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Bus Services

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Bayley. It is good to be serving under your chairmanship for the first time. I congratulate the Transport Committee on securing this hugely important debate and on its excellent report, which shows just how much damage is being done to bus services up and down the country. The Committee's words have been quoted already, but they are very important. According to the Committee, the current situation is"““the greatest financial challenge for the English bus industry for a generation””" and"““some of the most vulnerable people in society, including the elderly, will be most affected by these changes.””" It is not hard to see why the Committee had to use such strong language. Its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), set out the key decisions by this Government that have led to half a billion pounds being cut from local transport funding in this year alone. First, the 28% cut in direct funding to councils has removed £95 million from local transport. Secondly, £223 million has been taken from funding for the concessionary fares scheme for pensioners, which threatens services that are viable only because of that subsidy; as a result, many pensioners are finding time restrictions placed on their bus pass. Thirdly, a further £254 million will be taken out of support for buses next January, when support for bus fuel costs is reduced by a fifth. Unfortunately, in their formal response to the Committee's warnings about the damage being done to bus services, Ministers have displayed just how out of touch they are about the impact of the cuts to local transport and buses, which are being made too far and too fast. In their response to the Committee's report—and, let us remember, after half a billion pounds has been cut from bus services funding in this year alone—the Government claimed that the bus industry was"““able to absorb this reduction without raising fares or cutting services””," even though the Committee report is clear that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) flagged up, the cuts will lead to:"““a disproportionately adverse impact on the provision of local bus services and the level of bus fares””." The scale of service reduction and fare rises was reinforced by a report from the Passenger Transport Executive Group on the impact of the spending review on bus services, which found that by 2014 bus use will fall by a fifth and fares will rise by 24% in real terms. In addition, the Campaign for Better Transport has found that the cuts have already led to huge reductions in services across the country, with one in five supported services being reduced and three quarters of local transport authorities planning to cut back on their bus services. Behind those figures lies the real damage that is being done by cutting our bus services so heavily. The cuts are hurting young people, who are already struggling as a result of this Government's decisions to cut the education maintenance allowance, treble tuition fees and end the future jobs fund. A million young people are out of work, and trying to get to places in education or to start working is made even harder for them when their local bus service is taken away. The cuts are also hurting older people, who find themselves isolated and cut off from family and friends because the bus service on which they rely has been taken away. During the general election, all political parties promised to protect free bus passes, but many older people are now asking what is the point of their free bus pass if there is no bus for them to travel on. Perhaps the most striking part of the Select Committee's excellent report is the evidence gathered from bus users around the country about the impact of the Government's cuts on their quality of life. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool rightly raised the plight of people in his constituency. I will add the case of Mr Turpin, a 65-year-old in Somerset who had a quadruple heart bypass but who now has to cycle every week up a steep and busy A road because his bus service has been withdrawn. These are not statistics that we are discussing; they are real people who are suffering real hardship as a result of this Government's decisions. Unfortunately, their stories are being repeated in towns and villages up and down England. In my constituency, the No. 60 bus in Ulverston is the latest service to come under threat, after just seven months of running unsubsidised. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) made a good point about the paucity of the so-called consultation processes carried out by the private sector. Bus services are being cut, communities are being left isolated and where buses remain the fares are soaring well above inflation. If the Minister wants to avoid being labelled the modern-day Beeching of the buses, he must tell us what he proposes to do about the damage that is being done to bus services. Can he say when the consultation toolkit being created by Passenger Focus for local authorities will be completed and rolled out? Has he started work with the Local Government Association to help community transport associations? Finally, will the Minister accept the recommendation made by the Transport Committee and by my own party's transport policy review that local communities and the transport authorities that represent them should be given a greater say in how their bus services are funded and provided? My party's policy review is clear about that. It is not good enough for Ministers simply to devolve the blame for their cuts to local transport funding without giving local transport authorities the power to manage their own transport services. The answer is not simply to enhance the voice that communities have, important though that may be; it is to put them directly in charge of the local decision making on transport. That is what we are calling for the Government to do.