Public Transport Authority for South Yorkshire

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis]

So let us get detailed feedback from the Government as to why they did not want to put money into what was a detailed, ambitious proposal. A huge amount of time and investment was put into it; frankly, it is not the case that it was not ambitious. That is a ludicrous assessment of the work, and is actually pretty offensive to some very dedicated and professional officers who worked with local authorities and a range of stakeholders, including nationally and in the Department for Transport, with whom I think we have a good relationship. I have a lot of time for the Minister. He is good at his job, and I do not blame him or hold the Government entirely responsible for this decision. The answers to some of the questions that need to be responded to lie in No. 11 Downing Street. Why was it that the Treasury, having initially promised £3 billion, got us down to £1 billion?

The hon. Member for Rother Valley can seek to argue that our bid was not ambitious, but I will rebut that at every point, because it is not the case. A lot of good work went into it, based on the very good report that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) produced a while ago. A lot of time, energy and investment went into drawing that plan together. The decision taken by the Government was entirely political, and did not in any way reflect the quality of the bid.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I apologise for coming in late, Mr Hosie; I had a meeting that I could not avoid. My hon. Friend is right to mention the bus review, because an attack on these proposals is an attack on all the people who contributed to that review—the 6,000 people who told us what was wrong and what needed putting right. If the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) is going to make a serious contribution, does he not have to set out what, of the £400 million or more that was bid for by the combined authority, he thinks was excessive; which bits he would have taken out; and how much he thinks it would have been realistic to bid for? That is what we need to hear; not vague accusations that the bid was too much on the one hand, and that it was not ambitious enough on the other hand.

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. For the remainder of my term—which, admittedly, is a pretty short period of time—I am very happy to sit down with the hon. Member for Rother Valley and go through the detail of the bid that we submitted. The hon. Member has chosen today to make these points; he has not come to me previously. I routinely brief local Members of Parliament, and I have not seen the hon. Member at any of those meetings. It is only today that he takes the opportunity to raise these points.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I will be very brief, Mr Hosie; I thank you for allowing me to contribute briefly.

I support what my hon. Friends have just said. First of all, in a cross-party way, I absolutely support franchising. I was critical of the Labour Government in the noughties, when I thought they should have moved faster on that. The Local Transport Act 2008 was not sufficient to give authorities the real powers they needed, and the current transport legislation is an improvement. It gives the powers to mayoral combined authorities—although I think it ought to also give powers to other transport authorities—but the problem is that it is no use giving authorities Transport for London powers without Transport for London money. It just will not work.

Franchising can help, and taking buses back into public control was clearly supported by the people we consulted as part of the bus review. However, it does not, of itself, improve the service. It can do a little bit, in moving the resources around into a more efficient and effective way—by moving some buses from oversubscribed routes to routes that do not exist at all, in some cases, because they have been removed completely. However, in the end, with companies such as First Bus in Sheffield, which loses money, there is no way to manoeuvre the routes to get better services from companies that are losing money without putting extra money in.

That is the fundamental issue. If we are to do anything more with franchising, other than having a different way of organising the buses, and to have a way of improving bus services, then it requires extra money from Government; and I do believe that if money is put in, it should be put under the transport authority’s control. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) to lobby his Ministers.

If we are to deliver the sort of bus services that we want, with a service where the public are in control of their own public services, through franchising, we need that extra resource from Government. It is as simple as that. Without it, there will be failure, and a lot of upset and discontent among our constituents.