Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Simon Lightwood
West Yorkshire combined authority has been allocated £200 million of Government funding for 2022 to 2027 to develop a new mass transit system, including £160 million from the city region sustainable transport settlement, and £40 million from the integrated rail plan. I commend the hard work and tenacity of Tracy Brabin as the Mayor of West Yorkshire, who is determined to create a better connected region that works for everyone.
Mr Speaker
Could Members stand every time so that I know they want to ask a question? I call Tom Gordon.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
Sorry, Mr Speaker. West Yorkshire borders my patch. Will the Minister ensure that a mass transit system in Leeds connects with places such as Harrogate just across the border, so that there is a combined approach for the entire region?
Simon Lightwood
I will bear the hon. Member’s contribution in mind and share it with colleagues in the West Yorkshire combined authority.
Mr Speaker
Let us continue the Yorkshire love-in with shadow Minister Sir Alex Shelbrooke.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
Let me say to my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), that my constituency does not have a train station either. Joining up towns and cities in the north of England is a way to untap this country’s great economic potential. As the first ever shadow Minister for northern transport, and a Yorkshire MP, I am incredibly excited about the mass transit system in Leeds that I have campaigned on for years. Along with the rest of Network North, it will be a transformative endeavour but, unfortunately, Labour has a history of not delivering mass transit projects in Leeds. In fact, it seems the only deliveries it is interested in are boxes of clothes from Lord Alli. What message does that send to the people and businesses of Leeds, whose lives it will improve? Can the Minister put them all out of their misery and confirm that the project is going ahead?
Simon Lightwood
The Government are reviewing a number of infrastructure projects in the light of the terrible financial situation that we find ourselves in, following the terrible damage inflicted on this country by the Opposition.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
In London, connectivity is provided by Transport for London, but in my constituency of Wimbledon, despite its wonderful tube, tram, train and bus connections, my constituents suffer from repeated track and signal failures on the District line, while South Western Railway is labouring with ageing rolling stock and decreased frequency of service at stations such as Malden Manor and Worcester Park. What are the Government planning to do to address the capital funding crisis that they inherited from the Tories across London’s transport system, and will the Minister meet me to discuss the problems affecting the District line and South Western trains?
Bus Franchising
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Simon Lightwood)
With Permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement. Today marks the first stop on this Government’s journey to deliver better buses. Day in, day out, buses shoulder the needs of millions of working people across the country, whether they are getting to work or school, or seeing the doctor or friends. A reliable bus service is the difference between aspiration and isolation, between getting on and being forced to give up—a lifeline, plain and simple. But over the past four decades of deregulation, that lifeline has been on life support. Communities have suffered cuts to thousands of services, with 1.5 billion fewer journeys taking place in 2019 than in 1985, when deregulation began. Since 2010, a staggering 300 million fewer miles have been driven by buses per year. That is the legacy the previous Government left behind: a shocking decline in this country’s bus services, which has done untold harm to communities across the country.
Behind those stats lie human stories—of the poorest groups, who catch 10 times as many buses as trains, regularly let down; of people denied access to work or education, because they cannot depend on the journey there; or women and girls denied access to a safe journey home. They represent a steady cycle of decline that reverberates beyond buses to our economy as a whole, and of public services not working for working people.
Enough is enough. This mission-focused Government were elected to repair what is broken, and to reform what does not work. We are clear about the fact that better buses are essential to a better Britain, and that buses are a route not just to connection but to economic growth, cleaner air, and a fairer chance in life for everyone. That is why my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary has made fixing this country’s broken bus network one of her top priorities in her Department, and it is why, just two months into office, we are kick-starting a bus revolution that will put services back into the hands of local leaders, achieving in just 10 weeks what the last Government failed to achieve in more than 14 years.
