Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 1st July 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Jerome Mayhew]

I agree with everything that the hon. Member for North Norfolk said. As I hope I made clear in my opening remarks, this would undoubtedly improve the service provided not just for people with disabilities but for all of us. I will not speak to amendment 43, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Battersea; others may wish to do so.

Amendment 55, tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, would require relevant bodies to support the development of training programmes for relevant staff, which must address the content of disability guidance issued by the Secretary of State. The training would have to be made available to bus operating companies. I support the intention behind the amendment, as guidance alone will not deliver accessible infrastructure unless staff understand and implement it. Training will help to embed best practice among bus staff and improve disabled passengers’ safety and confidence. There is again a “but”, though.

One reason to hesitate is money, but there is also a lack of detail about training providers and the additional financial burdens on local transport authorities. Where will the money come from to conduct the training in franchise bus systems? We have already seen how costly franchising alone can become, with the Bee Network. I would love to have another crack at those numbers and get the Minister finally to admit that he is wrong and I am right, but I will not, as I have tried it three or four times already. The amendment would add even more financial burden on local transport authorities, with a lack of detail about funding.

Clause after clause, we are seeing, first, how expensive the proposed changes are, and secondly, how financially risky they are. Those are two different things. Something can be expensive but the risk is adopted by another organisation, or it can be expensive and the risk lies with the taxpayer. The Bill as a whole, and these clauses in particular, create more financial risk for the taxpayer, particularly in local transport authorities, and a more expensive process, because all these good things are expensive. We want to achieve all of them, but we are not seeing Government money following their ambition.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

I am grateful to the shadow Minister for highlighting the cost risk for local authorities. He referred to the greater risk for small local authorities, of which my own Isle of Wight council is a very good example. It is dwarfed by other transport authorities, and on cost risk alone would be unable to make use of the so-called freedoms in the Bill.

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is quite right, but in partial defence of the Government’s position, they are not requiring a change; they are facilitating a change should a local authority choose to go down the franchising route. None the less, concerns remain, and my hon. Friend is quite right to highlight them. Many local authorities will wish to pull the levers of state, and this looks like a shiny new lever. They are being led by the charismatic mayoral combined authorities—well, charismatic to some; I couldn’t possibly comment. Transport for Greater Manchester is now being followed by Liverpool and Transport for West Midlands. Those are the trailblazers. They are all going for what we have described as full-fat franchising.

I am concerned that for many local authorities, being seduced by this new opportunity, as they might see it, will be a terrible mistake, and they will come an absolute cropper. Think of the cost of running a franchise service: even if a local authority has not created a municipal bus company and is just contracting out the franchise services, the commercial risk stays with the local authority. That could easily bankrupt a local authority of the size of the Isle of Wight. It is a very significant concern, and my hon. Friend is right to raise it.

Amendment 30 was tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion, who is not in her place. The amendment would, in clause 30, after “place” insert

“from the surrounding area and from the nearest stopping place in the opposite direction on any route”.

When we consider the usability of a bus stop, whether it is a floating bus stop or a shared use bus stop boarder, we should have it in mind that that the vast majority of people who take a but journey will want to come back in the opposite direction. The interrelationship between the bus stop on one side of the road and the bus stop on the other is important. The amendment highlights that and includes it in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

Where boarding a bus once meant stepping from the pavement into the vehicle, these new designs now ask passengers to cross an active cycle lane to reach an island stop, relying on the good will of cyclists to be cautious and to stop as and when required at those crossings. We have to accept that often that simply would not happen. As I have previously said, Guide Dogs, the RNIB, Transport for All and a host of other disability rights organisations have warned us in good time, for the opportunity to improve the Bill is now, that these bus stop designs are not merely problematic—a tweak will not suddenly make them okay—but inherently flawed. The design is inherently inaccessible and dangerous.

[Joe Robertson]

Does the shadow Minister agree that it is slightly ridiculous to expect cyclists to be able to recognise that somebody disabled is seeking to cross a cycle lane? That seems to assume that people with disabilities are instantly recognisable, which is a very old-fashioned view of disability. It is plainly ridiculous to expect cyclists to make such a recognition. It is bad for them as well as being plainly bad for people with disabilities.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful for that intervention; my hon. Friend is right. I do not want to demonise cyclists. Cyclists are not out there actively trying to mow down pedestrians seeking to cross at floating bus stops; they are doing their best in the vast majority of cases, but we have created, with the best of intentions, a conflict between foot passengers and cyclists. I would submit that we have the balance of convenience wrong, and we should be brave and bold enough to admit where we have made a mistake and should take effective steps to improve the situation.

Floating bus stops are inherently inaccessible and dangerous. They compromise the safety of people with visual impairments, who potentially cannot see or hear cyclists. They confuse wheelchair users and those with mobility impairments, who are put off using public transport. New clause 12 would strengthen democratic oversight by requiring proposals to be laid before both Houses of Parliament.

New clause 13 was also tabled by the hon. Member for Battersea; in her absence I shall set out what it does. The new clause would require the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of the safety and accessibility of floating bus stops and shared use bus boarders to be undertaken in collaboration with groups representing disabled people in England. I made clear in my earlier remarks the dangers caused by floating bus stops to the safety of disabled, partially sighted, blind and elderly people, and I support the new clause, as it would add further checks and balances to clause 31 and strengthen the Government’s stance on the issue.

The requirement on the Secretary of State to commission an independent safety and accessibility review and to undertake that review in collaboration with groups representing disabled people would not only help to ensure that the Government’s response to floating bus stops was evidence-based and centred specifically on safety concerns and the lived experience of people trying to use such bus stops, but accommodate consulting the wider disabled community, not just the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee.

New clause 40 was tabled by the hon. Member for Wimbledon and he will be delighted to hear that he has my support. I will leave it to him to rehearse all the details of the drafting, if he wishes to; suffice it to say that that the new clause would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review of all existing floating bus stops—not future ones, but the ones that are already there—and their level of safety, and to state the Government’s plans to implement necessary retrofits to ensure that they are fully accessible and safe. I welcome any amendments that add checks and balances to the Bill to help to ensure the safety of passengers and nullify the safety issues with floating bus stops. My new clause 47 accommodates the aims of new clause 40(2), but goes one step further by prohibiting any new floating bus stops after the day on which the Bill becomes an Act. I fully support the Liberal Democrat new clause.

Members will be delighted to hear that my new clause 47 is the last clause in this group, so I will sit down in a moment. Were the new clause to be adopted, it would do three important things. Subsection (1) would establish an immediate prohibition on the construction of new floating bus stops by local authorities—so we would stop digging. That is the first thing: we would stop making new floating bus stops. Subsection (2) would compel the Secretary of State to review existing infra-structure to assess compliance with accessibility and inclusive design principles—that is, to see what we have and to analyse it to see whether it is accessible. Subsection (3) would require a clear and public statement to Parliament setting out what changes would be made, what steps the Secretary of State would take to ensure that they were delivered, and what guidance would be issued to local authorities to support that work.

The new clause is designed to be a pragmatic response to persistent and credible concerns raised by the disabled community, charities representing blind people and elderly bus passengers who have to struggle with the safety challenges that persist with these bus stop designs.