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Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank those who have engaged in today’s lively debate on the Bill. I have listened carefully and with much interest to the excellent points being raised across your Lordships’ House. I will attempt to respond to some but not half as many questions and concerns as I would like to because of the time. We also have Committee, in which we can explore many of these issues in greater detail. In the meantime, I will follow up where I can as soon as I can on some of the issues that I cannot mention now.

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for his introduction, much of which was covered by what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has just said, but I will say one or two things to him in passing. First, on the notion that bus fares increased by 50% from £2 to £3, it is of course a calculation that bus fares of £2 increased to £3, but many passengers do not travel on individual tickets. Also, as the industry trade body said, for the 26% of passengers who travel on individual tickets many fares for shorter journeys remain below £3. The cost of franchising in Manchester is not £1 billion; it actually cost, on a one-off basis, £135 million, much of that paid for by Greater Manchester itself. One of the reasons why it cost so much money is because it took six years, as the process was so convoluted. A clear aim of this Bill is to make franchising easier.

Also, as a point of issue, it is not only electric buses that get recalled by manufacturers. As a bus operator, I can tell your Lordships of many circumstances in

which buses have rightly been recalled for safety reasons. I think it is inevitable that zero-emission buses will take over in future, and the Bill seeks to ensure that the industry recognises that. However, he is right in referring to a one-team ethos; I am not entirely sure that that sentiment was reflected in what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, just said, but we will do our best to get a good Bill out of this, I am sure, and I welcome that sentiment.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for her really helpful remarks. The devolution of funding and the statutory guidance given by the Secretary of State, under new Section 154A, we will debate in Committee. It is not the intention to apparently devolve funding and then put on such rules that in fact it is not really devolved. The intention of the Bill is to allow a much greater level of freedom for local transport authorities than they have had. It is also the intention of the Government in due course to streamline the funding streams above that. I recognise that point completely. Frankly, I am as confused as some noble Lords about how many streams there are. The noble Baroness mentioned some of them, and that would be better, but actually the result of this Bill is that to make it much easier at the point at which the money is distributed, which must be the right thing.

I recognise the points about young people’s fares. There are already local transport authorities that give concessions to young people, and nothing in this Bill will prevent that. The wider point, which we will come to again and again with this Bill, is that this is designed to give local transport authorities more freedom. A number of noble Lords have referred to that this afternoon and this evening. It is the right thing to do because buses are a local service, not a national service. I will come back to the specific remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, at the end, but the clear intention of this Bill is to allow local transport authorities to decide what methodology of providing a service is best for them and then to do it.

I was much heartened by hearing that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, a former Permanent Secretary at the Treasury, welcomed multiyear funding. I will reflect with my colleagues in government on what his experience is of that. We have to wait for the Spring Statement to know what this Government are able to do in the straitened financial circumstances that they find themselves.

The noble Lord and other noble Lords have referred to open data, and I can certainly commit to the fact that open data is the intention of this Bill and of the Government. The intention of open data, reflecting the recent point by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is that it should be free. That is the right thing to do. If you want public transport usage to increase, the data should be available. I have a rather good story to tell the House about open data. At Transport for London, we searched for the person who developed the best open data app for the Underground. I said that I would like to see that person. It turned out that they worked for a bank in Melbourne, and it was not immediately possible for them to turn up in my office. However, it is a really important point.

The noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Hampton, and others, referred to integrated ticketing. I will write to them about that. It is obviously the intention to

have integrated ticketing. One of the attractions of franchising is that it enables that to happen. One of the weaknesses of commercial bus provision outside London is the degree to which individual operators would rather offer that technology but only on their own buses, whereas the public and passengers want it to be available on every bus. I know that my noble friend Lady Blake has some experience of that from Leeds and West Yorkshire. It is obviously desirable for passengers, particularly in urban areas, to be able to use any bus and for the ticketing system to be consistent.

