Bus Industry

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bradshaw for tabling this topic for debate this evening, not least because it has enabled us to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Marland, who I hope will become a regular member of the small but perfectly formed transport mafia in your Lordships’ House. I assure him that he need not worry about making faux pas; we make them all the time. Genuine mistakes are always treated in this House with patience and courtesy. Any consideration of transport policy must include some serious thought about buses. Of all the journeys that take place by public transport, 65 per cent will take place by bus—although you would not know that if you simply went by media coverage, which is almost entirely focused on the railways. If one is looking to change travel behaviour and transport patterns in an area, the bus provides a far cheaper and quicker solution to the problems than more expensive longer-term alternatives such as rail or metro systems. In his introduction, my noble friend touched on some of the structural reforms necessary to make the bus industry work better, but I have other points to make. Buses still suffer entrenched negative attitudes and we need to work very hard to change that. On that topic, the noble Lord, Lord Snape, rather mischievously misrepresented my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, who, in this House, has consistently pointed out that the failure of deregulation has been that it has not provided the competitive provision of high-quality bus services. No one on these Benches will argue that there is any place for emission-belching buses, driven by nicotine-emitting drivers, with or without tattoos. One of the most visible forms of that negative attitude is the relative scarcity of a proper network of bus lanes outside London and a handful of towns and cities. As road space becomes more congested, it makes sense to use it in the most efficient way, and buses, when fully utilised, are the most efficient way of using road space. Reallocating road space will make its use more efficient, will speed up journey times and will send out the message that the bus is the favoured means of travel within urban areas. However, in this country, we do not see much priority for buses. As other noble Lords have mentioned, that is largely because of the division of transport responsibilities that exists in many areas. In London, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the mayor has control of most of the transport policy levers. He was able to introduce congestion charging because he was in a position to deliver the improvements to the bus network that were needed. Bus use is increasing in towns and cities where there is investment in bus priority because the unitary council has control over the whole package or, in areas such as Nottingham, because the city and county councils have worked together and have a set of shared objectives. Together they have been able to give bus operators confidence in investing in the fleet. PTAs have been slow to develop quality partnerships, for which they have been criticised. However, to a large extent they are not able to deliver their side of the bargain because they do not have control over the highway network, which remains in the hands of the constituent local authorities. Certainly, if road-user charging is to happen anywhere outside London, the relationship between bus provision and the highway powers must be addressed. Government must play their part, too. They have been very slow in implementing bus lane enforcement regimes. How often do we see bus lanes, which have been created in the teeth of much local opposition, rendered virtually useless by the constant presence of parked vehicles?