My Lords, it is a pleasure to lead the debate on the first Bill to focus on bus services alone. I know that many noble Lords are keen to contribute to this debate, for bus services are of enormous importance to local
people and their communities. They help connect people to education, jobs and healthcare, together with boosting our local economies.
Buses have an important role to play in our daily lives. Indeed, if we reflect on recent political history, being the son of a British Pakistani bus driver seems to be a sure sign of success. I was asked a similar question and, while I cannot claim to be the son of a Pakistani bus driver, I can certainly claim to be the nephew of one. For my part, my father started his career on the trains, so there is a certain transport connection across the board.
Bus services in the local community are an important lifeline for many, and in some areas they are working well. The latest bus passenger survey from Transport Focus, published in March 2016, reveals that overall satisfaction ranges across areas from 79% to 93%. However, in others there is much room for improvement. We want to increase bus passenger numbers; to help cities and regions to use better bus services to unlock opportunity and grow their economies; and to improve journeys for bus users. Passengers would like to know more about the services available to them, when buses will arrive and what the fare will be. This kind of information is available in London but varies across the rest of England. The Bill will provide the basis for such a step change. It also provides new tools for local authorities and bus operators to use to improve local services.
The Bus Services Bill is not about mandating any particular approach to the management of bus services. Nor does it impose wholesale reregulation. Instead, it is about enabling new opportunities, and giving local authorities new choices about how they can improve bus services in the interests of their residents.
I shall say a little here about the funding of bus services, as I know that many noble Lords have concerns about it. I recognise the financial pressures facing many local authorities throughout the country, not least to provide bus services, particularly in more isolated areas. That is why we devolved £40 million of the £250 million of annual central government support for bus services to councils outside London last year, so that they can decide for themselves how it is spent. It was a key part of our decision to protect this £250 million of funding in last year’s spending review. When all the central and local government funding for buses is added together, it comes to around £2 billion per year. Some £330 million of this support comes from local authorities to support socially necessary local bus services. In total, some 42% of bus operators’ income comes from public funds.
I am sure that noble Lords from across the House will join me in recognising the importance of reducing the budget deficit. Given our fiscal circumstances, no new additional funding is available for bus services, but the Bill enables local authorities to make better and more efficient use of the funds already available to them. It also allows local councils to influence the commercial bus services provided, which will continue to receive financial support directly from my department.
Before I talk further about the Bill itself, it is worth reflecting on the successes of the bus industry and how it has adapted and innovated in recent years,
particularly in relation to ticketing and accessibility. I am pleased that Arriva, FirstGroup, Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach are working to bring contactless payment to every bus outside London by 2022, with many areas benefiting sooner. Smart ticketing, whether on contactless cards, smart cards or mobile phones, can make journeys across transport modes much easier and speed up journey times. It also creates opportunities for new types of fares, which can make the bus a more attractive option for potential passengers. It is good that the bus sector is offering this to customers, and I want to continue to encourage the industry to work with government and local people to introduce products that will make bus travel easier.
I will also take this opportunity to talk about accessibility. The industry has done great things in recent years to provide buses which better meet the needs of disabled passengers, particularly under the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations. These regulations require facilities such as low-floor boarding devices, visual contrast on step edges, handholds and handrails, priority seats, and provision for passengers in wheelchairs. All full-size single-deck buses used on local and scheduled routes had to be fully accessible from 1 January this year, and all double-decker buses must be fully accessible from 1 January next year.
Our latest statistics show that 89% of buses operating in England already meet these accessibility requirements. This area of concern was raised by several noble Lords at the meeting Peers had with me and my honourable friend Andrew Jones, the Minister responsible for the Bill. Many bus drivers have now undertaken disability awareness training and it remains available to all drivers as part of their certificate of professional competence training. We are developing best-practice guidance on delivering disability awareness training and will work with bus operators to ensure that drivers have the knowledge and skills they need to provide disabled passengers with the assistance they require.
By giving local authorities a greater role, the Bill will improve the accessibility of local bus services even further. Both bus franchising and partnership schemes will allow new accessibility standards, such as talking buses, to be set locally in response to the needs of local communities. Local authorities implementing these schemes will be subject to the public sector equality duty. This means that they will need to continue to take into account passengers’ accessibility needs as they develop their plans.
On the Bill, as I have already outlined, the bus industry has achieved much in the last 30 years. The Bill is designed to build on that good work and ensure that the industry and local authorities are best placed to work together to continue to deliver for passengers. I will now set out the three key principles which have informed the development of the Bill.
First, I think we all agree that encouraging more people to use buses is a good thing. Buses are vital for the economy and for people, and they are vital in tackling some of the environmental problems experienced in our towns and cities. Last year nearly 42,000 local buses operated across Great Britain, catering for 5.2 billion passenger journeys—over three times as many journeys as were taken on the entire rail network. Of these,
4.65 billion passenger journeys were taken by bus in England alone. Buses provide ways to get to work, healthcare facilities, shops and so much more. For buses to better serve passengers in the future they must be reliable, affordable, accessible and environmentally friendly. Buses are most important to the vulnerable in society: the poorest, the young, the disabled and the elderly. That is why the Government are committed to providing local authorities with more powers over bus provision to ensure that services are designed and planned with local needs in mind.
