Buses: Funding

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

In principle, I welcome today’s announcement on fares by the Government. Anything that helps to make bus travel more attractive and drives modal shift is to be welcomed. [Interruption.] Just wait—there’s more!

In Scotland, we have taken a different approach, and extended free bus travel to include every Scottish resident under the age of 22. The feedback thus far is that we are seeing a big increase in travel among those groups, getting them in the habit of taking the bus and normalising public transport. However, when it comes to real investment and spending on bus infrastructure, I am afraid the DFT is still lagging well behind. Of the 3,500 buses farcically claimed by the UK Government as helping meet their target of 4,000 zero-emission buses for England outside London, nearly a fifth are funded by the Scottish Government, over whom the Minister has zero jurisdiction. He is using the success of the Scottish Government and others to cover for their own failure.

Incidentally, four weeks ago the Secretary of State promised the House that he place a letter in the Library setting out the details of the pledge and of delivery thus far, but we are yet to see that letter placed in the Library.

In Scotland, ScotZEB 2—the Scottish zero-emission bus challenge fund 2—was announced just this week, providing another £58 million to further enhance and improve bus services across the country, including in my own constituency. This will bring Scotland’s zero-emission bus fleet up to about the equivalent of 8,000 buses in England. In contrast, of the 1,342 buses in England outside London claimed as funded under the ZEBRA—zero-emission bus regional areas—scheme, only six are on the road. If I looked out of the window of my constituency office in Renfrew, in 15 minutes I would see more zero-emission buses passing by, serving passengers and contributing to the net zero transition, than are actually on the road through this Government’s ZEBRA scheme.

Will the Minister do the right thing, unlock the logjam in the ZEBRA scheme in England and at least try to catch up with its success in Scotland, and will he confirm that every penny spent as a result of this announcement will be subject to Barnett consequentials to allow the Scottish Government to continue their investment in our public transport network—investment that builds for an electric future?

[Mr Holden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks, and I will address some of his later ones. On the Barnett consequentials—just to start off with that—all this money has been found within the Department for Transport. We are cutting our cloth without asking for more cash from taxpayers, which is exactly what we need to be doing in this situation.

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman concentrated on talking about the ZEBRA scheme, which is not really the topic of today’s statement. It is interesting that he did not mention anything else because the Scottish national party is obviously not matching our £2 bus fare right across Scotland, which is quite a surprise. [Interruption.] Only people under the age of 22, the hon. Gentleman shouts at me, have free bus travel. People do not have that in Scotland; actually, it has no £2 fare cap at all. That is something we are delivering this year and will be continuing to deliver next year here in England.

In fact, one of the major bus operators spoke recently about the crisis of buses in Scotland due to the Scottish Government’s

“mix of ill-informed emotion and political dogma”,

while failing to help them meet the needs of reliant Scots—

[Gavin Newlands]

Let’s hear the name.

[Mr Holden]

The hon. Gentleman can look it up online. I can understand why he would want to ask questions of us, but I think he needs to ensure that the Scottish Government get their own house in order first.