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Mr. Wright:
I might have to take the hon. Gentleman to the Standards Board over that intervention; he has obviously been reading my speech. My next paragraph
is about access to health services, and nowhere are these problems more apparent.
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust is currently a two-hospital site, with some services at the University hospital of Hartlepool and some at the University hospital of North Tees. Bus provision between the two hospitals is extremely poor. Anyone attending an appointment in a hospital outside their town, whether it be Hartlepool or Stockton, will find it time-consuming and stressful, and attending the appointment will probably require two or three changes of bus, which can take hours and cause stress. There is also the prospect of access to health services getting worse without active and imaginative intervention.
A review of acute services in the area by the independent reconfiguration panel concluded that a single-site hospital should be built between Hartlepool and Stockton. Because of the poor level of bus provision, I suppose that that option would be ideal because, at present, any location will be equally inaccessible to both communities. Any planning with regard to changes in acute services will need to adopt accessibility and the provision of bus transport to the new hospital as fundamental principles. I am concerned that that might not happen, however, based on current experience and on what my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey said on this issue earlier.
One of the most modern, high-quality hospitals in the country is James Cook hospital in the south of the Tees valley. However, the bus service that allows Hartlepool people to travel to James Cook is due to be withdrawn soon because the private bus operator wants a greater level of subsidy to continue running the service. There must be a reason for that. There must also be a reason why, despite all the ingredients in my constituency and the surrounding area being in place for a co-ordinated and accessible first-class bus service, it is not happening.
I think that the reason is deregulation. I agree with the Transport Committee’s observation that the deregulated regime has exacerbated the decline in bus usage over the past 20 years. Deregulation has meant that bus operators are free to pick and choose which services they operate. They are free to concentrate on the more lucrative routes in an area, at the expense of the routes that could improve accessibility for more passengers, particularly the more vulnerable and disadvantaged in society.
With deregulation we have the worst of all possible worlds. Either there is fierce competition among bus companies for the profitable services, with operators racing—quite often literally—to compete for the same customers on the same routes, causing chaos and confusion among passengers, or more commonly, certainly in my area, a single operator has a monopoly and therefore has the local authority and passengers over a barrel. Services can be chopped, changed or stopped with very little notice or consultation. The threat of cancelled services can extract extra subsidies from the local authority, or services are merely stopped abruptly, as happened recently in my constituency. Coupled with the GP surgery’s move from West View to the Headland, the cancellation of the No. 5 service in the north of the town, which served the West View and Headland areas, means that hundreds of people in
one of the most deprived parts of the country and suffering from appalling health inequalities no longer have access to health care.
I fear that, to maintain profitability, bus operators may concentrate on cost reduction rather than trying to raise revenue. That means cuts and reduced investment. It means, for instance, that older buses are not renovated. Some bus drivers in my constituency are worried about increasing working hours, which are part of the same problem. It is all about worsening terms and conditions and cutting services, and it results in a vicious circle. Cuts impair the quality and reliability of the service, which in turn leads to a reduction in the number of passengers. Passengers who are unhappy with the service will want to go elsewhere. In the context of confusing service provision, it is little wonder that potential passengers vote with their feet or their cars—if they have cars—or by reducing the quality of their own and their families’ lives by not taking up employment, training, health or leisure opportunities.
It is essential for the Government to intervene to resolve those problems. I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister, who wrote in her foreword to the Confederation of Passenger Transport’s 2006 document “On The Move”:
“buses can only deliver their full potential if they are given the right conditions. Frankly, the creation of the best conditions cannot be left to chance. Active participation by operators and authorities working together is the way forward”.
That is why I think the proposals in "Putting Passengers First", the Department’s 2006 document, are so important. The statutory quality partnership and quality contract schemes are important principles that will raise the quality of bus service.
Quality contract partnerships should be explored in more detail in Hartlepool. The local authority should be given a clear responsibility for developing and supporting the infrastructure that is necessary to provide a first-class bus network in the area. The authority should be responsible for high-quality bus stops, real-time timetable information, bus priority lanes and signalling priority for buses. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Chris Mole), who is no longer in the Chamber, made some interesting suggestions about the possibility of texting passengers information about when buses would arrive. I think that we need to be innovative in that way, and the local authority could provide the necessary infrastructure.
In return, a single operator or group of operators should have responsibility for providing a comprehensive and socially inclusive bus service, incorporating not just lucrative routes, but routes that are considered to be socially important. There should be modern, environmentally friendly, accessible buses that all members of society can use. All the research I have seen suggests that the impact of every £1 spent by local authorities on bus priority schemes is equivalent to that of £3 of direct bus subsidy for private companies.
