Local Transport Bill [Lords]

Sorry, I did not spot the right hon. Gentleman. His contribution was more than half an hour long, but was based, as far as I could see, entirely on the view of the motorist, and he cited a range of motorist organisations. Apart from making a plea for historic vehicles not to have to be adapted for wheelchair access, he made no mention of other public transport in his constituency. That says an awful lot about the priorities of Opposition Members. We have, however, heard some excellent speeches from some of my hon. Friends. That is because many of them recognise that public transport is a key factor in social inclusion and something that we must tackle if we are to address poverty and exclusion. That is certainly a factor in my constituency and in the Bristol conurbation as a whole, where congestion is a problem and road traffic is among the slowest in Britain. I have seen figures cited for the average speed of between 13 and 16 mph, but anyone who travels through Bristol in the rush hour will know that that is incredibly optimistic. Indeed, anyone who can manage 3 mph is doing quite well. We have also suffered from overcrowded and overpriced commuter rail services. A deal was recently reached with First Great Western to try to move that forward, but people who use the service to get to work in Bristol have faced serious problems. We also have an underused local branch line—the Severn Beach line—running through my constituency, which has suffered from endless cancellations. Somebody who misses the 5.30 am train and has to wait for the next one at 6.30 am will suffer incredibly and might lose their job. Thankfully, more frequent services are being introduced in May, but there is a lot of ground to be made up. The issue that I receive the most complaints about are the unreliable, overpriced and shabby bus services. It is no coincidence that my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) and for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) talked eloquently about the problems with bus services in their constituencies, because FirstBus runs the services there as well as in Bristol. I hope that the measures in the Bill will be able to address the problem. Unless we can sort out the public transport system, things will eventually just grind to a halt in Bristol. There is already a concern about businesses not wanting to be located in certain parts of Bristol, because it is impossible for people to get to work on time or even to get to work at all because of the cancellation of some services. People going to meetings spend a huge amount of time sitting in traffic jams. Business West is supportive of some of the measures in the Bill, because it hopes that they will address those issues. Employment is another key issue. We have a big regeneration project in the centre of Bristol called Cabot Circus, which will create about 4,000 new jobs. I hope that those jobs will be filled by people from the deprived inner-city wards that I represent and from some of the wards in Bristol, South which have comparatively high unemployment rates, too. However, as some of my hon. Friends said, unless people can be sure that they will be able to get to work on time and that there are bus services to the areas where they live, they will find it difficult to take up those jobs and to keep them. FirstBus's punctuality rate in the last period for which statistics are available, up to October-November 2007, is 80 per cent. That just is not good enough, because I would imagine that most of the 20 per cent. of occasions when FirstBus is not punctual are during peak times, which is when congestion is worst. The Government have a drive to get more lone parents into work when their children reach a certain age, which I support because we want to tackle child poverty. However, the Select Committee on Work and Pensions has just published a good report on that, and all the evidence shows that the issue for lone parents is not finding work in the first place, especially in Bristol, where there are some 10,000 vacancies in the economy. Rather, the issue is what is known as churn—people entering jobs but not being able to keep them. Sometimes that is because of the hidden costs associated with the jobs—for example, losing the right to free school meals or free prescriptions, but the cost and reliability of transport are also major factors, particularly for parents with child care responsibilities. They need to base their working lives around getting the kids to school on time, getting to work, then making sure that they are back at the school gate at 3.30 or 4 o'clock. Too many lone parents to whom I have spoken are finding that, because they cannot rely on the bus service, they are having to get cabs as a last resort. If they are working for not much more than the minimum wage, having to find a cab fare once or twice a week can make the difference between being better off in work—and being able to keep that employment—and deciding that they would be better off on benefits, despite all the associated long-term poverty that that would bring. I also want to mention a minor point about which I have received a number of complaints in my constituency. FirstBus has now introduced a no-change policy on its buses. If the bus driver did not have enough float to give a passenger the correct change, the passenger used to be able to use their ticket to claim the change from another driver or use their ticket on another service. I am not quite sure how the ticket was earmarked to show that they were owed that money, but they were able to claim it back in that way. FirstBus has now introduced a policy whereby the passenger has to go to a travel shop within a week to claim the money that they are owed. So if someone with child care responsibilities who is juggling a busy life pays for a £1 bus fare with a £10 note, and the driver is unable to give them change, they will have a week to go into the city centre to claim back the money. That is effectively taking the money out of their pocket, and they will also have to incur extra costs by going to collect their change. I have written to FirstBus about this, as I believe that that policy needs to be challenged. My hon. Friends the Members for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) and for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) mentioned concessionary fares for young people. Representatives of the Youth Parliament and the Youth Cabinet in my constituency, and in Bristol as a whole, have also lobbied me about that matter, and I hope that it is something that we can investigate further. Some good progress has been made. We are considering a package of showcase bus routes in Bristol, and one that has recently opened runs through my constituency in east Bristol. The Department for Transport has earmarked about £42 million as a contribution towards the project. If all the proposed showcase bus routes across the West of England partnership area—not just in Bristol—come on track, there will be 35 to 40 new bus routes, which will make a major difference. However, a lot more needs to be done. This all hinges on the issue of integrated and strategic leadership. That is why I believe that the provisions in the Bill on integrated transport authorities are so important for such places as Bristol. If we look at all the things we could do to improve transport, we find that most of them will be very difficult to achieve unless the four local authorities that work together on the local transport plan can do so in a much more co-ordinated way than they do at the moment. For example, a long time ago, there were plans for about 19 park-and-ride schemes around the outskirts of Bristol. Obviously, Bristol would have been the beneficiary of those schemes, in that the congestion there tends to be the result of people travelling into the city to work, to shop or for leisure activities. However, it was impossible to get the agreement of the local authorities that surround Bristol to base the park-and-ride schemes in those areas. In the end, about three schemes were established before the whole thing ground to a halt. If those four local authorities could work together in a more co-ordinated way, there would be a significantly greater chance of setting up more of those schemes. We also need to try to achieve a significant increase in rail capacity, once the current problems with the franchise have been sorted out. Most people accept that the franchise that was entered into when First Great Western won the bid met the current demand but did not anticipate future demand. I believe that there is a lot of latent demand, and that if we run better rail services and increase capacity, many more people would be prepared to use the trains than is the case at the moment. The most important issue relates to buses, however. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough and, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) spoke of the advantages of having a transport authority that could introduce improvements to bus services. Bristol has certainly reached the stage at which a quality partnership or, probably, a quality contract will be the solution. It is quite clear that deregulation has not worked; I get more complaints about bus services than almost any other local issue. If we can move towards having an integrated transport authority for what is known as CUBA—the counties that used to be Avon—we can start to look at how we can exert more control over our bus services. Let me finish by dealing with congestion charging. I occasionally receive letters from constituents complaining about the possibility of such charging and my past support for it. The authors of every one of those letters have in common a lack of faith in the public transport system, which is why they insist on their right to use their cars. There is always the problem of whether we are putting the cart before the horse, but the money raised from pilot schemes dealing with hypothecation can be put into improving public transport. That is a really good move, but we also need to ensure that some of the money comes through for things like the showcase bus routes first. Unless we have done something significantly to improve the bus services as well, when we start charging people it will cause a huge amount of resentment. Finally, on the two issues of the integrated transport authority and road charging, many business groups in my constituency are certainly very supportive, as long as the policies are implemented properly. As the Bill passes through Parliament, I hope that it will give us the power to take action on both those fronts.