The statutory instrument that we laid this morning opens up bus franchising for all local transport authorities in England. It gives local leaders more flexibility to adopt a model that works for their areas, and because we are streamlining the current two-step process, authorities will now only need to obtain the Transport Secretary’s consent before preparing a franchise scheme. This is a transformative change, one that will give every community the same powers that mayoral combined authorities across the country are currently using to deliver better services, along with the power to match them to local needs. We know that the franchising model works: we need only look at the Bee Network in Greater Manchester, where buses were brought under public control just one year ago and where reliability has already improved, passenger numbers have already grown and a new 24/7 service has just been introduced; or at Greater London, where public control has meant that more bus journeys are now taken in our capital than in the rest of England combined.
We are taking aim at the current postcode lottery of bus services to ensure that our most popular form of public transport starts running in the public interest. Local authorities know best how to deliver for their communities, which is why today we are empowering them to follow in the footsteps of Greater Manchester and London, to ensure that they have buses in the right place at the right time, truly serving local needs. Our plan will help to turn the tide after decades of decline. The statutory instrument will be backed by a public consultation, which my right hon. Friend the Transport Secretary also launched today. It seeks views on breaking down the barriers to franchising, and on how we can support safer and more accessible services. By delivering simpler guidance, it will support and speed up the franchising process, meaning that councils will spend less time and money filling in forms, and more time planning routes and prioritising the interests of the communities that they serve.
However, this is just the start of our journey. Today’s steps pave the way for a new bus Bill later in the current parliamentary session—a Bill intended to reform funding, to allow franchises to be rolled out to more places more quickly and cheaply, and to support councils that choose not to franchise but still want the flexibility to deliver on local transport priorities. The Bill will also allow us to remove the ideological ban on municipal bus companies that was imposed by the last Government despite the huge success of those companies, which can be seen across the country where they are still in place—for instance, the award-winning publicly owned services in Nottingham and Reading. This, rightly, is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and, crucially, it places no additional burden on taxpayers. It simply acknowledges a truth with which many in the House will agree: that the best decisions are not always made by Whitehall, but are made in town and city halls throughout the country by those who are accountable to local communities, and by those who, day in day out, use the very services that we are talking about.
It has been said before, and I will say it again: under this new Government, the Department for Transport is moving fast and fixing things. Today’s steps place better buses at the heart of this Government’s plan for change. Four decades after buses were deregulated, and after 14 years of decline, we are now empowering communities to take back control of the services on which they depend—to get Britain moving, to get our economy growing and to get more passengers, wherever they live, back on board. I commend this statement to the House.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his statement.
We on this side of the House are in full agreement that good local transport is something that everyone deserves access to, both for helping people to live their lives and for fulfilling the economic potential of all parts of the country. At the heart of our local transport services are buses. They are some of the most convenient, well-connected and accessible forms of public transport out there—crucially, not just in urban areas, but very often in under-connected rural areas. That is why, in government, we invested billions of pounds in the bus sector, including the vital support provided to maintain services during the pandemic. We rolled out thousands of new zero-emissions buses and introduced the “Get around for £2” scheme, saving millions of people money on their fares and helping to get passengers back on buses.
Those interventions worked. Bus passenger journeys in England increased by nearly a fifth in the year ending March 2023, and we welcome this Government’s desire to build on our progress in order to improve services further, to get more routes running at better frequency, and to make sure that as many people as possible have reliable services that get them where they need to go. I am genuinely interested in understanding how the Government feel that this set of measures will achieve that. We are worried about some of the significant risks, which the Government do not seem to have considered.
This legislation places greater responsibility in the hands of local authorities. We know that a number of local authorities face financial and organisational challenges, and although I do not doubt that there will be enthusiasm for making use of the new powers, running any form of public transport brings real challenges. Of course, as the Minister said in opposition, gaps in experience could be filled by support from the Department for Transport, but depending on the number of local authorities that choose to take up franchising, this could mean that significant central Government resources are required. Unless I have missed something, today’s announcement includes absolutely no funding to pay for increased capacity at the Department. What projections have the Government made of the costs, and how exactly do they expect them to be paid?
