 years.

Jenny mentioned the situation to a volunteer called Stuart, who said he did not mind taking the gentleman to see his wife on Christmas day. On Christmas morning, he took the gentleman to visit his wife for a couple of hours. Community transport therefore plays an important role in not just medical appointments but all such hospital visits—it is about going above and beyond. Jenny went on to say that the generosity of people in this line of work never ceases to amaze her. Hats off to Stuart for going the extra mile and for making that couple’s Christmas a happier one than it might have been.

Up and down the country, such stories are typical in the community transport movement. There are many Stuarts going above and beyond to make a difference to those who might otherwise be isolated from society, and I am sure other Members present will have their own stories.

In Erewash, I have had many pleas from residents to do whatever I can to save their community transport—their lifeline. Connie Clark is no exception, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than being able to tell her that her community bus has been saved and to see the huge beaming smile on her face. I am sure it would be the best Christmas present ever for her. I therefore thank the Government for their continued support for community transport, and I commend the motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Maggie Throup]

Thank you very much for your chairmanship today, Mr Nuttall. I think the debate was about to get a bit raucous at one stage, but you brought us back under control. I thank the Minister for his response, for his and the Government’s commitment to community transport, and for acknowledging that it plays such an important part in all our constituencies.

I thank all hon. Members who have made valuable contributions to the debate. I feel like I have had quite a good bus tour around the country. We have been to the very north of Scotland to Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, and to the west of Scotland to Ross, Skye and Lochaber. We have been over the waters to Strangford and down to Bermondsey in London. During the journey, we have been through the rest of country from the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) to that of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), whose experiences we heard about. We have taken in Banbury, Derby North and Amber Valley. It has been an interesting tour around the country.

Although Members may disagree on some points, particularly about funding cuts, we have all come to the consensus—whether we represent a rural, urban or suburban constituency—that community transport plays an immensely important role in supporting the elderly, vulnerable and disabled.

My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) quoted the mission statement for his constituency’s community transport service, and indicated very well that it is not only the elderly and disabled who benefit from community transport services but a wide variety of service users across the board. As my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak did, I encourage other Members to spend a day with their local community transport service, experiencing at first hand what it does and the pleasure it brings to so many people.

We have heard about several community transport organisations that have already diversified their funding, and about the added value that community transport brings to our communities. It is important that community transport organisations, including those in Erewash and others across Derbyshire, look for alternative funding streams. However, I ask the Minister, as well as taking on board the issues raised by other Members, to do whatever he can to ask Derbyshire County Council to give community transport across Derbyshire a stay of execution until alternative funding streams can be found. I am sure that once that has happened, our community transport services will benefit from having control of their own funds and the freedom to develop services in the way they really want, so that they can benefit an even wider range of local user groups.

I would like to finish by acknowledging that Erewash has good bus routes. In fact, constituents in some areas think that we actually have too many buses—an oversupply. There is not a lack of buses, it is just about how those bus routes are delivered. I disagree with the shadow Minister, because it is his colleagues at Derbyshire County Council who are playing politics with people’s lives. They are always blaming the Government for their poor decision making. Erewash Borough Council is under the same pressures, but it is thriving.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the provision of community transport.