Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Roz Savage Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Member is quite right, of course. I am not suggesting that bus services should be only for profit. He will know that Essex county council has an enhanced partnership agreement; it has a relationship with for-profit providers, but has negotiated that it will pay extra for social journeys. He will also note that Essex has had more growth in its passenger numbers than any of the franchise operations. In particular, it has had more passenger growth than the Bee Network in Greater Manchester, the organisation that the Bill largely seeks to replicate.

The Bill has a deep suspicion of the profit motive and focuses on process, ignoring what the real purpose of the legislation should be. The House of Lords identified this lacuna in the drafting, and rectified it with a purpose clause, which was clause 1 when the Bill was considered in Committee. It said that the Act should

“improve the performance, accessibility and quality of bus passenger services in Great Britain.”

That is not a particularly high bar, or particularly onerous, because the Secretary of State merely had to have regard to those objectives. I would not have thought that was particularly challenging for the Government. However, it was too much for them, and they removed that purpose clause in Committee. New clause 34, which is in my name and that of the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), seeks to reinstate that very reasonable clause. It would ensure that when we discuss the improvement of bus services, at the front and centre of our minds are the performance, accessibility and quality of bus services, so that we put the passenger first.

This Bill, despite the explanations given by the Minister a moment ago, remains weak on protections for the disabled, the partially sighted and the blind. That was a huge concern in Committee. There has been a lot of concern about this in the disabled community—concern particularly focused on floating bus stops, and bus stops with shared use borders. I note that the Minister said that he is looking at having guidance notes on design, and that there should be a campaign to remind cyclists in particular of the highway code. I do not think that is good enough. I do not think a design tweak could be made to a floating bus stop that would provide partially sighted and blind users with the security that they richly deserve when using bus services. An educational campaign to remind cyclists of their duties under the highway code would not do any harm, and I suggest that the Government do it, but it would not be the solution in its own right. We have had warm words from the Minister, both in Committee and today, but we need action. New clause 28 would give the Government six months to prepare proposals to prohibit the creation of new floating bus stops. The Government appear to be deaf to the blind, and not prepared to take effective action on this point.

The Government are also being weak on protections for bus passengers more generally. We want legislation that puts bus users first, both as regards accessibility, which I have mentioned, and protection against antisocial behaviour. We are not asking much—we are just asking that the legislation afford bus users the same protections that rail passengers benefit from. The Government have an opportunity to support those objectives, and I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that that is the direction that they should take.

[Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to the need to provide for disabled bus users. My amendment would require local authorities seeking a franchise to take people with special educational needs into account, and to consult them and the groups that represent them. Does he agree with that proposal?

[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.