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3.43 pm
Mr. Paul Truswell (Pudsey) (Lab):
There is always a danger in making regular contributions in the House about buses of being categorised, or even caricatured,
as being something of an anorak, and I should like to make it clear from the outset that I do not collect bus numbers or bus ephemera, but I do collect hundreds of constituents’ letters complaining about the quality of bus services and cuts in them.
As I looked around the Chamber earlier today, I saw a lot of familiar faces—some of them have now gone—including my hon. Friends the Members for Eccles (Ian Stewart), for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) and for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) and for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who has got form as a lobbyist on PTEs and quality contracts.
For years, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters have banged the drum in favour of having more local powers for bus services, and we have continually banged our heads against a brick wall. That is why the debate, initiated in Government time, is such a massive watershed for us, and the Minister is smiling in acknowledgement. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles said, we have made our case in numerous Adjournment debates. Successive Ministers have read their briefings from civil servants, and they have dead batted our demands. In fact, it has been like facing a procession of Geoff Boycotts, quite frankly.
At the Labour conference in autumn, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport said that he would
“act to empower local communities. I will act to give the local transport authorities that need them real powers to make a difference.”
Amen and alleluia to that! At the time, I did not believe that such comment was possible; I had to pinch myself, and I even scoured the internet for reports of it, but I have confirmed that the Secretary of State did indeed say that.
However, to echo a point made by previous speakers, including my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles, there is a “but”. As is often the case, Old Nick lurks in the thicket, and the devil is in the detail, to use the cliché usually employed in the Chamber. Talking of Old Nick, I noted that the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson) paid overt and eulogistic tribute to Nicholas Ridley. I submit that, when it came to bus policy, and several other areas of policy, Nicholas Ridley approached with his bow doors well and truly open, because bus deregulation has been an absolute disaster. The hon. Gentleman paid tacit and implicit tribute to Margaret Thatcher, too, because it was she who said, when in office, that any man who travelled on buses at the age of 26 had to regard himself as a failure. That characterised Tory policy then, and, despite all the embellishments to it that we have heard today, it characterises Tory policy now.
Mr. Brazier: I will not follow the hon. Gentleman in taking a personal line, but he says that bus deregulation was an absolute disaster; is he telling the House that he would like that policy to be reversed? That may come as a surprise to his Front-Bench colleagues.
Mr. Truswell:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that extremely helpful intervention. The point was made well by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley that we do not want to go back to the
deregulated days, although that has its attractions. We want a system of regulation. The Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for North Shropshire, said that if we tightened up the way in which we use the subsidy system, everything would be okay. The reason that the subsidy system does not work is that we do not have any way of regulating it, as there are no contracts to which to keep people. In many areas, there is, in practice, a monopoly, and bus operators virtually get away with murder, as has always been said.
As I was saying before I was interrupted, though not rudely, I cannot stress how important it is that quality contracts are made a more realistic option, as is suggested in the Select Committee report. We cannot have another false dawn, which is what a number of us predicted when quality contracts were introduced in the Transport Act 2000. Since deregulation, quality and standards have undoubtedly fallen, irrespective of what has been said by Conservative Members. In west Yorkshire, fares have gone up by over 50 per cent. in real terms, and that is a disincentive for people to travel by bus. The number of passengers has fallen by almost 40 per cent., which, in round figures, is some 100 million passenger journeys. Declines in other PTE areas have been even more precipitous.
As has been said, bus companies can pick and choose what services they provide and where they provide them, and they can continue to make profits even when they are providing a poor service—services that are chopped, changed, missing or late. Passengers simply feel powerless in the face of that, and many people are denied a reliable and affordable service to work, school, college, the shops, health centres and hospitals.
We heard some pious comments about the needs of people with disabilities. People with disabilities in my constituency plead for one thing: stability. They want services that they can trust, so that when they go out, they have a fair chance of the bus actually turning up. That is something that the deregulated system has simply failed to provide.
When services are trimmed or cut, people understandably, as we have heard, turn to their MPs, their councillors or the passenger transport executive, only to find that there is precious little that they can do. What we get from the operators when they cut services is what I call the two-finger response. First, they say that the services are not profitable, and secondly, they suggest that we ask the PTE to give the operators even more subsidy to continue to run them.
Passenger transport executives such as Metro in west Yorkshire currently subsidise about 13 per cent. of services. The rest are out of their control. In its own terms, deregulation has been an abject failure because it is impossible to gauge whether the taxpayer is getting value for money in a monopoly situation where only one company tenders for each contract.
