My Lords, in rising to move this Motion, I start by paying tribute to my predecessor as chairman of the committee, my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, who in fact chaired it during almost the entire period when the evidence was being taken that resulted in this report. Any credit due to the chairing skills involved in producing the report must therefore accrue to her and not me. I also put on record the committee’s thanks to its specialist adviser, Dr Simon Blainey, and to its clerk at the time, Dee Goddard, and her team. Dee left the service of the House shortly afterwards in order to relocate with her family to Yorkshire. She and her whole team were wonderful in supporting us as we did our work. It is also very good to see so many current and former members of the committee present and participating in this debate.
I am not proposing in these introductory remarks to give a comprehensive account of everything the report says, partly because it would take too long and partly because it would leave very little for other members of the committee to say, but we were all agreed on the importance of public transport in our towns and cities.
The Government gave a pledge when elected to bring public transport in towns and cities up to the standards in London. We understand that that is difficult, because London has a large amount of inherited infrastructure, particularly rail and underground, and a large concentration of people, but we wanted in preparing this report to see how the Government were doing. The brief answer is, not terribly well, but a large amount of that can, I think, be explained by the effects of the pandemic and in particular by an understandable fall during it in demand for public transport services, which has to some extent been sustained, so that demand now is lower than it was before. It looks as though that might continue for some time—nobody knows—but it presents a conundrum and a difficulty for the Government.
Let me come straight away to my remarks on one of the two topics I would like to focus on, which is buses. Buses provide two-thirds of public transport trips throughout the country and are vital in all our towns and cities. We know that passenger numbers grow if bus operators offer what is referred to in the business as a turn-up-and-go service: that is, a service of sufficient frequency—of about 10-minute intervals—so that passengers do not have to consult a timetable before they leave home or decide to catch a bus, and are confident that if they turn up at any particular time, they will not have to wait too long. After all, a 10-minute interval means an average wait of five minutes for anyone who is regularly using a service. A turn-up-and-go service therefore attracts passengers. However, the effect of falling passenger demand has in fact been a reduction in services.
I want to congratulate the Government on maintaining the support for the bus network that they provided during the pandemic and have continued to provide at a certain level since. We predicted that if that support did not continue beyond the end of this March—which, at the time of writing the report, is when it was due to end—there would be a 20% fall in bus passenger services. The Government continued their funding and that 20% fall has not occurred, but even so, newspaper reports tell us that there has been a 10% fall, and that is probably, in a sense, the new normal.
My Lords, I confess to having joined the Built Environment Committee as this report on public transport was being finalised, so my input was, at best, minimal.
I am sure that most people in this Moses Room use public transport at some time. I certainly do while here in London; however, my experience as a resident of a semi-rural area in Yorkshire makes me a rather reluctant user of public transport. My train journey from King’s Cross to Leeds, taking approximately two hours and 15 minutes, is generally very convenient, but what most residents in London do not realise is that, for most people living outside London, getting to and from the start of a journey is the most inconvenient leg of that journey.
My inconvenient leg probably highlights a number of issues that this report raises. My nearest station is a good 40-minute walk away. I can reach a bus stop with reasonable ease, but the buses do not regularly follow a timetable and there is no real-time indicator available to let me know how long my wait will be. As I mentioned, the trains from King’s Cross to Leeds run efficiently but, on the return leg of my journey, I often reach Leeds at peak times. All local trains are standing room only, and it is almost a case of choosing whether there is room on the train for my luggage to travel or for me to travel. If I return to my local station late in the evening, I arrive at a very dark, deserted and unmanned station. It certainly does not feel safe or comfortable for a woman—or anyone, for that matter—travelling alone.
All my comments so far may seem very flippant; however, they are meant to illustrate just how important good transport systems are in our towns and cities. We all know of the need for a thriving economy and to encourage more people into employment or to return to employment. Ease of public transport is an essential element in this endeavour. Many of our major cities are increasingly unfriendly to cars—if anyone has tried to drive in the centre of Leeds lately, they will know exactly what I mean. These hugely important travel-to-work areas no longer make much provision for car use, so public transport has to be a satisfactory alternative. As Colin Clark said in the Town Planning Review as long ago as 1958, transport can be the
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and speak in this debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for starting it off and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for finishing the report as chair. We also need to thank all those who gave evidence, written and oral. They were very interesting, long and useful pieces of evidence, which helped us come up with an extremely useful report—although I suppose that I would say that, would I not?
