Bus Drivers’ Working Hours

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham, and to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. Today’s debate about bus safety is happening in response to the most terrible tragedy, when, as we have heard, Rowan died in a horrific accident at just seven years old. Dora Hancox also died, and many others were injured. I want to pass on my condolences to Rowan’s family: to his mother, Natasha; his grandmother, Barbara; and their relatives. They have been through the most unimaginable suffering and the loss of a much-loved young son.

No family should have to endure what these families have been through. It is essential that we now listen to the families and understand what they have suffered to help ensure that a tragedy like this never, ever happens again. That requires determined action and investment by the Government, working with the bus industry, trade unions and passengers to look again at the problem of excessive working hours.

Before I discuss how safety can be improved, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) for his campaigning work on behalf of Dora and Rowan’s families and for securing this debate as part of the campaign to improve bus safety. I thank other hon. Members for speaking today, and I look forward to the Minister addressing the points I will raise.

Labour believes that safety should always come first, and we want to see a culture of improved safety across our entire transport system. That clearly means setting higher safety standards and investing more in road safety, in the safety of our bus services and in other modes of transport.

I want to address the importance of setting higher standards of safety first, before discussing the wider issue of investment. It is clear that there is a considerable difference between the regulation of coach drivers’ hours and the more limited regulation of local bus drivers’ hours. The regulations regarding bus drivers’ hours need to be reviewed in light of the tragedy, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington. I call on the Government to work with operators, unions and passengers, and to support his Bill.

There needs to be a thorough review, considering the issue from first principles, rather than merely tinkering with the problem. As part of that, it is important to consider the wide range of factors that could affect drivers and lead to a loss of concentration, including fatigue, their underlying health, their age, driver training and the use of any safety devices in cabs. It is important that those issues are considered thoroughly in response to this tragedy.

Turning to the wider issue of the need for investment in the bus industry to improve safety, there has been a 45% cut in Government funding for buses since 2010 and a fall in bus usage across the country. I am concerned that the decline in services and the pressure on drivers and operators contributed to the terrible accident in which Rowan tragically lost his life. Investment will save lives by reducing accidents in the short term and by cutting long-term damage from things such as air pollution, which can threaten health.

As a party, we see improvements to safety as integral to the wider package of investment. That is a proven approach, and there is a long history of investment in transport infrastructure, better pay, better training and improved regulation of services all leading to improvements in safety. As part of that, Labour would reinstate the services cut by the present Government. We would also allow all councils to regulate services and, indeed, to set up new municipal bus companies, which have a record of providing much better quality services than those run by private companies. Those measures for buses would be part of a much wider range of investments to improve our whole transport system.

Our party’s programme is in stark contrast to the current state of bus services, where there is declining bus use, endemic low pay among drivers and a shortage of drivers. If the Government want to improve safety, they need to reconsider their approach and acknowledge the deep and serious effects of the cuts that have led to this accident and other problems in the service.

I am conscious of time, and I will sum up my remarks by making the following points. Rowan and Dora’s families have suffered the most terrible tragedy, and I hope we can all agree that no family should have to suffer as they have. Urgent action is now quite clearly needed. A Government review of drivers’ hours, supporting my hon. Friend’s Bill and working with operators, unions and passengers are important ways of addressing the problem. There needs to be investment, not cuts, in bus services. All those measures together are vital for improvements in safety.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Jones]

That is at the heart of what is happening. The system has not worked here, and the points about how we take that forward and improve the enforcement and vigour of the regulation are central to where we need to go. That is a point that I will be taking from this debate and taking to my hon. Friend the bus Minister in our meetings next week, when she is back from overseas.

It might be helpful if I updated the House on some of the data involving buses. We all need to see a continuation of the long-term trend of improving road safety in the UK. Colleagues in the House have made a significant contribution to that over a sustained period, and we all owe them a duty of thanks. It has led to the UK—along with, I think, Sweden—having the safest roads in the world. There are still significant areas where we need to make more progress, but we should look at that sustained cross-party initiative with some pride, although we recognise that there is no room for any complacency anywhere at all.

On that point, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse asked about the new Minister with responsibility for road safety. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport, is not here and I should be a little cautious about putting things in his diary, but I am absolutely confident that he will wish to engage strongly with the all-party group. I will also pass on to him the comments made about the updated road safety statement.

