Bus Service Improvement Plans: North-west England

Debate between Mike Amesbury and Charlotte Nichols

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for bus service improvement plans in the North West.

Thank you for chairing the debate, Ms Nokes.

In Warrington, we are proud of our municipal bus company. It provides connections between our homes and communities, between jobs and opportunities, between healthcare facilities and between our friends and families. For those without cars, like me and thousands of my constituents, buses are essential, and good, reliable bus services are a huge part of the wider picture of reducing carbon emissions and dependence on foreign oil.

Because millions of people across this country rely on buses—they cannot just hop into a car if services are slashed—and they cannot find extra cash if fares rise, bus cuts mean being cut off. Deregulation and a decade of Tory decline have meant that more than 3,000 bus routes and more than 350,000 passenger journeys have been lost. The majority of short trips, under 5 km, are made by car. As a result, our region has a significant air pollution issue. In the Liverpool city region alone, more than 1,000 deaths a year are linked to that silent killer. On public transport, 80% of journeys are taken by bus, yet bus fares have risen by 40% and routes have been mercilessly cut nationally. The millions of people who use buses and the communities who depend on them have been ignored for far too long.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for opening such a vital debate. One route in my patch that has been or is about to be decommissioned is the No. 62 from Runcorn to her patch, Warrington. That just shows that reregulation is vital. I hope that the judicial review today comes out on the side of those who want to give regulation teeth.

[Charlotte Nichols]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. As he says, services being cut means communities being cut off from one another. The millions of people who use buses and the communities who depend on them have been ignored for far too long. They have been an afterthought in decisions made far away in Westminster by politicians who have no understanding of them. The shockingly bad services left behind have made public transport increasingly unviable. In Warrington over the last decade, almost 50% of services have been cut. That is absolutely appalling. It means that people in our community—in particular, elderly residents who do not drive—are completely cut off from other parts of the town.

Just a year ago, the Prime Minister and the Transport Secretary launched the “Bus Back Better” strategy and they pledged to provide a great bus service for everyone everywhere. They promised that it would be one of the great acts of levelling up. This was the ambition: £3 billion of transformation funding was supposed to level up buses across England towards London standards, with main road services in towns and cities to run so often that people would not even need a timetable, and better services in the evenings and at weekends; and to provide simple, cheap flat fares that people could pay with a contactless card, and daily and weekly price capping across operators and rail and trams, too.

In Warrington, our Labour-run council has shown real ambition with a plan to increase bus use by between 5% and 15% through excellent council working with partners to make buses more frequent, faster, reliable, cheaper, easier to use and better integrated. This is a local community backing buses.