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Bus Services

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I shall go into the matter later. There are good examples in London of how bus drivers’ shifts have altered and been made safer and better. That has also aided the retention of drivers. According to Transport for London, in 2000 bus drivers received an average of £18,000 to £19,000, but from my direct experience and contact with bus drivers during the key workers inquiry, I know that in many cases it was lower than that. Pay of £15,000 to £16,000 was normal, and that involved some creative accounting. In 2006, as we stand here today, bus drivers in London earn around £23,000 to £24,000 a year depending on their shifts and overtime. In addition, all bus drivers in London with at least one year’s experience have passed a BTEC diploma in passenger relations and disability awareness. All bus drivers throughout the country will have to do that under the European Union’s driver training directive, and we should encourage that to happen more quickly outside London because we have seen a huge difference. Transport for London is also introducing further training for garage staff and a higher level of disability awareness training for drivers. That has already made a difference in London. The level of service now lost in London because of staffing problems is 0.17 per cent. That is an all-time low and I suspect—I do not have the figures for other areas—that it is considerably lower than in other parts of the country. There is always more to do. Transport for London and the Transport and General Workers Union—my trade union—are considering flexible working practices, and I want to highlight an example that is local to my constituency. They are also pressing for basic improvements, including toilets and other facilities in those bus stations that still do not have them, better working times, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and no rest-day working, which I feel passionate about. In my youth, I worked in the merchant navy and back then, in the late 1980s and the 1990s, rest-day working was never sanctioned on board ship. As privatisation crept in, with the use of agency workers, rest-day working became the norm. I saw closely the effect that that had on people. I do not want to be on a bus with a driver who has worked on a rest day and is too tired to drive safely.