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Transport (North-West)

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Longevity is required, and predictability of service as well: it must not be the case that there is a bus in the morning, but the next one is late at night. Some people want to go to Clitheroe, for example, to do some shopping, then come out again in two hours' time. They do not want to stay there for six hours, which makes things increasingly difficult for them. I hope that we will look at providing a network that would be a great boost to people who live in some of the smaller and more remote villages. If we want such villages to carry on and exist in the future, we must ensure that there is a transport lifeblood for them. The hon. Member for Chorley spoke about free buses for students, which leads me to something that really irritates me. Lancashire county council has this thing about youngsters travelling to the nearest school. As many hon. Members know, Clitheroe Royal grammar school is in my constituency. The parents of youngsters who pass the 11-plus and go to that school are clobbered if it is further away than the nearest school. They have to pay up to £600 a year for their youngster to use the bus to go to Clitheroe Royal. I should have thought that we wanted to encourage youngsters to excel in their academic studies. We should not penalise parents. If they have a couple of youngsters going to Clitheroe Royal grammar school, they have to pay more than £1,000 a year out of taxed income, which is not right. The suggestion was made to go halfway and allow parents to pay only the difference between the nearest school and Clitheroe, but the council will not even do that. It wants the parents to pay the whole amount for their youngsters to travel to school. I hope that the Minister will ensure that the parents of youngsters who go to school are not penalised, and that he will look at what the hon. Member for Chorley said about opening up the rail and transport network and allowing students as well as pensioners to enjoy the facilities. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Manchester airport in passing. I know that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate, so I shall conclude with this point. Manchester airport, which MPs in this Room all use or have used, is doing a good job, and there has been investment in it during the past 17 years. However, I am concerned about the number of airlines that are reducing and, indeed, withdrawing services from Manchester as a result of the recession. They are pointing to Heathrow and Gatwick and telling our constituents that they can go to London and fly from there to wherever their onward destination happens to be. Being good environmentalists—certainly all of us in Westminster Hall today are good environmentalists—I would have thought that we would want to ensure that our constituents, millions of whom use Manchester airport from a catchment area stretching from north Wales right across to Leeds, are able to look at Manchester as a point that they can go to, then fly direct to their destination, whether that is the USA, the far east or Australia. It is wholly wrong to expect those people to get into cars and drive all the way down to Heathrow or Gatwick. Indeed, a lot of the people who use the shuttles between Manchester and London are doing so to get on another plane to fly to their final destination. We should not just put all our eggs in one basket, seeing Heathrow or Gatwick as hubs, or seeing both of them as semi-hubs.