Labour release new figures revealing Tory cuts to bus services in the North and the Midlands

Following Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) today where Jeremy Corbyn’s series of questions on buses exposed Theresa May’s ignorance on the subject, Labour have released new figures revealing how Tory cuts to bus services have hit the North and the Midlands.

Visiting Abington Community Centre in Northampton this morning, Andy McDonald MP (Shadow Transport Secretary) and Matt Rodda (Shadow Minister for Buses) released a new Labour analysis of Government figures, which reveals that since 2010 bus passenger numbers have collapsed in the North and the Midlands, falling by 7 million a year both in the North West and in the East Midlands, by 5 million in Yorkshire and the Humber, by 4 million in the North East and by 3 million in the West Midlands. Released for Catch the Bus Week, the figures show that nationally, the number of bus routes is projected to fall by nearly 5,250 by 2022.

In Northants Andy McDonald and Matt Rodda met with residents and Councillor Arthur McCutcheon to highlight cuts to bus services across the town and county. Northampton is set to lose another ten bus routes that service the town by the end of this month, as cash-strapped Northamptonshire County Council announced further removal of subsidies.

Since 2010-11, when the Conservatives came to office, there has been a net reduction in funding of £172 million from supported bus services in England, a reduction of 46 per cent. But meanwhile fares have risen 13% above inflation. Partly as a consequence, bus travel is at its lowest for a decade.

While passengers suffer, operators continue to make enormous profits. English bus operators have made a total of £3.3 billion in profit since the Tories came to power in 2010. 

Under the next Labour government, local authorities will be able to take back control. Councils will have the choice to regain regulatory powers so that they can set the fares, routes, and timetables that will put the needs of communities ahead of corporate interests. 

Andy McDonald MP, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, said:

“The Tories said deregulation would improve our buses but they are running the bus services into the ground. Passengers now face a toxic mix of rising fares, cuts to services and reduced access. Meanwhile, private companies are coining it in with growing profits.

“Buses are consistently ignored because the political class don’t use them. But for tens of millions of people, especially those outside the capital, they are vital, and very often they’re the only mode of public transport available. That’s what makes the Tory attack on buses so appalling.

“Enough is enough. Labour will rebuild our bus services. We will give councils the freedom to run first class bus services which the public are proud of.”

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, said:

“Under this government, bus services are in crisis.

“A bus pass isn’t much use if there isn’t a bus.

“It will be a Labour government that saves the bus services and a Labour government that gives free bus travel to under-25s.”

Ends

Notes to editors

Labour’s plan for Buses

Labour will overturn the Government’s ban on council-owned bus companies as part of a wider strategy to put the public back into buses and deliver affordable, greener, and accessible transport.  The next Labour government will:

• Create freedom for local authorities to form their own bus companies by removing this Tory Government’s ban on new municipal bus companies.
• Extend the powers to re-regulate local bus services to all areas that want them – not just to London and combined authorities with an elected mayor.
• Require all new buses to meet the low-emission requirements set out by the Government-sponsored Office for Low Emission Vehicles.
• Introduce a national strategy for local bus services, setting out objectives, targets and funding provisions.
• Require all bus drivers and staff at bus terminals to complete approved disability equality and awareness training, including mental and physical disabilities, by a specific date.
• Ensure bus services in England make adjustments for any disabled passenger on the bus including policies for priority wheelchair spaces
• Introduce regulations to designate and protect routes of critical community value, including those that serve local schools, hospitals and isolated settlements in rural areas.
• Introduce free bus travel for under-25s across the country.

Under 25s free bus travel

The move could benefit up to 13 million young people, helping them save up to £1,000 a year and will be paid for using money ring-fenced from Vehicle Excise Duty.

The next Labour government will provide funds for free travel for under 25s to local authorities who introduce bus franchising or move to public ownership of their local bus services. This will support and incentivise local authorities to create municipally owned bus companies, run for passengers not profit, which research has found could achieve annual savings of £276 million per year.

Greater use of public transport reduces congestion, air pollution and carbon emissions. Free bus travel for under 25s will help generate lifelong increases in public transport use.