Fatal road accidents involving buses have been falling over time. The number of buses involved in fatal road accidents, per billion vehicle miles, has fallen by 36% in the last 10 years, so there is a positive downward trend and we want it to continue. It needs to be kept in mind that the GB domestic drivers’ hours rules set maximum limits, to give some flexibility to the bus industry, and do not reflect drivers’ normal working patterns. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, on average, in 2017 bus drivers worked 42 hours a week, which is within the 48 hours average limit allowed in the general working time rules. The bus Minister has promised to look into the robustness of these figures, and it is of course some of the outlying figures, rather than the average, that we need to focus on here. The average is perhaps not showing the entire picture, which is why that further work needs to be done.

[Matt Rodda]

I thank the Minister for his detailed exploration of the figures. Perhaps he would agree to ask his ministerial colleague to write to me and to my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, detailing, as he said, some of the outlying figures and giving a much fuller picture of the statistics on this aspect of bus safety, and perhaps also indicating the level of resources for the traffic commissioners’ office at present.

[Andrew Jones]

I will certainly pass that request on. I know that my hon. Friend is already planning to write to the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, but I will pass that request on very happily.

Following its inquiry, the Select Committee on Transport published its report entitled “Bus services in England outside London” on 22 May. One recommendation in the report is that the Government consult on whether legislation governing GB drivers’ hours is still fit for purpose or should be amended. The Government are currently considering the recommendations in the report and will of course publish a response in due course.

The Department for Transport did conduct an extensive review of the effectiveness of the GB domestic drivers’ hours rules in 2009-10. That looked at whether these vehicles should fall under any of the provisions in the EU drivers’ hours rules. At that time, the Government decided not to make any changes, concluding that the existing rules are both important and appropriate in ensuring the safety of drivers and others on the road and that any further restrictions could risk placing further burdens on the sector, but it is clearly appropriate to keep monitoring this. As new data becomes available, it should obviously inform our decision making.

I understand from the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK, the main trade association representing the bus industry, that the accident that we have been discussing and the resulting court case have already had an impact on the sector. The public inquiry illustrated that a complex chain of organisational and management factors or unsafe acts contributed to this terrible incident.

As the hon. Member for Reading East highlighted, buses are a vital industry. It is important that we support the bus industry to thrive, while ensuring that safety is at its heart. I absolutely agree with that. It is why we have the Bus Services Act 2017. We of course need to have a transport sector that has safety at its heart.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the decline in passenger numbers since 2010. I should perhaps point out that we have actually had a decline in passenger numbers for several decades. It did not start in 2010—frankly, it probably started long before I was born.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about investment in the sector. We have obviously seen pressures on local government finance in particular, but the national support for buses, through the bus service operators grant, has been protected at a quarter of a billion pounds, and that has been in place for many years.

The Bus Services Act is all about giving greater powers to local authorities. At the heart of those is partnership, but there could be franchising as well. We want to see a thriving bus industry, with safety at its heart and passengers at its heart, providing for the sustainable, secure movement of people around our country. That new set of powers, which are still being worked through by local authorities up and down the country, is at the heart of how we are seeking to take that forward.

In addition to the Bus Services Act, the industry is currently considering a bus safety strategy. As a Department, we welcome the bus safety strategy. Industry groups such as the Urban Transport Group have been considering what a strategy might include and delivering research into other sectors, such as rail and aviation, that have effective near-miss reporting systems in order to understand how near misses are reported and acted on. If there are lessons to be learned from other sectors, we should seek to learn them. The aviation sector has a very good track record, and interestingly that has been used as a template for how we can do reporting and for changing the culture in areas of public life such as our health service.

The public inquiry illustrated that in this case there were multiple reports of unsafe acts or near misses, and the failure to act contributed to this terrible incident. Department for Transport officials are working with the Urban Transport Group as it develops the strategy, and I know that the lessons learned from this incident will be fed into the development of the strategy. It is important to know that. I hope that it will be of some comfort to the families of Rowan and Dora that the lessons from this incident are being fed into the development of safety strategies.

Both the industry and the Government are determined to minimise the chances of this crash ever being repeated. There is strong consensus across the industry that there is no substitute for a closely managed culture in which safety is paramount. As a Government, we take this issue very seriously and will continue to press the bus industry at every opportunity to continue to improve its policies and procedures and ensure that it complies with all its legal duties, so that no driver gets behind the wheel of a bus who is not safe to drive that bus.

As I have said, I will be meeting the bus Minister next week so that she knows the content of our debate. I will ensure that all the points made by colleagues here are taken forward and she is fully sighted on them, and that we maintain the progress that is being made on road safety in general and bus safety in particular.

I would like to finish by paying tribute once more to Rowan’s family for their bravery and dignity in handling what must be so difficult an issue and seeking to draw something so positive from it.