A number of noble Lords referred to training. There is already mandatory training for bus drivers. The intention of this Bill is to specify further mandatory training but to deliver it within that regime, which I think is absolutely right. A number of noble Lords referred also to the roads on which buses operate. It is quite right that the reliability and indeed the economics of bus operation are vastly altered by the existence of congestion and the ability of buses to get through traffic, whether through bus lanes or other things. One of the most notable things about the Manchester franchising is that a consequence of putting some of the bus service into the control of the Mayor of Greater Manchester, then to be reflected in the local transport authority, was that a vastly increased focus was immediately available on, for example, getting rid of temporary traffic lights and straightening out traffic management. There have been references this afternoon and this evening to what help can be given to local transport authorities that wish to engage in franchising. The Bus Centre of Excellence has been mentioned. It does not need full-time employees but for advice to be available when needed. One of the features of that is to give advice on traffic management so that buses can take their appropriate place in transporting passengers in local areas.

It is always a delight to hear from the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin. He has made some excellent decisions in his time, including appointing me as the chair of Network Rail, though my wife was not similarly impressed by that appointment. Many of the points that he raised are obviously germane, in particular on the very sharp decline in passenger numbers in the north of England. He said that one size does not fit all, and he is absolutely right—I think that is much more to his point. This Bill enables local transport authorities in cities, towns and rural areas to choose the best way of going forward. It is not necessarily franchising. Even if it is franchising, it is not necessarily on whole routes. Some of it is about franchising in particular areas where a franchise mechanism might produce better public services. The Government do not want to dictate whether you should have a franchise; they want local transport authorities to use the best mechanisms that they can.

It was a delight to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and even better to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is recovering. I look forward to seeing her in her place. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised a number of questions that will have to be answered either in Committee or in correspondence. She referred particularly to recovering lost routes. One of the real sadnesses of the last several years is that some bus funding has been available to start new bus

routes when the old ones ceased, because they were not able to be funded through that arrangement. But it is better if routes are not stopped and then started again because, in the course of that, you can lose a lot of patronage.

The noble Baroness mentioned South Yorkshire. I can tell her that the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority has completed a franchising assessment, and the consultation on its scheme closes on 15 January.

I listened very carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond. I had an exchange with her previously about the circumstances in North Yorkshire that she raised, and her concerns are known to the Government. I am also aware of a petition tabled to Parliament from a Member for the area in the other place, and my colleagues in the Department for Education will respond to that shortly. I note, out of interest, that North Yorkshire is a Conservative council.

The noble Lord, Lord Snape, referred to matters including the cost of zero-emission buses. One of the reasons for the Bill proposing both an effective ban on non-zero emission vehicles and the date of 2030 is that, as he knows as an experienced bus person, the cost of zero-emission and hybrid vehicles has gone down. The intention is to support sales, which this and the previous Government have strongly supported through funding to bring down the cost of those vehicles, such that they will be available and economical to run when that time comes.

A lot of points were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about bus services, many of which were germane. I have no doubt that we will discuss them in Committee. She asked whether I agree that, as local transport authorities have or will get more responsibility, more councillors should be involved. I am not sure that it is my job to decide that but, as has been mentioned before, help might be needed with some of these arrangements. I know—actually, it is quite well known—that the quality of passenger transport in local transport authorities depends on their having expertise. On that matter, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. One of the purposes of the Bill is to set out the choices, and the department is putting money and resource aside to help people make the right choices and institute them successfully.

The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, raised several issues about safety. I will consider the points that he and others have raised about whether safety data should be collected. I will certainly write to the noble Lord and I have no doubt that those matters will be raised in Committee.

I do not drive passenger service vehicles in service very often now, but my technique in keeping time was always secondary to road safety. My belief is that that is still widely true in the bus industry, if only because of financial reasons, because bus operators, and for that matter local transport authorities that choose to operate buses, will always be subject to the costs of insurance. We will have a further look at driver welfare and will no doubt discuss it. The noble Lord also raised data sharing, to which I have already referred.

It was extraordinarily kind of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, to refer to London 2012, which now seems quite a long time ago.