Partnerships can be effective and efficient and provide a way of improving bus services, but they need extra teeth. I welcome the changes that the Department proposed in December, including the proposal to
replace the “only practicable way” test in the terms of quality contract schemes with a public-interest test. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey said, the devil will be in the detail, but I am pleased that the bar has been lowered. I hope that the change will bring an end to deregulation for local authorities and their communities, and revised and modern regulation for the benefit of passengers.
I want to say a little about the terms and conditions of bus drivers. Although I am not part of the Transport and General Workers Union, I welcome its campaign on the subject. I am concerned, as are bus drivers in my constituency, that the drive for cost cutting by bus operators has led to longer bus driver hours, without breaks. Driving on increasingly busy streets for periods such as five and a half hours or six hours at a time, with increasing road rage from fellow drivers, is not conducive to safe and alert driving. I am worried that longer hours put at risk the safety of drivers, their passengers and other road users.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister recalls that I have tabled written parliamentary questions to her on the matter under discussion, and I hope that she will address that in her winding-up speech, as well as the TGWU campaign to drive down driver hours and for there to be more frequent breaks. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and, more importantly, to seeing that there is a better regime of regulation for the benefit of existing and future passengers and for the country as a whole.
4.15 pm
Mr. Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth, East) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) on his speech. He spoke with passion, knowledge and concern about the issues affecting his constituency. I certainly agree with his concluding comments about bus drivers and their requirements, and I hope that the Minister will address them in her winding-up speech.
I made an intervention on the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who is no longer in his place, about the timing of the debate. That was prompted by his comment about the number of Members of all parties who were present to participate in the debate. It is interesting that the debate has fallen on the last day before recess, and also that the subject is limited to buses alone. I would have preferred a more general debate on transport, because the subject of buses cannot be isolated from transport in general. I do not think that any Member who has contributed so far has spoken solely about buses; they have all talked about a transport system or an integrated network, and about the role of cars and trains as well as buses—and, importantly, about the use of different forms of transport by passengers.
Mr. Truswell: Will the hon. Gentleman accept from me, as one of the usual suspects who turns up religiously for debates on such subjects, that we have had many debates on transport, encompassing rail, bus and other forms of transport, many of which were initiated by the Front-Bench team of his own party, but that they have all shared the characteristic that little has been said in them about buses?
Mr. Ellwood: The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with what he says. What I am emphasising is that if you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, had been strict, many contributors to the debate would have been ruled out of order for straying from talking simply about buses. I, too, am likely to stray.
There is a certain irony in that we are having this debate on a day when there is a lot of snow outside and much of our transport system in Britain has ground to a halt. I cycled into work this morning, as I do on most mornings, and I was amazed at how few cars were on the roads—and at how few buses there were, as well. That might have been because many people decided to stay at home.
The backdrop to this debate—on buses, transport, or however else we might address it—is the Transport Act 1985. Following that, we have had the various Transport Committee reports, which the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has been involved in and spoken about. Most recently, the Eddington transport study was produced in December last year.
However, I want to focus on an aspect of the Stern review. It addresses climate change and the role that public transport can play in cutting emissions. We must not forget that emphasis if we are to take global warming seriously. Increasing the use of public transport is pivotal to achieving our aims in that regard.
It has been said that problems have been caused as a result of the privatisation that stems from the 1985 Act, and they must be looked at. Currently, just five companies manage 95 per cent. of our bus network. That raises questions about competition and diversity of use. It is also worth noting that there has been a net decline in the use of buses outside London. Members of all parties must address that.
I have heard many times that the Labour party thinks that the Conservatives are in love with the motor car. No doubt that observation will be met with nods approval. In fact, there are many Members in all parts of the House—
Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South) (Lab): I recall a time not very long ago when the Conservative party labelled itself the party of the motorist, so nobody should be in any doubt about its position.
Mr. Ellwood: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying this, but I am probably not as old—and probably not as wise—as him. I was not a Member of the House when that comment was made, but I can speak for the party as it stands today and update the hon. Gentleman on our position, which is very clear. There is a role for the motor car in our lives, but there is also a role for public transport. People’s reliance on the motor car is often based simply on the lack of faith in public transport. If we improved the standard and efficiency of public transport, there would be a huge shift toward being passengers instead of drivers. I hope that that clarifies the Conservative party’s position, in contrast with the more archaic view that the hon. Gentleman tried to tease out of me.
We face a huge dilemma in trying to get more people to use their cars less. As has been said, we need
timely and continuing investment in our bus services, and legislation that provides reliable, safe, affordable and—most importantly—accessible travel. Unfortunately, that is not the situation in my constituency. As many Members will be aware, their having attended party conferences over the years, Bournemouth is renowned for having an elderly population and a student population, and a large service industry because of the tourists whom it attracts. Many of the people in those groupings do not own cars, so they rely on public transport. However, last year the Liberal Democrat council decided to sell off the “yellow” bus company, as it was known. In fact, it was part-owned by the council, which was allowed not total but a little control, in order to ensure that the system covered the whole town. The council gained £13 million from that sale, but I have not seen where the money has been invested. It has also sold all sorts of other things, but that is a separate road that I will not wander down.
