Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-06-29
Topic: Transportation
Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Bill is a welcome recognition of the need for reform in the provision of bus services. The geographical divide that has existed and grown over the past 30 years has shown a pattern of decline outside London, while London buses have flourished—as, of course, have their passengers. That sharp contrast has been made all the sharper by the recent round of cuts to rural services but it is worth remembering that this situation has already defied two previous attempts to reform it. I said at Second Reading that without additional funding to local authorities it would be very difficult for them to make a difference, and I very much regret that since last Thursday it is likely that local authorities will have even less money because there was a significant amount of EU money in the transport budget.The Department for Transport is bound to recast its plans, and I fear that bus services could face reduced allocations Improving bus services is about more than improving their frequency or the number of routes. We have to persuade people to use the buses. We believe that the Bill needs to seize the opportunity to improve facilities for disabled people, to make the use of smart ticketing the norm, to reduce emissions, to encourage young people on to the buses and to put passengers at the heart of the service. The Bill makes a start on some of this, and I welcome that, but in our view it does not go nearly far enough in making the consideration of these issues the norm. Our amendments in this group are largely targeted at these issues The Bill is a skeleton. It leaves many crucial issues—the things that will decide whether it works or fails—to regulations to be made by the Secretary of State. Our amendments also seek to probe more of the detail. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which is critical of the skeletal nature of the Bill and the lack of a rationale in the Explanatory Notes for some of the powers to be conferred on the Secretary of State by regulation I also want to raise the impact assessments. When I picked up the document from the Printed Paper Office this morning, it was literally hot off the press. The Minister will know that I have been inquiring about the impact assessments, as have my noble friends, for some days. It is undermining the serious work of this House to produce impact assessments at this late stage when in practice it is impossible for people who are preparing for the debate this afternoon to take a full look at them. It undermines the purpose of the impact assessments as well This Bill has been a long time coming. We have waited over a year since it was first announced in the Queen’s Speech. It seems strangely rushed and uneven in the way in which it has been executed. It reads as if it were drafted by three different people taking on each of the three parallel systems—franchises, advanced quality partnerships and enhanced partnerships—and that those people never quite had the time to get together to make sure that the three parts were consistent. There is inconsistent use of phrases, including references to environmental factors in one part but not another; bus users are specified in one place but referred to everywhere else as "other people"; and in one place bus operators are allowed simply to make an objection to a scheme and in another place they cannot make an unreasonable objection. The purpose behind many of our amendments is therefore to find out more details as to why there are differences from one part to another. As the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee points out, the Bill confers powers on the Secretary of State by way of regulations in one case, "because the policy has not been finalised in time for introduction" These are the words of the committee, not my words Of the amendments in the first group that refer to advanced quality partnerships, Amendment 1 is symbolic of a number of amendments trying to sharpen up a Bill which generally reads as a rather a vague proposition. By proposing this we are certainly not seeking to dictate solutions to local authorities. It is simply that we believe that they need to consider certain key factors—not that they may consider them, but that they really have to consider them. It does not dictate the solution. There must be a determination to improve and to consider a broad range of aspects that make up a good bus service. In Amendment 3 we specify advance ticketing. That is a good example, because advanced ticketing is not just convenient for passengers, thereby attracting new users, but it also speeds up bus services. Greener Journeys has done research that shows that it speeds up bus journeys by about 10%, a significant improvement. If you are speeding up journeys and buses are not hanging around at bus stops, there is less congestion, which is good for air quality Amendment 4 inserts noise pollution as an additional factor of which local authorities should take account. The Bill is very light on noise pollution, which is a serious factor for people who live near main roads in particular. Amendment 2 specifically provides for a duty to consider rural areas. It is essential that this Bill provides mechanisms to address the rural crisis in bus services because there is a real danger that this will become an urban Bill if we are not careful. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw will address this in his remarks If the Bill is to achieve its aims, it has to tackle the core issues mentioned in Amendment 5A and to put them at the heart of these partnerships or franchise requirements. As it stands, the aims of the advanced quality partnerships are going to be pretty modest. The outcomes referred to in lines 19 and 20 on page two of the Bill could mean that they simply reduce the rate of decline. That is a very disappointing line to find in a Bill that asserts that it is about improving bus services.