It is the same story with local government finances. Make no mistake about it: this is going to cost money. Many bus routes, especially rural services, are loss making, even before we account for the additional resources that local authorities will presumably need to operate them. In his statement, the Minister did not recognise the enormous challenges that have been created by changing travel patterns post covid. If this Government are committed to providing services at 1985 levels, as he seemed to imply, they will need to commit to enormous levels of subsidy.
I welcome the success stories in metropolitan areas that the Minister talked about, but such services operate in a fundamentally different space, because of the density of those areas’ populations. It means that if passenger numbers fall next year, the financial risk will be taken on not by a private company, but by the local council and, by definition, taxpayers. Again, given that there appears to be no funding attached to the policy, surely it can be funded only by increases to council tax or cuts to other local services.
It is the same story when it comes to responsibility for capital expenditure. Will this now be the responsibility of local authorities? How exactly are they expected to fund it? As we recently made clear when debating the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, it might be the Labour party’s priority to undertake ideological reforms to bring the transport sector further into the control of the state, but passengers’ priorities are the price, performance and reliability of services, not who is running them. We want to hear how the reforms will make a difference to passengers’ journeys and their accessibility, frequency and cost, and how they will help to restore the number of rural services and make journeys cheaper for passengers—and not just through the generic pledges we have heard today, but through concrete commitments on which the public can hold the Government to account. The Minister made absolutely no commitment to increase levels of services or miles travelled as part of the Government’s “revolution”.
There are some simple things that the Government could do for passengers, such as extending our “Get around for £2” scheme, which has been hugely positive for passengers and for the viability of services up and down the country. I am aware that the Chancellor is not Labour Members’ favourite person at the moment, but I encourage them to make the case for the cost-of-living benefits of the £2 scheme, as well as for the benefits of the winter fuel payment, in any hurriedly organised meetings today and tomorrow.
The Government have got the wrong priorities yet again. At the end of the day, passengers care about the preservation of existing services, the extension of routes, improvements in frequency and reliability, and cost. We on this side of the House are all ears when it comes to what difference this policy will make for them and—not to be forgotten—who is going to pay for it.
Simon Lightwood
I believe there should be a massive apology from the Opposition for the mess they have left this country in and for the mess they have left our bus services in. Following the previous Government, almost 300 million fewer miles are now driven a year compared with 2010. That is an appalling statistic. This Government will turn the tide for communities across the country by giving them the opportunity to control local bus services and to have a real say in developing the local transit systems that serve them. The Secretary of State said—I will say it again—that we will move fast and fix things. Here is the proof.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
We Liberal Democrats welcome today’s statement to give local authorities, not just metro Mayors, more powers and the potential to run their bus services. We Liberal Democrats have campaigned for exactly that for a very long time.
The previous Conservative Government completely decimated local transport systems, but the rot set in a long time ago. Almost a quarter of bus routes have been cut in the past 10 years outside London. Whoever wants to apologise for that, we need to see some change. Bus services should be the most affordable and accessible of all forms of public transport. Good, well-used bus services would significantly contribute to getting to net zero and to improving our air quality. The previous Government, again, completely failed to make a positive case for that.
