Bus Services: England

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for securing this incredibly important debate.

From 2022 to 2023, the number of bus miles travelled in County Durham dropped by 18% from 14.5 million to 11.8 million, and the number of miles supported by the local authority dropped by 25% from 2.6 million to just under 2 million. Durham also saw a decline in journeys per head of population from 33.8 to 32.6. What is happening is just a complete decline. The county is among the worst for buses running on time, with just 77% running on time in March ’23.

But those are just statistics; the real thing for all our constituents is the detail that sits underneath them. I have a list of bus changes, the first of which is to the No. 7, which has increased its frequency from half-hourly to hourly. Brilliant—now I will read out the rest, which go the other way. The No. 8A has been reduced, with the removal of Sunday services, and the No. 12 has been withdrawn completely. The No. 22 and No. 22B have been reduced, down from half-hourly. The hourly X21 service from Darlington to Peterlee has been scrapped, while the X22 is going to change. There is just this inconsistency. The Scarlet Band 112 has been lost completely, as has the 113 connecting Fishburn, Sedgefield, Ferryhill and Bishop Middleham. The Arriva 57, which connected Durham and Trimdon to Hartlepool, has been replaced with another, alternative service. This jumping just confuses people.

We also have the X12, which goes past Fishburn. Our residents told the Minister on a recent visit that the direction of the route needed to be changed, with just a slight deviation. On this occasion I give credit to Arriva, which has a consultation out on doing exactly that—although that is just about the only favourable thing I can say about Arriva at the moment. Arriva has also removed the X21, which has generated more constituent casework than any other service. It is the connection that would get my people from the mining villages, such as all the Trimdons—there are several of them—Fishburn and Sedgefield. These are deprived communities, with very low car ownership. What has Arriva done? It has removed the umbilical cord that gets them to Newton Aycliffe. Newton Aycliffe has an industrial estate with 10,000 jobs on it. There is everything there, from major organisations like your Hitachis, your Gestamps and your Husqvarnas, down to the myriad small and medium-sized enterprises.

This is a lifeline for those communities, but the Trimdons and Fishburn are places with low population density and low job opportunities, and now they face this commute. To compound it all, they are also places with incredibly low car ownership. In a survey of the Trimdons, which over 400 residents participated in, most complained that the lack of bus services severely restricted their lifestyle. Some 40% of residents have had to turn down employment or education opportunities because the transport connections did not exist to get them there. Stories have been posted in the local Facebook group about young people giving up jobs or turning them down due to these transport challenges. The jobcentre has said that transport challenges are the greatest difficulty in placing people into work. I am really pleased that the recent grant for Durham can be used for infrastructure, such as new buses, bus stations and road improvements, but it cannot be used as revenue support for unprofitable routes. I think we really need to look at kick-starting these situations, even if through something short term, just to pump-prime those routes.

I want to repeat something that I said recently, in a debate on miners and mining communities, about low connectivity. For me, social mobility can only come with physical mobility. If people cannot get to the jobs, it is very difficult for them to improve themselves, no matter where they are. We have so many wonderful employment opportunities in Newton Aycliffe and NETPark, but the bus services connecting them to the mining villages are just appalling. The single most crucial factor in enabling those mining communities to thrive will be better transport, because they have incredibly low levels of car ownership, as I have said, and they are far too isolated to walk or cycle from. The efforts to improve connectivity are more critical than just about anything else going on in my part of the world. It is not only the people trying to get to jobs; right here, right now, people are trying to get to the DWP to sign on. They cannot even get there to get to their appointments to get the development, to get them to—I think you know where I am going, Ms Vaz.

There have been some attempts at improvement. Durham has something it calls Link2work, which is a dial-a-ride situation. But it is so specific: it potentially gets people to a 7 o’clock shift, and that is it. I am currently working with it and we are hopeful of getting another proposal that will expand Link2work so that people can get to a nine-to-five job as opposed to a shift pattern job, or, with a bit of luck, go shopping or to education facilities. I am hopeful; we are seeing some movement in that direction.

I will digress a bit and endorse what was said by my hon. Friend from the other Stoke—I cannot remember which one—

[Jack Brereton]

South.

[Paul Howell]

I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) said about the importance of rail links. A restoring your railway project has been approved for Ferryhill station and is ongoing. It will deliver economic growth to the station and stimulate economic activity—all the things that make villages feel like we care and that people want to invest in them—but we need to connect the buses to the stations as well. It will be a long walk to the train if we do not deliver that.

I thank the Minister for his recent visit to my constituency to talk to residents in Fishburn. I also thank him for understanding the need for what we do and for encouraging our local providers and councils to deliver more—anything further that he can do to encourage their efforts will be appreciated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the second half of my speech, because I will come on to that. Before I do, the criticisms by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North are a tacit admission that we need bold reform. On the question of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), only Labour will be able to deliver that.

Despite the pleading of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, deregulation has not compelled First Bus to pull its finger out. Instead, it has robbed communities of a say over the vital bus services on which they depend. Micromanagement from Whitehall makes it ridiculously complicated for local authorities to access the kind of funding streams that he and Conservative Members were alluding to. It simply has not achieved results.

The current system has led to thousands of vital bus services across the country being axed. Bus services are a shadow of what they once were because unaccountable operators remain able to decide for themselves where services go and how they run. The Government preside over shockingly bad bus services. We have a Prime Minister who prefers to travel by helicopter and private jet, and who has no experience of the buses and trains that the rest of us use, so is it any wonder that public transport is in such a mess?

Turning to Labour’s plans for Government, we know that a reliable, affordable and regular bus service is the difference between opportunity and isolation for millions of people. Labour will give every community the power to take back control of their bus services and will support local leaders to deliver better buses and to do so faster. Labour’s plans will create and save vital routes and services, will end today’s postcode lottery of bus services, and will kick-start a revival of bus services across England.

[Paul Howell]

Will the hon. Member give more information about precisely how he will achieve those objectives?

[Bill Esterson]

I am enjoying these interventions because they are prompting the next stage of my speech, which explains exactly what Labour’s plans are for Government. In our first term, should we be fortunate enough to serve—I take nothing for granted; I am not complacent about it—Labour would pass new legislation to support local transport authorities to take back control of their bus services. We would do that through a better buses Act, which would remove the costly, time-consuming barriers that restrict the ability of local transport authorities to control their bus services properly.

Labour would also reform funding structures to give local leaders more flexibility over bus funding and to allow them to finally plan for the long term—no more short-term cliff edges. Such approaches would address the difficulties that Conservative Members identified in their speeches.

[Paul Howell]

I am interested to see how that plays out in terms of consistency. We have a new North East Mayor in my part of the world who has just said that she is going to look at franchising, but when I sat in the Transport Committee last week, the union leaders in front of us were absolutely against franchising. I wonder whether there is any consistency in Labour’s approach.

[Bill Esterson]

The short answer is that there is, because we recognise the need for flexibility and different options—[Interruption.] Hon. Members are reacting to what I say. Although we see the local franchising process as the presumed option, it is not the only option that will be available under a Labour Government.