The network in my area is pretty typical of comparable areas. I cannot speak for urban areas. There are high frequency routes, such as the No. 4 to Pudsey, No. 16 to Farsley and No. 42 to Old Farnley, together with a combination of routes on the Leeds-Bradford corridor. The reason why those services are so frequent is that it is in the interests of the bus operators to maximise their profit by concentrating on routes with a captive market. Off that
beaten track, in areas where there is a social need, such as council estates, the picture is dramatically different. The Opposition need to recognise that.
The area has been subject to successive service changes, which have led to a concentration of resources and a move away from the unprofitable but socially desirable services. Last year, for example, a whole community was cut off a route without notice, leaving many residents, especially older people, stranded.
Great play has been made of the use of partnerships. In the civil service briefs and speeches that we used to get from the Minister until recently there was a strong emphasis on partnerships. It must be accepted, even by people like me, that they work in certain circumstances, but only in locations such as those described by the hon. Member for North Shropshire and where the partnership is established entirely at the behest of the bus operator. If there is a profit in it for them, they will do it. If not, there is no prospect of a voluntary partnership arrangement.
Changes have been made in my area to services such as the No. 97, No. 647 and No. 651 in the Guiseley and Yeadon areas. We could all recite a litany of problems, and a number of us have done so. The changes cause tremendous problems for regular travellers who depend on those services, quite apart from those who might be attracted out of their cars to use them if they were available and reliable. Frequency has been reduced on services that penetrate local housing estates and provide links to important shopping centres like Pudsey and the Owlcotes centre in my constituency.
Links to facilities such as health centres, post offices and supermarkets are often ignored because the operator has no interest in meeting the public need, only in making a profit. Notable examples are the fact that there is no public transport link from my constituency to the newly rebuilt Wharfedale hospital in Otley or to the primary health care facilities at Eccleshill in Bradford, which are extremely important to many of my constituents who do not have ready access to alternative forms of transport.
The decline in bus services, as has been said repeatedly, affects everyone, not just those who depend on buses or those who would like to use buses more. Poor services lead to increased car use, which creates even more congestion, pollution and road safety hazards in all our communities. On carbon emissions, we know from research carried out by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research that per passenger mile, coach and bus travel produces only 30 per cent. of the CO2 created by petrol fuelled cars and 40 per cent. of that created by diesels.
Over the years, bus operators have won two important public relations battles. The first is to suggest that deregulation has worked; they clearly have dupes on the Opposition Benches to support that notion. The second is that local authorities and passenger transport authorities are not fit for purpose as regards commissioning bus services. That will continue to be a major bone of contention between certain Labour Members and our Front-Bench colleagues.
Replacement of the “only practicable way test” is extremely welcome, but concerns have been expressed about the new process. If there is one message that I
would like to convey to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, it is that we do not want an insuperable legal high jump to be replaced by an interminable bureaucratic marathon, nor do we want a period of instability and uncertainty to be created by unnecessary tinkering with local structures.
It would be interesting to know whether Ministers have carried out any assessment of how long it would take for quality contracts to go through to implementation under the process set out in the document “Putting Passengers First”. It is a convoluted process that, if traced through step by step, could take an incredibly long time. PTAs and PTEs may have to negotiate with civil servants, especially as part of the QC approach requires Government funding. There may then be intervention by the traffic commissioners, an appeal to the transport tribunal, and almost inevitably, given that bus operators will fight this tooth and nail, a judicial review. That is why the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), to whom we all genuflect on these issues, are absolutely right and require a response. I hope that Ministers understand why my hon. Friends and I do not think that the process sits squarely with what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said at the party conference about giving
“local transport authorities that need them real powers to make a difference”.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles asked several questions that are of interest to those of us who represent areas with PTEs, and I do not intend to reiterate those.
Turning to concessionary fares, I know from a recent meeting that my hon. Friend the Minister is fully aware of my personal concerns regarding the concessionary fare scheme. At the moment, the system appears to be giving a blank cheque to operators, who are in some areas jacking up their off-peak cash fares to up the ante in terms of raking in more and more public money by way of subsidy. This firm message needs to go out from my colleagues on the Front Bench: “If you continue to operate those sorts of manipulative and profiteering approaches to fares in order to milk the public purse for money, that will be held in the balance when we come to look at issues relating to regulation and quality contracts.”
The comprehensive spending review process that is moving towards a conclusion is an opportunity not only to meet some of the broader investment requirements of city regions such as Leeds but to deal with issues relating to concessionary fares. It is crucial, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown) said, that local authorities are reimbursed for running the concessionary fare system. At the moment, unless we get a grip on the matter and bring some control to bear, more and more services and concessionary schemes for other bus users will be cut to fuel the monster that we have created.