Not only are public buses crucial in urban areas such as Bath, which suffers from more and more congestion, because people can continue to increase their use of motorised individual travel, and is also still struggling with cutting air pollution; bus services are also important specifically for rural areas. What we currently have is completely inadequate, so will the Minister set out how today’s announcement will improve rural bus services, not just in the long term, but in the short term?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
The UK has a proud bus manufacturing history, from London’s iconic original Routemasters to Alexander Dennis’ next generation of hydrogen double-deckers used today in the Liverpool city region. As operators and local authorities decarbonise their fleets, UK manufacturers are ready to power that green revolution, but our bus makers are at risk from cheap models imported from overseas. This week, a major UK operator is preparing to procure Chinese-built buses for tens of millions of pounds due to cost pressures and because this Government have not set out a full industrial strategy since 2017. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what he will do to back British bus manufacturers and secure their role in this green revolution?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(9 months ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
Good morning, Mr Speaker. Passenger watchdog Transport Focus published a report last week, which found huge regional variation in bus passenger satisfaction across the country, with large numbers of passengers “being let down”. Under the Tories’ deregulation of the bus sector, passenger satisfaction with some of our operators is miles below the average of 80%, with some as low as a dismal 66%. In places such as West Yorkshire, Labour Mayors are not standing for it any longer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) said, Tracy Brabin has announced her intention to pursue franchising to reverse decades of Tory decline. But the vast majority of local authorities do not have those powers, so will the Minister adopt Labour’s plan to give every local transport authority the same powers to take back control of their bus services?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
Recent statistics show that the Bee Network is already making a daily difference for bus passengers across Greater Manchester, with an 8% rise in patronage in the first month of franchising alone and more bus services running on time than before. Liverpool and West Yorkshire are now following in Greater Manchester’s footsteps and exploring their own franchising plans to revolutionise local transport for thousands of residents. Does the Minister agree with Labour’s plan to give every local authority, not just Metro Mayors, the same freedom to take back control of their own bus services? If not, what does he say to the millions of people whose bus routes are being so badly cut back under this tired Tory Government? Does it not prove that while the Conservatives dither, Labour delivers?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 1 month ago)
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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?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government’s commitment to deliver 4,000 zero-emission buses by the end of the Parliament lies in tatters and is in the realms of fantasy. No creative counting can hide the fact that there are still only six buses funded through the zero emission bus regional areas scheme on the roads. Will the Minister come clean with Parliament and passengers, and admit that the Government will fail in spectacular style in their promise to deliver those 4,000 zero-emission buses on the road? Will the Minister also take the opportunity to exercise a little humility and tell us how many buses have been ordered—not funding allocated, as that does not mean anything to anyone? How many will be manufactured in the UK? How many will realistically be on the road by the end of the Parliament?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
I am pleased that the Government’s latest bus deal lasts longer than the usual three months, but as ever, there are winners and losers. Last year, both Southampton and Swindon applied for zero-emission bus funding. They got nothing. They applied for BSIP funding, and how much did they get, Secretary of State? Nothing. Last month, every council finally received something, but Southampton and Swindon got barely £1 million between them, amounting to a pathetic £2 per person. Can he explain why areas such as Southampton and Swindon have got so little to fix their broken bus systems?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
The cross-party Transport Committee recently published its report on the Government’s national bus strategy, which found that the Government are unlikely to meet their target on zero-emission buses. The Committee is disappointed that the Government have not delivered on their promise to publish guidance on franchising and socially necessary services. The long-term future of the bus sector remains uncertain. Labour has a plan to get our buses back on track. What is the Government’s plan? Will it be more dither, delay and short-term sticking plasters?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
In 2020, the Government promised to deliver 4,000 zero-emission buses in this Parliament, but just 341 have been ordered, and only six are on our roads. At this rate, it will take 23 years to meet that target, and we will not get diesel buses off our roads completely until the end of the century. With manufacturers ready to deliver a brighter, greener future for Britain’s buses, when will the Minister get out of first gear and match their ambition?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
Nationwide, almost one in 10 bus driver positions is vacant, hitting vital services across the country hard, but Ministers are asleep at the wheel, with no action plan to tackle it. Currently, the DVSA requires a provisional bus licence to start training, but with huge paperwork delays, 20% of applicants give up before their training begins. Will the Minister listen to calls to speed up this glacial process to allow applicants to begin their theory tests while they wait for their provisional licences?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Simon Lightwood and Lindsay Hoyle(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Simon Lightwood (Wakefield) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the new Transport Minister’s own area of Cambridgeshire, dozens of crucial bus services, including school routes, will be slashed imminently. Can the Minister explain why they think it is fair that communities in Cambridgeshire and many others across the country did not receive a penny to improve bus services after a £2 billion cut to the bus back better strategy, while the same Government will this year hand over billions of pounds of tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations? Is it not the truth that under this Government bankers are being put before buses and the services that millions rely on?