Let us be clear that public transport enables people to move around easily, quickly, safely and cheaply. It covers a whole age range—old and young, those going to school and college, as well as those with jobs and families. It affects everybody. How do we achieve that? The report speaks about the need for integration of modes and road space, which covers cars, deliveries, rail—suburban rail, anyway—buses and other means, such as scooters and things, which I shall come back to. But they need integrating in a way that includes allocation of space, costs and safety. I shall not say much about buses, because the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spoke about them, and I spoke about them in a debate just before the recess.
On space on streets, I spent a day in Paris last week cycling on a green hire bike and I was amazed by the changes in that capital city over the past few years. Many noble Lords have probably been there in times past and know that trying to drive through Paris was a bit of a challenge, frankly. You never knew where you were going, who was going to hit you, who you were going to run over and everything else. It has changed completely. They have banned most scooters, which some people think is a good thing. There were too many before. But what I found so interesting was that van and car drivers gave way to pedestrians and cyclists without any hassle at all, and they all obeyed the traffic lights—which, again, does not always happen. The Parisian authorities have managed to educate mainly their drivers but scooter and cycle riders too, as well as pedestrians, to behave and work together.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the committee on their excellent report. The noble Lord’s emphasis on the importance of the bus and the level of fares charged, and the difficulties caused by the bidding process for investment, all struck me as extremely important.
Noble Lords will be aware that I was not a member of the committee, but I have a keen interest in public transport issues and serve as vice-chair of the city regions transport APPG. As I said, this report is excellent. It identifies a range of very important issues that need resolution, such as block grants, the need for the infrastructure levy to support affordable housing, the importance of franchising, the importance of young people under the age of 40 to ridership and fare income, the need for better understanding of user priorities, and—as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, mentioned—the turn-up-and-go principle, which is absolutely critical to the success of public transport services. There is also a need for co-ordinated timetabling between different modes of travel.
It is good that the Government agree with many of the recommendations, and I hope the necessary action will be forthcoming, but complex issues are sometimes dealt with rather superficially in their response. For example, in paragraph 114, on integrating transport planning with strategic planning, the Government are asked to link the production of local transport plans with local plans. The committee is absolutely right to recommend this. I went to my files and found the strategic transport plan produced four years ago by Transport for the North, but which is still current. The paragraph headed “Spatial planning” states that Transport for the North
“wants to build a collaborative and constructive relationship”
with the 72 planning authorities across the north to
“ensure that the right sustainable developments, spaces and places are unlocked and delivered across the North…to support Local Planning Authorities as they develop their local plans and strategies.”
My Lords, as a member of the Built Environment Committee, I pay tribute to our clerks; to our previous chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her leadership; and to the current chair, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his stimulating overview of our report today. Like so many Select Committee outputs from your Lordships’ House, this report presents a cross-party, balanced, evidence-based case for sensible changes to current government policy.
I draw attention to the last of our committee’s five key recommendations. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, also drew attention to it. We recommended that the Government should formally link local transport plans with local authorities’ local plans covering new development across their areas. The committee found that transport planning and local planning were seldom sufficiently integrated, and, for example, homes were frequently being built without access to public transport.
In contrast to many other countries, our planning system does not have an objective of ensuring that additional housing is produced where the density of population will make public transport systems more viable. By opting for out-of-town new estates of low-rise houses—even if they are closely packed together—typical new developments in the UK create poorly served settlements which depend on private cars for journeys to work, school, shops and facilities. The Centre for Cities cited the comparison between Leeds and Marseille, which
“have a similar population, but 87 per cent of people can reach the centre of Marseille in 30 minutes by public transport, compared with 38 per cent in Leeds”—
well under half the amount in Marseille.
A 2018 report by Transport for New Homes reviewed 20 urban extensions and found that few were being built with links to public transport. As the Oxford University Commission on Creating Healthy Cities, which I was pleased to chair, noted in 2022:
My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak on this excellent report. I am very pleased to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Best, because he said all the things I would like to have said about the clerks, the support that we got in producing this report and the excellent work that our previous chairman, my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, did. I also commend my noble friend Lord Moylan for an excellent introduction of the report. He covered many of the topics that we highlighted and emphasised what the Government need to take out of our report.
I want to concentrate on one aspect which my noble friend Lord Moylan touched on, which is buses. Buses are a critical part of transport, particularly in rural areas feeding into towns. Trains and trams are very important, but they cannot get passengers without buses to feed people on to them. As my noble friend said in the phrase “turn up and go”, for buses to work they have to be reliable and predictable. Buses also have to be safe and affordable. It probably goes without saying that there are two ways of funding buses: one is subsidy and the other is fares. It is a movable feast depending on passengers’ use of buses. In other words, the load on the buses will determine how much subsidy is required.
