Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-08
Topic: Transportation
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this has been a comprehensive debate, reflecting the comprehensive briefings we have received from a large number of organisations. I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for the briefing he organised for us The debate has reflected the situation in two different worlds: that in London, which has frequent, efficient, affordable services and increasing usage; and that in the rest of the UK, where there is a picture of overall decline over many years, with too often infrequent, unreliable and expensive services, and a confusing picture because people do not know when the bus is likely to turn up. Despite that, there are some islands of good practice to which several noble Lords have referred. Reading and Brighton are examples of places where the services are very good. However, in contrast to that, most areas outside London suffer from poor and declining services. The difference between these two worlds is due to not just deregulation but also the amount of money spent on the services, because London passengers enjoy generous subsidy. Therefore, there is an urgent need for action We agree with the general principles of the Bill. The Minister told us that it was an enabling Bill. However, it is enabling only in the legislative sense. Franchising and enhanced partnerships are no magic formula. We agree that local authorities and local transport authorities need more powers, but recent funding cuts mean that in many cases the other essential tool that they need—the money—is missing. The Government need to remember that there is no guarantee of success. There have been two previous attempts to undo the damage of the 1985 Act, by Labour Governments, and neither worked We on these Benches welcome the three main areas covered by the Bill. I start with franchising and partnerships. It has been Liberal Democrat policy for many years to campaign for and encourage franchising outside London. We strongly support the devolution of more powers to local authorities, because it is obvious that local authorities are best placed to make decisions on issues such as bus service provision. On open data, it has seemed to me for a long time to be completely anachronistic that you can get virtually no information on buses unless you want buses in London—that information is of course widely available. Outside London, bus information is not available, but you can get very comprehensive information on trains In practice, buses outside London are overwhelmingly provided by the big five companies. They rarely compete with each other, and exercise a great deal of power in the market. As my noble friend Lord Shipley said, there is in reality very little competition in most places. It is going to be difficult to deal with that domination and to ensure that it is used constructively. There are many good examples of good companies operating to the best of their ability, but we have to harness that power in the market to the benefit of everyone As far as this Bill goes, it is fine and we support it. But in my view and the view of many who have spoken here today, it does not go far enough on key issues. It needs to entrench minimum standards on, for example, issues relating to disability. People have talked not just about wheelchair access but also AV. I ought to declare an interest as someone who has severe hearing loss—the audio announcements are no use to me at all; I need visual announcements if I am going on a new route. The Minister in his opening speech quoted the percentage of provision of facilities such as this, but what about the percentage of those facilities that are actually being used? They are often there on the bus but are not switched on. There is wheelchair access on the vehicle but the driver does not drive into the parking space adequately in order to allow access to the bus. This is where training comes in. Without provisions on driver training, the Bill will not be as effective as it should be. I remind noble Lords that we are well into the 21st century and we should be dealing with this problem effectively The Bill also needs to entrench minimum standards on emissions and a number of other environmental issues. Great progress has been made—the big operators especially are investing in a range of green technologies, but their old buses get passed down the line and some of the less good operators are not doing well enough. There needs to be a stimulus to do better. The appalling air quality in some parts of our towns and cities makes step change in this area an imperative for the health of our nation. The buses might be green but the important thing is to ensure that cars are taken off the road, because they are not yet green enough. We therefore need to have good bus services as a viable alternative to the car, to encourage people out of their cars. Local authorities need more powers, for example, to deal with workplace parking levies as an option I would also have liked to see—and we will undoubtedly come back to this at later stages—a provision to ensure a standard, England-wide concessionary fare scheme for young people. I have raised this issue in the House on a number of occasions. Young people face a postcode lottery. They now have to stay in school until they are 18 but are not entitled to concessionary fares after they are 16. Therefore, in some areas they are paying full fare. We need to look at this in a long-term way. Young people are the bus passengers of the future. Bus operators are very often aware of this but the Government need to enshrine it in the Bill I welcome the provisions on smart ticketing. I am glad to see that LTAs will get greater power. I am very pleased to see the efforts to future-proof the Bill in this regard because technological change is so fast. But I will be keen to test out how these powers will work in practice because I do not believe they are strong enough or that there is sufficient obligation on operators to work together and ensure that smart ticketing will always be available. Smart ticketing is essential to speeding up bus services and therefore encouraging new users. Greener Journeys believes that it can improve journey times by 10%, which is important I am disappointed that the Bill does not give local authorities more power to enforce moving traffic regulations. Those powers exist in London. They exist in Cardiff because of the devolution settlement. But there is little incentive for local authorities to invest in improved traffic and bus facilities on their roads. These cost a lot of money, and what is the incentive to spend that money if other drivers are able to flout the regulations and clog up the roads Rural bus services face a bleak future. Although there are measures in the Bill to encourage imaginative new solutions such as shared services, without any obligation on local authorities to consider such schemes, these may not have the impact that is vitally needed I am disappointed that there are no provisions to strengthen the role of traffic commissioners, who have a very variable record across the country. I am also very concerned that the Bill removes the right of councils to form municipal bus companies. Some of the best bus services in Britain are provided by bus companies still owned at arm’s length by their councils. We should be encouraging the best The Bill is skeletal, to put it mildly. We need to see draft regulations. When is the Minister going to be able to show us draft regulations, so that we can see how this will work Finally, I have a few quick questions. This is an England-only Bill. What about the cross-border services with Wales? Have there been discussions with the Welsh Government? Are they happy with this? I notice that the borderlands between England and Wales seem to be left in some kind of time warp. Where will the passenger voice fit in? With the powers on franchising initially applying only to mayoral authorities, the devil will be in the detail. What hurdles will other authorities have to jump through to gain those additional powers? I hope that those other authorities will not be forced to move to the mayoral model in order to gain them I also have serious concerns about the blocking power the Bill gives in relation to enhanced partnerships and advanced quality partnerships. The Bill says that plans must be supported by a majority of bus operators in the area but I would like to know what the process will be. How will it be measured? For example, in Bedford there is effectively only one operator so if that operator objects, they are by definition the majority. Is it therefore done on size or on the number of companies? How will it work We support the principles in the Bill and believe that it could be a much better Bill if it went further and worked harder at entrenching minimum standards.