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Bus Services

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart) on securing the debate. Again, it is October, which seems to be his lucky month. I go back some time in the bus industry. I was joint secretary of the negotiating machinery in Scotland and was involved in the whole matter of deregulation as a trade union official in 1985. I sat in a room here for almost six months listening to the good reasons that the Tory Government at the time gave for deregulation. All that was promised for bus usage has not come to fruition. I am a realist, and I understand and respect that even in the Government’s 2000 White Paper on the 10-year plan they concede that bus patronage has been in decline for almost half a century. With my experience and knowledge of the industry, having represented the workers at that time, I know it was not all rosy before deregulation. On bus quality, the average bus in 1986 was 20 years old; today, the average bus throughout the country is about seven years old, so there has been improvement. I say that from a Scottish perspective, because Falkirk has one of the best bus building operations in the UK, and it supplies those buses and is a good employer. We should consider the trend during that period. It is not all doom and gloom. I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who described the position in London, because similarly in Scotland, bus use has increased. Throughout Scotland, it is up by about 1 to 2 per cent. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) has left the Chamber, but in Lothian, bus patronage has increased by about 26 per cent. since 1986. North of the border, many of the terms of the Transport and General Workers Union bus workers charter have been achieved. The average salary for Lothian Buses workers is £21,500, and they have maintained their final salary pension scheme. Throughout the industry, the two big players, First group and Stagecoach, have also maintained those schemes, so the picture is not all doom and gloom. We must consider the industry as a whole to work out the best direction to take. We are considering re-regulation, but we cannot do that in isolation. We must consider the reality of modern life. In 1986, when I worked in Parliament for six months, about 30 per cent. of households did not have a car. The figure is down to 18 per cent. That reflects some of the reasons why the bus industry has problems. As a past member of the Select Committee on Transport, I suggested that we should consider the modern household and a modern housewife with two children, one four years old and the other six. In one morning, the mother has to take one child to nursery and the other to school, go on to a dental appointment and then go shopping. Even in urban areas of Scotland, the task is impossible. In a constituency with rural areas, the task is well nigh impossible on buses. If the Government are serious, and I am told that they are, they must explain how it is possible for that woman to operate with the bus as her main source of transport, because I do not think that it is. Enormous investment will be required if it is to be achieved, and that is what I am interested in learning about from my hon. Friend the Minister.