·    Research (Stokes 2013) shows people who learn to drive in their mid-twenties rather than in their teens drive 30% less for the remainder of their lives: Stokes,Analysis relating to peak car, 2013

• The average cost of a bus ticket in England is £1.94. Accordingly, if a young person takes the bus every day, under Labour’s policy they could save £1,000 annually.
• Labour has estimated the cost of the policy at £1.4bn per year at the end of a five-year Parliament. This is based on bus use statistics from the National Travel Survey; projections on how soon different authorities would be able to implement franchising or municipalisation; and estimation of elasticity of demand to reduction to zero fare on a similar basis to that used to reimburse bus operators for statutory free travel for older people under the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme.
• The policy will be funded through Vehicle Excise Duty revenues and would equate to 21% of VED revenue, which is forecast to be £6.7 billion in 2021-22. National Travel Survey , HMT, Autumn Statement 2016, Cm 9362, 23 November 2016, Table C.5, p58
• VED revenue is scheduled to be hypothecated to a new Roads Fund from 2019-2020 to be spent on road building. Labour would widen this hypothecation to create a Sustainable Transport Fund and use its National Transformation Fund to invest in road building.
• Due to Tory bus cuts, the network has shrunk to a 28 year low, and patronage is at the lowest level in a decade.
• The average number of bus trips made by young people up to the age of 25 has been in overall decline during the period that the Tories have been in Government.
• The average number of bus trips made by young people above the age of 21 has dropped by almost 40% under the Tories.

Source: https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2018-02-01/126070/

Background

1.   Under the Tories bus fares have already risen 29 per cent, nearly three times as fast as wages. Between 2010 and 2017, median weekly wages grew by just 10.4 per cent.

2.   https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus04-costs-fares-and-revenue

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2017provisionaland2016revisedresults#average-earnings

3.   If fares continue to rise at the current rate, in five years they will have increased by more than half (53 per cent) since the Tories returned to power in 2010.

This data is based on Labour party analysis of DfT, costs, fares and revenue bus statistics, Table BUS0405 12 September 2017,https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus04-costs-fares-and-revenue

3.   English bus operators have made a total of £3.3 billion in profit since the Tories came to power in 2010

DfT, costs, fares and revenue bus statistics, Tables BUS0406 & BUS0402 19 December 2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus04-costs-fares-and-revenue

4.   More than £20 million (£20,211,586) cut from supported bus services in England last year - a nine per cent reduction on the previous yearhttp://bettertransport.org.uk/media/02-july-2018-buses-in-crisis-report-2018

5.   Rising fares and profit come at time of ever worsening service. Over the past seven years on average 480 bus routes a year have been cut according to the Campaign for Better Transport.

Campaign for better transport, Buses in Crisis, p7, 02 July 2018, http://bettertransport.org.uk/sites/default/files/research-files/Buses-in-Crisis-2018.pdf

6.   On the assumption that is over the period 2009/10 to 2015/16, this is an average of 480 a year.  At the current rate by the end of the Parliament the Tory Government will have overseen a reduction of over 5250 bus routes. 

7.   As fares have risen and bus routes have been cut, the number of passengers using local bus services in England outside of London has collapsed. There has been a reduction of seven per cent since 2010 and at the current rate that figure could reach 13 per cent by 2022.

This data is based on Labour party analysis of DfT, local bus passenger journeys, bus statistics, Tables BUS0103, 14 March 2017,https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus01-local-bus-passenger-journeys

8.   Higher fares and cuts to bus routes are particularly affecting elderly and disabled bus users. The number of elderly and disabled passengers using local bus services in England has fallen by more than 10 per cent (10.77 per cent), and if the current rate of decline continues until 2022, that number will have fallen by nearly 20 per cent (18.8 per cent).

This data is based on Labour party analysis of DfT, costs, fares and revenue bus statistics, Tables BUS0105, 14 March 2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus01-local-bus-passenger-journeys

9.   Under the Tories bus fares have already risen 29 per cent. Five more years of growth at the current rate means fares would see fares rise to 53 per cent more than 2010.

This data is based on Labour party analysis of DfT, costs, fares and revenue bus statistics, Table BUS0405 12 September 2017,https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus04-costs-fares-and-revenue

10.Bus fares have gone up by nearly three times as fast as wages. Median weekly wages grew by 10.4% between 2010 and 2017.

ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2017, 26 October 2017, https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2017provisionaland2016revisedresults#average-earnings

11.Research conducted by Transport for Quality of Life has shown that if buses were publicly controlled or owned throughout England, annual savings of £276million per year could be achieved: TfQL, 'Building a world-class bus system', 2016

12.These cuts are hitting the regions in the north and midlands particularly hard

DfT, local bus passenger journeys, bus statistics, Tables BUS0108, 14 March 2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus01-local-bus-passenger-journeys