Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Marie Tidball and Jerome Mayhew

Report stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Lady will know, from reading the Hansard of Committee proceedings, what time and effort the official Opposition put into supporting the aspiration to have increased accessibility across disability and special educational needs, so I am very supportive in principle of her amendment’s aims.

I have addressed accessibility, but what about pricing and increasing bus usage? We know from our experience of operating bus services over the past decade that price is one of the biggest factors affecting patronage. In the previous Administration, the Conservatives put forward a £2 bus fare cap, and it was enormously successful. Apart from anything else, it was hugely popular, but it also aided the recovery from covid, and in getting people back out and about. It was particularly useful for younger passengers; it helped to build their confidence and get them back on the road to recovery. In the run-up to the last election, the continuation of the £2 bus fare cap for the duration of this Parliament was a Conservative manifesto commitment. What was Labour’s response to that? Its first act on coming into power was to put the price up by 50%, from £2 to £3. To accompany that, there was a perverse claim that that was actually a price cut. One does not need to be an economist at the Bank of England, or even from the accounts department, to work that one out. Experience of customer complaints would be enough to enable a person to see that a price rise from £2 to £3 is exactly that: a rise, not a cut.

[Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

I’ll tell you what kind of cut is unacceptable—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Tidball]

My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the only unacceptable cuts were those made to buses by the Conservative Government? In my constituency, 53% of buses were cut.

[Jerome Mayhew]

That does not take away from the overarching point that Labour has increased bus fares by 50% and described it as a price cut, which was disingenuous in the extreme.

We need to understand the impact of Labour’s price rise on ridership, and in particular on social accessibility. That understanding will inform behaviour, and should inform good policy for the future, but the Government have their head in the sand. Amendment 23, also in my name, would require the Secretary of State to conduct an assessment of the impact of ending the £2 bus fare cap on passengers’ ability to access socially necessary local services. That proposal was initially inserted in the other place, with wide support from a number of parties, but again, the Government decided to remove it in Committee. They need to own the consequences of their decisions. Last year, Transport Ministers needed to find money for an unfunded pay rise of 15% for ASLEF train drivers. Where did they get the money? Their first choice was to go after bus passengers, and their second was to go after pensioners.