Local Bus Sector

Question

15:22:00

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to provide longer-term support to the local bus sector.

The Government are determined to deliver better bus services. We are setting out an action plan allowing every community the opportunity to take back control of local bus services to deliver improvements for passengers and giving local leaders more control and flexibility over bus funding to deliver their local transport priorities for growth, jobs and housing. We will consider how best to support buses in the longer term as part of the forthcoming spending review.

I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. He has long experience in the bus industry. Would he look, in particular, at the problem of rural bus services, which on the whole do not get much visibility? He may know of a very good one in Cornwall; buses go every half hour, with cheap fares. How will he ensure that the whole country benefits? Will the funding be there and will it be ring-fenced? Will the Government encourage or force local authorities to pick up their offer?

The proposition for local authorities and communities throughout the country is to take advantage of the proposals that the Government will table, which will ensure the right solutions for each area. My noble friend knows that the bus service in Cornwall is particularly well organised; it is not franchised but is subject to a large degree of local authority control. Consistency of information, ticketing, fares and service standards is an important feature, wherever in the country buses operate.

My Lords, will the Minister, whom I congratulate on his new position, pay tribute to rural bus services such as those in North Yorkshire? If the bus arrangements transfer back to the local authorities, will he ensure that the funds will follow the responsibility for, in particular, concessionary bus fares, which are so important for older people in rural areas?

I thank the noble Baroness for her compliment. I hope the House will see it repaid in what I do. Concessionary bus fare funding will, without any doubt, follow the control of bus services, and that will be as important in North Yorkshire as it will be everywhere else in the country.

My Lords, the Minister will be fully aware from his extensive experience how much young people in London benefit from free bus travel. Unfortunately, in the rest of the country the picture is different—it is very patchy and uneven. Does the Minister agree that there is a strong argument for a standard system of highly reduced or free bus fares for young people across the country, to help them into jobs, apprenticeships and education, to create a fairer society and to create a new generation of bus travellers?

The noble Baroness will recognise the important ability of the Mayor of London to fund cheap and free fares for young people. The opportunity that the Government’s franchising proposals will give is that other local authority leaders and combined authority mayors will also have the ability to fund fare concessions for the purposes that she mentions.

My Lords, the Minister is right to emphasise the importance of bus services, particularly for the elderly. I speak as somebody who has reached pension age. In that light, and given the Government’s, shall we say, cavalier attitude to pensioners that we have seen on display, can he give an unshakeable commitment that the Government will maintain the national bus pass and the statutory freedom pass scheme in London? Or is there the possibility that they too could find themselves subject to means testing?

At my age, I share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for the freedom pass scheme. He is attempting to put me in the invidious position of making a concrete commitment for all time. The freedom pass, and the local authority and national scheme for free travel for pensioners, has lasted a long time and we would all hope that it continues into the future. The Government are not in a good position with the state of public finances they have been left with, but we will bear in mind his enthusiasm, and that of many others, for free travel for elderly people on buses as we move forward with our commitments for the bus service.

My Lords, in addition to the work that my noble friend is doing with buses, we will soon hear about the Great British Railways changes, with Ministers taking much greater control of the railways. Does this not provide an opportunity for some proper timetabling, so that when a bus arrives at a station there is a train soon ready to go, rather than one that has just left, which happens in so many parts of the country at the moment?

I thank my noble friend for that question. It is a subject that has engaged the bus and railway industries for generations. In fact, it is more likely that the bus will have to alter its timetable to suit the railway, because the railways are a national, integrated system, but he is right to suggest that the opportunity arises as a consequence of the Government’s proposals for Great British Railways and for buses as part of a more integrated public transport service across the entire country. The Government will do their best to make sure those opportunities are built on.

My Lords, my colleagues and I are concerned about the amount of pollution which diesel buses in particular present. We used to have trams and vehicles that were run on electricity. Can the Minister confirm what the Government are doing to encourage better environmental standards in buses and other means of public transport?

The programme to reduce emissions from the bus fleet has been carried out by successive Governments over many years. There is no doubt at all that government intervention has created both cleaner diesel buses, which now meet that Euro 6 standard, and an increasing fleet of electric buses, which are the modern equivalent of tram-cars. This Government hope to continue that, subject to funding, because it is clearly a very important contribution to air quality in urban and other areas.

My Lords, while we talk about support for buses, I think we ought also to talk about support for bus safety. I quote the BBC website from this morning: “At present there is no independent investigator and no independent recommendations when it comes to bus collisions. The families want to know why there is one policy for trains and another for buses”. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.

It is clearly critical that bus services and buses should be safe. The DVSA, which is an agency of the Department for Transport, does look at serious bus accidents. It can deal with the drivers and the operators of those vehicles, and take into account whether standards should be changed for bus design.

My Lords, for many of those dependent on buses, whether they are travelling to work or to hospital appointments, lateness can have a real impact. Can the Minister say what actions he will take to improve real-time tracking of buses?

The technology for real-time tracking has changed enormously in 20 years. One of the opportunities for franchising, which is part of the Government’s programme for bus services, is to provide consistent real-time information. It is important. It is quite clear that, where that information is provided—which is not limited to signs on bus stops; it can also be accessed on mobile phones and at home—patronage increases, so we have every enthusiasm for increasing it. The proposals on bus franchising will enable it to be more easily supplied where bus franchising takes place.