Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [Lords]

I welcome the Bill. I know that it is warmly welcomed in North Durham, and in Durham in general, for pensioners and disabled people. The 11 million people nationally who will gain from its provisions will warmly welcome it. I am glad that the Government are now concentrating on buses. In the first couple of terms of our Labour Government, we have concentrated too much on capital incentive schemes—such as for light rail—in urban areas. We may have forgotten that the main mode of transport in many rural areas is the bus, and that buses are not a luxury but a necessity in those areas. I welcome the fact that the Bill will set up a national scheme and will, hopefully, do away with the various anomalies that the boundaries of counties and local authority areas give rise to. Although we, as politicians, understand those boundaries intimately, it is clear that local people cannot understand why they exist; they do not understand why they cannot catch a bus to wherever they want in the north-east, for example. Therefore, this concentration on bus services in rural areas is welcome. My constituency is a large rural area and, as I said, for most people who do not own a car, access to a bus is not a luxury but a necessity. The bus network is long overdue for change and the White Paper is a step in the right direction, in that it has been recognised that a degree of regulation needs to be put back into the system. The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) accused me of wanting to go back to the old situation of having to play musical chairs with various bus companies. I do not want that, but I do want local authorities and passenger transport executives at least to have some more power to direct bus companies. It is no good giving people in the county of Durham free bus passes if the local bus service is not there. Go North East has stripped bus routes out of my constituency in the past 12 months, leaving many communities completely isolated and without access to a bus. Although many elderly and disabled people in those communities will welcome access to free and concessionary fares, if there are no buses they cannot access the great benefit delivered to them by a Labour Government. I turn to a point made by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen). As we debate this Bill, we need to consider the extension of concessionary fares to other forms of transport in places where bus services are not available or have been withdrawn. In some rural areas, communities use taxi buses or other community transport facilities instead. The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) referred to the great use that is made of post office buses in his large rural constituency. I am not suggesting that we should have a network that delivers people all over the region, but we need one that delivers them to the major hubs, so that they can then get a bus or another form of transport into the major conurbations. I want the Government to look at that issue, please, and to extend concessionary travel to areas that do not have access to bus services because the market has stripped them out. I fully endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) said about the distribution of funds. Last year, Tyne and Wear passenger transport authority had to withdraw funding for well-established schemes that support teenagers and other disadvantaged groups in order to introduce a concessionary scheme. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) made an interesting point when he said that that led to a reduction in the transport footprint on Tyneside. The PTA had to cut services to pay for concessionary fares, thereby leaving the outer parts of west Newcastle, for example, without a bus service, so that had the opposite effect to the one that the Government wanted, which was to expand free transport and access to it. Sadly, when my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) had responsibility for such matters, the representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge and others fell on deaf ears. Hopefully, the present Secretary of State will look at the case that Tyne and Wear is making more favourably. I turn to the question of who has responsibility for concessionary fares—an issue that the Secretary of State mentioned when he opened the debate. The ludicrous situation in Durham is that, although the county council is the transport authority responsible for passenger transport in the county of Durham, responsibility for concessionary fares lies with the district councils. So last year we had the ridiculous situation in which seven district councils were potentially going to introduce individual schemes. Without my intervention, and the very vocal support of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), we would have had a silly situation in which people would have been able to travel freely within Chester-le-Street, but when they went over the border into Durham, City of Durham or Derwentside district councils, they would have had to pay a fare. Fortunately, sense prevailed and we now have a county-wide scheme. We also have a scheme that allows people to travel outside the area, into Tyne and Wear, but I take the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge made about people travelling from Tyneside into County Durham. I am pleased that the Minister announced that the issue will be reviewed, but I urge him to consider the point that it is no good giving the responsibility to district councils. It has to be a county council decision. People must also be told whose responsibility it is, because I can foresee squabbling between district councils. I hope that we will not have to wait too long before the Government abolish the district councils in County Durham, which would do us all a favour and we could have a unitary council for the area. The other issue is the national nature of the scheme. According to discussions that I and other County Durham Members have had with bus companies, they have difficulty through-ticketing with other companies. If the scheme is to be successful, people will have to be able to travel seamlessly around the north-east and nationally. I recognise the point made by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell from the Conservative Front Bench that we need a system that would allow that to happen. We envy the London oyster card and we need a similar system for the north-east or even nationally, so that pensioners could use their card wherever they went. However, the bus companies tell me that that would require some investment in technology. The hon. Member for Rochdale touched on another issue that needs careful consideration. In the negotiations on the scheme, the bus companies are playing councils off against each other. There are only five major bus companies now and we are probably not going to get a very good deal for the taxpayers’ money that we give them. In many areas, the big companies have monopolies with which others cannot compete, and when we discuss concessionary fares with those companies we need to strike a hard bargain. It is hard to agree with a Liberal Democrat twice in one debate—I am sure that fellow Labour Members will forgive me—but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the bus companies have monopolies and we should insist on some national minimum standards for them. Otherwise they will play councils off against each other. The other sector that we need to take into consideration is the smaller bus operators. Some in rural communities provide a fantastic job of providing small, localised services in rural communities. For example, Stanley Taxis in my constituency is a taxi firm, but it also runs a limited bus service. Such operators need to be taken into account when considering concessionary fares, because they are part of the transport network. I welcome the concentration on buses and concessionary fares by the Government, because it will help thousands of my constituents. Transport is not only about major capital schemes. Alongside this Bill, we need proper transport planning. The electorate in the north-east rejected a regional assembly, and I respect that decision, but we need some body in the area that can consider regional transport infrastructure and the planning of services. Such a body could deal with rail and bus services across the region. If there is to be a unified concessionary fares system for north-east England, we do not want County Durham to have a better deal than Tyneside, or vice versa, or for the scheme to operate differently in different areas. A single transport authority would be able to make a stronger case when arguing with and lobbying the bus companies—the monopoly suppliers. When I raised that point recently, I was told that it was the responsibility of the North East assembly. I am sorry, but I think the assembly should be abolished rather than be given more powers. However, there is a strong case for a single passenger transport executive or authority to cover the entire area. People ask what the Labour Government have done for us. The Bill is yet another example of the Labour Government delivering to 11 million pensioners. It is not surprising that the penny is slowly dropping among Conservative Front Benchers and they do not want to be caught opposing the good, popular ideas that Labour is delivering.