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Public Transport

To be fair to the Government, they have started to go along that track with their proposals in the Local Transport Bill. They will make it easier to bring in quality contracts and give local authorities more control over the type of bus operations in their area. We would go further than the Government are going, however, and I have tabled amendments to the Bill to try to achieve that, as the Minister knows. Collectively, however, we all have to recognise that the statistics that I have just given demonstrate a failure of bus policy over 20 years, and unless there are proposals to remedy that—such as those that we have put forward and, to some extent, those from the Government, though they are not enough—the failures, including decreasing patronage and increasing costs, will continue. That cannot be sensible. The report refers to integrated ticketing, which is an important issue. It is easier for people to use public transport if their tickets are integrated. They want to be able to buy just one ticket for their whole journey. Integrated ticketing also helps to avoid extra costs. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside rightly drew attention to the fact that people often have to buy multiple tickets, which drives up the cost of their journey. Even in London, someone who gets off one bus and gets on another has to pay again, until they have reached the ceiling on their Oyster card. The fact is that no real attempts are being made to make integrated ticketing work. Paragraph 1 on page 30 of the report states:"““Ten years after it expressed its commitment to promoting integrated bus ticketing, the Government has achieved too little of practical value. It is a nonsense that the everyday act of changing buses is still made unnecessarily inconvenient and expensive by poor ticketing arrangements. The Government needs to pay more attention to resolving these basic problems which penalise passengers and deter others from using buses at all.””" That is absolutely right, and the Committee is right to draw our attention to that point. However, I do not see much in the Government's response to suggest that they are taking it on board or that anything is going to happen as a consequence. The Government talk about the voluntary schemes which are working, including plusbus. They are indeed working, and I am glad that plusbus is there, but less than a quarter of rail tickets that are sold have any sort of cross-ticketing arrangement with buses. More than 200 towns and cities outside the metropolitan areas are covered by the scheme, which is fair enough, but there are many areas that are not covered. It is not sufficient to rely on local initiatives to make up the difference. It would take a very long time to achieve that, and the Government need to be more proactive in encouraging integrated transport ticketing, between rail and bus services in particular, but also between bus operators. I have to tell the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside that we have tabled amendment after amendment to the Local Transport Bill to try to make integration part of the thought process. For example, we wanted to make it a requirement for those involved in local quality contracts to consult Network Rail and the train operating companies, but that proposal was rejected by the Government, so our proposal to help to achieve integration was actually voted down by her colleagues. I hope that she will take that up with the Minister at some point. Integrated ticketing will be helped by the roll-out of smartcard technologies, and I think that we are all in favour of that. We have only to look at London to see what a great success the Oyster card has been. Incidentally, I hope that we will soon reach the stage at which Oyster cards can be used on mainline suburban rail services as well as on the underground. Not all train operating companies accept them, but I hope that that can be rectified before long. The fact is, however, that 78 per cent. of travel concession authorities do not comply with ITSO standards. By the end of 2008, only 5 to 10 per cent. of the bus fleet will be ITSO equipped. Therefore, we have a situation in which people who are being given smartcards cannot use them because there are no facilities for them on the buses. In an answer to the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer), the Minister said:"““We currently have no plans to require buses in England to be equipped with smart readers.””—[Official Report, 22 October 2007; Vol. 465, c. 17W.]" That is the official Government position, but I have to ask why there are no such plans. This is the way forward for dealing with all the problems that the Transport Committee has identified, and for getting justice and ease of use for the passengers who want to use the buses. I want to ask the Minister a direct question, and I hope that she will answer it when she winds up the debate. How much does she estimate it would cost to put smartcard readers on all buses? I understand that the Department for Transport has made a rough estimate of the cost, but we have failed to see answers to these questions so far. She doubtless shares our vision that that system should be rolled out, so, having given us an estimate, will she tell us how she thinks that the system should be applied to buses? In her judgment, who should pay for it?