Tabled by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to
extend the COVID-19 emergency funding for local bus services
beyond the end of March.
(Lab)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend , and at his request, I beg
leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order
Paper.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Transport () (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to confirm that a final tranche of
recovery funding for local transport providers, totalling over
£150 million over six months, was announced earlier today. This
builds on previous funding packages and will support transport
operators and local authorities responsible for bus and light
rail systems to transition their networks and adapt to new travel
patterns as we build back better from the pandemic.
(Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister accept that that has rather ruined
what would have been a coruscating supplementary on my part? Can
I ask her whether she should congratulate my noble friend on his perception in tabling
this Question in the first place, and can I tell her that this is
the first time in nearly half a century that I have received such
a positive response from any Minister in any Government? Perhaps
I may ask her to be specific as far as the West Midlands is
concerned. Can she offer some comfort to the West Midlands
Combined Authority, which estimates a deficit of £50 million in
its transport budget for the next financial year?
(Con)
I am always grateful to receive a Question from the noble Lord,
, but today it was a
particularly good one. We will be working with all the local
transport authorities as they not only put in place their best
service improvement plans, but also make best use of this
funding. We have service levels running at approximately 90%
while current patronage is approximately 77% and within that
there are some quite significant regional variations. For
example, we know that in the West Midlands people use buses more
than elsewhere. Particularly with the Commonwealth Games coming
up, we are very cognisant that we need to keep local transport
running.
(Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on today’s announcement
and the noble Lord, . Buses matter a great deal,
especially to the elderly and to poorer travellers. Does my noble
friend agree that we could do more with technology by drawing on
best practice and smartphone ticketing to link buses and coaches
to each other as well as to railway stations, trams and city
centres, thereby improving value for money and making public
transport more competitive?
(Con)
My noble friend raises a very important point which is at the
front of the mind of the department: how do we make the best use
of technology? It is not necessarily for the Government to step
in and develop the technology themselves. However, there are
different ways that we see various app providers being able to
integrate with multiple transport modes. What we can do is
provide them with the data they need for their apps. This is why,
a couple of years ago, we launched the bus open data service
which puts information out there in an open fashion concerning,
for example, routes, live locations of buses, and fares and
ticketing systems—the latter can sometimes be very complicated.
We hope to simplify that, and we think that the apps can
help.
(LD)
My Lords, today’s announcement is welcome. However, it would have
been even more welcome a few weeks ago because the bus industry
desperately needs to be able to plan ahead. Does the Minister
accept that the industry faces a perfect storm of declining
passenger numbers, rising costs and driver shortages? Uncertainty
over government funding was an unnecessary additional factor in
that. The industry says that it needs over £600 million in order
to recover from the Covid situation before we look at the Bus
Back Better plans. Does the Minister recognise that this figure
is needed?
(Con)
No, I do not. I have not heard the £600 million figure—that is a
fair amount. However, I have had numerous conversations with the
industry over the months and years during which I have been in
post. Some may call it lobbying, and it is very welcome. We have
good conversations, and we understand what the challenges are.
About 18 months ago I received many questions in your Lordships’
House about how we were going to take into account changes in
travel demand as we come out of the pandemic. That is exactly
what we must do now. Not every area is going to be the same;
there will be changes to patterns of travel. This money will help
us to make this transition to what a new future looks like for
the bus network.
Lord McLoughlin (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register as
chairman of Transport for the North. I welcome the announcement
which my noble friend has made today. Will she also give some
thought to bringing together all the different kinds of grants
made to the bus industry—be it from her department or from the
department for levelling up—to show the Government’s commitment
to the industry, while also saying that we must move forward with
best practice? We are already seeing that in many different
cities across the country.
(Con)
My noble friend is quite right. It is extraordinary how many
different streams of funding go into the whole bus network
system. This can be to the operators directly, or to local
authorities—some of which comes from the Department for Transport
and some from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities. I will respond to my noble friend with a letter
which draws this all together. It is a substantial sum of money.
Combined with some of the money we are putting into the
infrastructure of major urban centres—for example, CRSTS—there is
a lot of money going into buses, and we need to ensure that we
make the best use of it.
(Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that none of the emergency support or
recovery grants for buses has been taken out of the £3 billion
for buses and bus services by 2025 announced under the Bus Back
Better strategy, and that all the emergency support and recovery
grants are in addition to that £3 billion?
(Con)
The Government have committed to spend £3 billion over the course
of this Parliament, so I suggest to the noble Lord that, when we
get to the end of this Parliament, we do a totting up.
(LD)
My Lords, are any funds for buses and trams on Tyneside being
withheld until authorities north and south of the river agree to
form a single authority?
(Con)
Yes, there is the question of that; the Government are not
withholding the CRSTS funding per se, but we need the governance
arrangements to be put into place, such that we are able to
distribute that funding to them. We believe that discussions are
continuing well.
(Lab)
I am not sure of the latest figures, but it used to be that
something like 70% of the funding for buses came from the public
purse. Is it not time that we regulated the buses again to make
sure that the taxpayer gets value for money?
(Con)
To a certain extent, I think that is what we are doing, but
perhaps not in the way that the noble Lord would expect. The
requirement that we set out in the national bus strategy is that
every single local transport authority has to have an enhanced
partnership, which brings together the right people—the bus
operators and local authorities. Managing it from Whitehall is
definitely not going to work, but managing it from a local
authority level, where local authorities can provide local
services for local people in collaboration with bus operators, is
what we are hoping to see. We know that the enhanced partnerships
will be available in the early part of this year.
(LD)
Will the Minister give us an estimate of when the majority of
buses, particularly in city centres, will be decarbonised,
running on hydrogen or electricity, so we can get away from these
toxic fumes from large quantities of buses in city centres?
(Con)
I agree with the noble Lord. The Government are absolutely
committed to pump-priming the zero-emission bus sector. We have
£525 million in the kitty to deliver new zero-emission buses. The
noble Lord will have seen that the order for Coventry has gone in
for 130 buses, and we have announced £71 million for five other
areas, for 335 buses, and the orders will go in very soon. But
what is the point of all this money—and it is an astonishing
amount of money? It is such that we develop the market so that
the economics mean that for a bus operator it makes sense to
choose a zero-emission bus in future, because it is cheaper and
more reliable and provides the level of service that we would
expect.
(CB)
Do the Government believe that they have got value for money from
the very large grants to Transport for London, given the utter
chaos today, which has been met with something of a shrug? Buses
are unable to move because of many unnecessary cycle lanes,
London is generally in a very poor state—and no one appears to
care.
(Con)
My Lords, this Government really do care about what is happening
in London. I think that the strike today is unnecessary; it is
self-defeating and will damage the job prospects of those who
currently are working in what is, in general terms, an excellent
transport system. The most recent deal that we did with Transport
for London set out very clearly our expectations of the Mayor of
London, given his oversight of TfL, to bring forward its
modernisation programme, which totals £730 million, but also to
look for further savings of around £400 million. That is a lot of
money. How was Transport for London allowed to build up such fat?