The second principle is that we need to give local areas the best possible range of tools to use to reverse declines in bus usage. Outside London, bus use in England has decreased since deregulation, but this change has not been uniform. Some areas, such as Brighton and Hove, and Reading, have seen significant growth, while other areas, particular our large cities, have seen significant declines. Where bus usage has bucked this trend there is usually good co-operation between local authorities and bus operators, so the Bill provides new and improved powers to build on these successes. It also provides the ability for a step change in bus provision to encourage more passengers on to buses. We want to see better provision of real-time information, significant reductions in journey times, and partnerships allowing authorities and bus operators to work closely together on ticketing schemes and agreeing set standards for local bus services. Faster journeys and simplified ticketing will make travel easier, more efficient and more attractive in both rural and urban areas, giving businesses and workers access to new markets and opportunities.
That leads me to the third principle: devolution. The Bill supports local areas in their aspirations to make a better, more integrated and connected transport system. Local decision-making is key, and the Government are committed to devolution and the decentralisation of decision-making, as promised in the devolution deals already agreed with the likes of Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. These places have told us that they need greater choice over how local transport works.
I stress again that this is very much an enabling Bill. There is no compulsion on local authorities to change their local bus services if the existing working arrangements between operators and local authorities are already achieving good results. The need has never been greater to maintain and expand services and attract new customers. Severely congested roads, poor air quality in some places, rural economies struggling to survive and an ageing population are just a few of the compelling reasons why we need our buses.
Although I recognise that a lot of innovation and hard work is done by councils all over the country, I believe that the Bill will provide the range of powers that authorities need to achieve so much more. So the Bill contains several things, one being provisions on open data. The Bill will address passengers’ need for better information on their local bus services. People want to be able to make informed choices. The Government want to ensure that bus passengers have the same access to journey planning and real-time information as rail passengers and those travelling
across London, and the open data provisions will deliver exactly that. All bus operators will be required to make data on routes, fares and the operation of bus services open and accessible. This provision will allow app makers to develop products that passengers can use to plan their journeys and give people the confidence to take the bus instead of using a car.
Secondly, the Bill will introduce new arrangements for local authorities and bus operators to work together in partnership. Current partnerships between bus operators and local authorities appear to be working well in some areas and passengers are happy. However, we know that more could be done to improve services. Passengers stand to get an even better deal under the new partnership agreements, while the Bill allows operators to grow patronage and retain their commercial freedom. The market will remain commercial and deregulated.
The Bill will build on the strengths of existing partnership arrangements, removing the requirement that a quality partnership scheme must always involve new infrastructure. The new enhanced partnerships will allow local authorities and bus operators to agree their own standards for all services in their area—for example, setting emission standards to improve air quality or introducing common branding, marketing and ticketing rules over a wider geographical area.
However, partnership working may not be the appropriate answer given the specific circumstances of some areas, which may wish to pursue franchising. The Bill will give certain local authorities the choice to use new powers to franchise bus services in their areas. As with the system in London, franchising will provide local authorities with the ability to determine and specify the bus services to be provided in an area, with bus operators bidding to provide the services. This will allow local authorities to specify the services that passengers want and deliver an integrated network of services with co-ordinated timetables, ticketing and branding. This model retains the benefits of competition, moving it from “on the road”, where bus operators compete for passengers at bus stops, to “off the road”, where competition is conducted through a procurement process. These new powers will replace the quality contract scheme legislation introduced in the Transport Act 2000 that has proved both cumbersome and ineffective.
As I outlined earlier, devolution is a key principle which has informed the development of the Bill. But moving to a model of franchising is a big decision that is likely to have implications for passengers, bus operators and local authorities. Strong governance and accountability are key to making franchising a success, together with a strong commitment to improve transport across a coherent and sensible geographical area. Mayoral combined authorities will therefore have automatic access to franchising powers as they provide clear, centralised decision-making for transport across a relatively wide local area. One individual— the directly elected mayor—will take the decision to franchise or not and will be held accountable for it.
We also want to provide the potential for other local authorities to access franchising powers if there is a compelling case for doing so. Therefore, the Bill provides other local authorities with the potential to
access franchising powers. This is a two-stage process. First, Parliament will need to be content that it is appropriate for a local authority of that nature to have access to franchising powers. Individual authorities of that nature will then be able to apply to the Secretary of State for consent to start to develop their franchising proposals in detail. We expect such requests to be made through the devolution deal process, with authorities considering how better bus services could contribute to their wider plans for transport and economic development.
In every case where franchising is considered, local authorities will need to work closely with the operators in their area to manage the process in the best interests of passengers. This is an important decision for local areas to make, and therefore must be made on the basis of solid information provided in a timely way. Whatever approach is chosen, we want to ensure that bus operators, large and small, and the wider supply chain have as much notice of change as possible. So the Bill provides safeguards for any movement towards franchising.
The Bus Services Bill is designed to make bus services a more attractive proposition for passengers. It is about potential and creating opportunities. It is about better and brighter futures for local economies and connectivity across England. No single solution will work everywhere, and so we do not foresee a one-size-fits-all approach. Some local authorities may want to introduce newly integrated, uniformly branded networks of services, just as you see in London; others will want to build and improve on what is already there. This Bill is for all parts of England, from rural communities to metropolitan city regions. I am confident that the proposals it contains will improve bus services across the country as local authorities, commercial operators and local communities work together to provide even better services for passengers. I beg to move.
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