As a result of that full privatisation, commercial interests have overtaken the need to provide a responsible service for the people of Bournemouth. Routes have been cut and commercial priorities have prevailed, and as a result, profit is winning over diversity of service. A good example is to be found just down the road from where I live, in Boscombe. Boscombe pier is one of the big tourist attractions, but for some five months there was no public transport to take people to it from the main bus depot. There used to be the No. 27 bus, but the service was simply withdrawn. When I, along with many others, wrote to the company, it said that the service simply was not viable as not enough people were using it. Only after a huge campaign by the good local newspaper the Daily Echo and many local representatives, including me, was a service finally reinstalled. As Members will be aware, where there is a social need, local authorities are required to provide such services. However, I am afraid to say that the Lib Dem council has been very slow in meeting its obligations in this regard. Consequently, Bournemouth has a bus service that leaves much to be desired.
The hon. Member for Hartlepool spoke passionately about the problems that the elderly—or, indeed, anyone else with health needs—experience when visiting hospitals and so forth. Public transport services play a huge part in that regard, but in Bournemouth it is now very difficult to get to the hospital or to get across town to the university; indeed, it is even very difficult for children to get to school during the school run, simply because there are now so few bus routes.
I turn to infrastructure, on which the Eddington report places great emphasis. Bournemouth’s infrastructure has changed little in the last 20 years. However, following the Kate Barker review, some 20,000 new houses have been built in Bournemouth, and about 1,000 houses are being built there every single year. That means an increased population, with more people living in a confined area. The increase in the number of cars and buses causes all the roads to become very congested. We need investment in infrastructure if we are to have a transport network that actually works. There are bottlenecks across Bournemouth because buses do not have access from one side of the town to the other.
I would like the Government to consider ways of introducing monorail systems in various towns. Places such as Miami, Sydney and Vienna have introduced light railway systems that whisk people from one side of town to the other with ease. We will not be able to solve our transport problems unless we have massive investment in infrastructure. I cannot envisage that investment being made, but that solution would enable people in Bournemouth to travel from the airport to the hospital, on to the football club—which has huge attendances, involving many people travelling back and forth—and then to the main railway station and the sea front. Those places are practically in a straight line, and a monorail would solve much of the congestion in Bournemouth overnight. Where the money would come from is another question, but from an economic perspective the investment of that money would save Bournemouth huge sums, increase investment in the area and make it more attractive to businesses. Therefore, in the long run, it would cover the costs of improving Bournemouth’s transport and help to meet our climate change obligations.
Mrs. Dunwoody: In his endearingly unlikely speech, the hon. Gentleman is inducing a state of near panic in his Front-Bench colleagues. Is he seriously suggesting that his monorail scheme, which is not the cheapest form of transport, should be subsidised by the ratepayer or the taxpayer?
Mr. Ellwood: The tone of the hon. Lady’s question makes me regret giving way to her. If she had listened to my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Paterson)—no doubt it will be repeated when my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) winds up—she would have heard about the local initiatives and solutions. That is not a top-down approach or an attempt to say that the Government in London should tell local authorities what to do. I am advocating the idea for Bournemouth and there is huge support for it. The question is where the funding comes from —[ Interruption. ] The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich suggests from a sedentary position that it would cost money. My point is that heading towards gridlock is already costing Bournemouth a huge amount of money. It is one of the most popular seaside towns in Britain, but it is losing its attractiveness because we cannot solve our transport problems.
Mr. Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab): I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond)—I believe that he is an Opposition transport spokesman—has proposed a 10 per cent. cut in the rate of corporation tax, which equates to £20 billion. Does the hon. Gentleman think that is consistent with the call for greater investment that he has made?
Mr. Ellwood:
I am not familiar with those proposals, so I cannot comment on them now. I am surprised by the reluctance to consider such ideas, as we must think outside the box when it comes to meeting future transport needs. Simply suggesting a bus lane when there is no space for one will not work or solve the huge problems that we have identified in Bournemouth. In 15 or 20 years, we will see such schemes in many towns
across Europe, given the need to move people swiftly from one side of town to the other by public transport.
We have an environmental and economic obligation to improve public transport, but as more and more passengers are dissatisfied with bus services, they are using the buses less and less. I hope that in the little time that the Government have left in office we will see some serious initiatives that will turn around our bus services and make them work for Britain.
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