Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Lightwood Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On Monday, the Government pledged to deliver 25 million more bus miles, but what they failed to tell the public was that this was just a drop in the ocean, compared with the 175 million bus miles that they have slashed over the past five years. In fact, never before on record have bus routes fallen by as much as they have over the past year, and this from the same party that promised buses so frequent that we would not need a timetable. Does this not show that, while the Tories and their broken bus system remain in place, communities will continue to see this record-breaking decline in the bus services on which they depend?

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Member does not seem to recognise the facts of the situation. There have been huge amounts of extra cash going in, whether that is through the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement that we are seeing right across the country—in some cases, that funding is being tripled for some local authorities—or the bus service improvement plan. On the statistics that those on the Labour Front Bench trot out, the one they seem to forget is that, in Wales, bus services have declined by more than twice as much in terms of mileage than the rest of the country, and it does not have the “Get Around for £2” fare scheme or any of the other support that the Government in England are putting into services, because it is making the wrong decisions.