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Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will also speak about Amendment 23. The new “socially necessary” routes clause is incredibly important in ensuring that bus services across the country provide services that meet the needs of local communities, rather than simply those which are profitable. Sadly, that has been the case outside London for decades since the deregulation of buses in the 1985 Act. We welcome this new clause but want to improve it through these amendments in two clear ways.

Amendment 21 would ensure that access to healthcare services, whether primary, such as GP or community, or acute, such as hospitals, are added to the locations that a local service must enable passengers to access alongside schools. We felt it was really important to

pull out and add these specific services, as they are so important. I am really pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has added his name to this amendment.

The need for children and teachers to have access to schools is obvious, but it should be a service that gets them to school on time. In Tonbridge in Kent, bus services have been cut so much that school bus services either drop children off far too early, leaving them hanging around the streets before school, or they arrive too late for school. This is unacceptable and impacts on children’s education and safety.

Access to health services is fundamental to keeping communities healthy and fit. When someone is diagnosed with a condition or illness, they may require regular routine appointments at a range of health buildings, not just at the main hospital but right across the community. In rural areas, these can be spread out over some distance. It is therefore crucial that socially necessary services are explicit to ensure that patients can get to appointments at different health locations without having to rely on family or volunteers to drive them there and back. At Second Reading, I highlighted the situation in Fleet in Hampshire where there is no bus route to the local hospital from neighbouring areas, yet the hospital car park often experiences 45-minute queues. Our amendment aims to address these common concerns.

Amendment 23 seeks to clarify that the relevant local authority has a duty to implement a socially necessary service, as far as is reasonably practical, should alternative operators fail to do so, with provisions for financial support, if needed, and the possibility of transferring responsibility to an alternative operator once the service is established. We on these Benches felt that that was important, given that the Bill allows for a clear definition of socially necessary routes but gives no clarity on how these routes will be provided.

If, either through franchising or enhanced partnerships, it is proven impossible to secure a provider for a service, what happens? In many ways, this is a last-resort clause. We felt that it was important to ensure that such crucial services for communities are picked up and provided so, as part of this process, the local authority would establish the service itself and produce a report within six months that would set out details of the operation and whether the authority is unable to meet the financial cost of operating the service. This is where the new burdens doctrine would kick in, and thus the Secretary of State would have a duty to consider appropriate financial support to the local authority to ensure that the socially necessary service can be provided.

From talking to some of the larger operators, they make it clear that socially necessary services will be able to achieve the aim of protecting hard-to-serve areas only if that is underpinned by funding. I am sure that where franchising is used profitable routes will be franchised together with socially necessary services to ensure that a comprehensive bus service is provided overall. However, our amendment picks up those services that are not securing an operator to ensure that communities have access to essential services. I am pleased to note that Green Alliance supports of our amendments around socially necessary local services.

I hope that the Government will respond positively to these amendments, which seek to enhance the Bill. I beg to move.