I am most familiar with Leeds because I am one of its Members of Parliament. In the past 20 years, Leeds has created more jobs than any other major city apart from London. Between 1981 and 2002, it added 86,000
new jobs to its work force and is expected to provide approximately 46 per cent. of the region’s additional 60,000 jobs between 2004 and 2014. Although jobs have been created in Leeds, many of the people who take them up live outside the city boundary.
Passenger transport executive areas have some of the worst concentrations of deprivation in the country, with 84 out of the 100 most deprived neighbourhoods located in metropolitan areas. Investment to boost transport, especially buses, because of the proportion of public transport journeys for which they account, is essential to our areas.
As I have said previously, even in Leeds, where there are sceptics like me, we have examples of effective partnership working. We have quality bus corridors, guided bus lanes and the free city bus service that links key points in the city with the main rail station. Welcome though those schemes are, it is clear that the resources available to PTEs are not enough to keep pace with the needs of the growing economies of our major cities or to boost the initiatives that make a genuine difference to bus travel.
I make no bones about reiterating the point that was made about transport spending. In 2001, spending in London was £233 per head. By 2005-06, it had increased to £631 per head. London is our capital and needs a decent transport system, so no one begrudges priority being given to it. However, in Yorkshire and Humber, spending on transport in 2001 was £117 per head. By 2005-06, that had increased to £197 per head. The increase is welcome, but compared with what is happening in London—and other parts of the country—it is grossly inadequate.
“Putting Passengers First”, the Bill that will emanate from the discussions and the comprehensive spending review provide enormous opportunities for improving bus services in Leeds, west Yorkshire and the United Kingdom. I hope that my hon. Friends will seize them.
4.3 pm
Mr. Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab): It is a genuine pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell). I intervened in the Westminster Hall debate on bus services in October that my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) initiated. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey was present, and he should be commended for his good work on bus services. I also agree with him that it is good that the subject is being debated in Government time.
Bus provision is an important feature of our country and, with concerns about access to services for all sections of society, growing congestion on our roads and the effects of transport on the environment, it is appropriate that the House should discuss the subject, which is rightly rising up the political agenda, in Government time.
If there is anywhere in the country outside London and major metropolitan areas where bus services, as part of a co-ordinated public transport system, should work, it is Hartlepool and the wider sub-region. My town is a very centralised community, concentrated to a large extent on an urban core. I understand from research carried out as part of Hartlepool borough council’s second local transport plan that some 99 per cent. of the borough’s residents could access
Hartlepool town centre in half an hour by public transport, even at peak times.
The vast majority of journeys in Hartlepool are in the constituency itself. Unlike the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey, 72 per cent. of all travel to employment takes place in the borough of Hartlepool. Those two factors—the centralised population, together with journeys being concentrated within the town—should mean that Hartlepool is ripe for a successful bus transport system.
In addition, more than two in five households in Hartlepool do not have access to a car. That is almost double the national average. That fact, combined with high levels of deprivation and economic inactivity, means that a high-quality bus service would allow access to a range of provisions for my constituents, including employment, education, health care and leisure. Yet access to—and take-up of—good bus services is simply not happening. In the period from 2001 to 2005, bus passenger numbers in Hartlepool declined by 3 per cent. year on year—a compound fall of about 9 per cent. This is consistent with the 10 per cent. drop in the use of buses and light rail in the north-east region in that period—the biggest fall anywhere in the country. Although car ownership in Hartlepool is about half the national average, as I mentioned earlier, the number of people who use a car to travel to and from work is higher than the country’s average. There is no need for that, given the circumstances that I outlined earlier.
Hartlepool is part of the Tees valley, a relatively small and self-contained sub-region. Travel within the Tees valley by public transport should be easy, cheap and reliable. Clearly, however, it is not. Bus patronage has fallen by 1.5 million passengers between 2001 and 2005. The existing bus network is largely based on patterns planned about half a century ago, which no longer reflect the employment, education and health needs of the population.
Although I commend the five local authorities in the Tees valley for working together to pull services up—they are working to ensure that the concessionary fare for older people is co-ordinated on a Tees valley-wide basis, for example—clearly more needs to be done. The Tees valley has the potential to enjoy high economic growth in the next 20 years, but that will be hampered if there is too much congestion on the main roads. Even now, the A19—the major road through the Tees valley linking the sub-region with Tyne and Wear to the north and Yorkshire to the south—is heavily congested at most times. Equally, the potential for economic growth will not be realised if, as now, people cannot access education and employment because of inadequate public transport.
Mr. Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important for people to have better transport links to hospitals, as many people in Hartlepool are worried about the distance that they have to travel to access health care?
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