Looking at reliability is critical for buses. The purpose of encouraging buses is to get people not to use their motor car. If you are going to get people not to use their motor car, they must have certainty that a bus will turn up when they get to the bus stop and certainty that it will get them to the end of their journey at a predictable time. This is a very serious problem with buses and for a lot of transport generally that uses roads. One thing that our report showed up was a big issue about space allocation on roads. For instance, we took some evidence from the Oxford Bus Company, which said that, because of the aggressive introduction of cycle lanes, buses are forced to go into the general traffic, with passenger cars and commercial vehicles, with great consequential delays to the bus service. It is important that we have a debate and that the Government look seriously at the allocation of road space for things such as cycle lanes, which may be virtuous in themselves but cause knock-on effects deleterious to the wider good for public transport. If cycle lanes are put in the wrong place and take up too much road space, they can cause very serious problems.
My Lords, I declare my railway interests that are relevant to this debate: I chair the Great Western Railway stakeholder advisory board and the North Cotswold Line Task Force, and I am president of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group. I am a new member of the Built Environment Committee, so did not take part in the inquiry whose report was published in November. I congratulate the committee on its excellent report and its new chair, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on introducing this debate so eloquently.
I support the report’s conclusions and recommendations, particularly those relating to bus services, which are of such importance to those in rural areas with no or limited access to private cars. I also support the call made in paragraph 132 for a clear statement from the Government on their policy on journeys made by car. There are many contradictions in national policy relating to car usage, and I endorse the evidence quoted in paragraph 128 from the Local Government Association stating that:
“Government ambitions about increasing public transport use make little sense when HM Treasury freezes fuel duty every year and cuts funding to public transport”,
and that from the Martin Higginson Transport Research & Consultancy, which states:
“A significant barrier is the unwillingness of governments, both central and local, to commit to policies that constrain car use”.
The briefing supplied to noble Lords for this debate by the Institution of Civil Engineers states:
“In the UK, transport is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions—27 per cent of the UK’s total in 2019—deriving primarily from petrol and diesel use in road transport. Passengers and freight need to switch to lower-carbon transport modes at an acceptable cost to the taxpayer, meaning the UK’s public transport networks will need to provide more journeys and carry more passengers in the future”.
My Lords, it has been my great privilege to serve on the Built Environment Committee during the period when this subject was considered. I add my appreciation of and thanks to our former and present chairman and our erstwhile clerk, Dee Goddard, and for the briefing that was issued just in the past few days. For those of us who find their grey matter displaced by the jumble of things added subsequent to a report such as this, it is very helpful to have that prompt. Much of the content to which I would have referred has been covered by others, and I am satisfied that the relevant material is more than adequately contained within the report, which I believe speaks for itself.
The report identifies a series of worthy and sometimes inspirational initiatives, with what I think would be generally accepted as Transport for London’s example being the gold standard, but we have been subjected to what might be called exceptional circumstances. There are not only the normal constraints—perhaps now the additional constraints—on public spending but the disruption to and changes in consumer usage caused by the Covid pandemic, with lasting effects on matters such as commuting, whether people attend their place of work full-time or part-time and what that means for land use and the applicable facilities. I do not forget that this is also accelerated by squeezed household budgets and the impact of daily commuting as a net-of-tax cost on people’s income. Nor do I overlook the fact that commuting travel time is often neither enjoyable leisure nor gainful work.
We also showed that the command structure is to a degree fragmented and is not monitoring outcomes adequately. Different departments operate in different sectors. Decisions may be made at departmental level, but with the onus for delivery and taking risk devolved to local government—never mind that it has fewer resources—and, in turn, to commercial transport providers. There are gaps in accountability between control of resources, responsibility for action and the concurrent duty to take action. Each segment has its own priorities, whether they be political, public finance, planning, operational risk and so on. The absence of integration between land use and planning, mentioned by so many other noble Lords, is extremely concerning, given the obvious synergies.
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As a country, we deserve to have a serious discussion about buses. Here, I refer with some admiration to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London, because he illustrates an approach that worked. Until the point when he became mayor, bus services had been in a state of decline in London; demand had been falling and services were not reliable. He succeeded in ramping up provision so that most buses were operating on a turn-up-and-go service. Demand rocketed and has been sustained at that level, although not recently during the pandemic. However, it came with a serious cost because the subsidy—that is, the difference between the fare income and the cost of operating the service—grew substantially. In his time, it was well on the way to £0.5 billion a year and is now considerably in excess of that. In large part, that was to do with the fact that the fares were set lower than was necessary. So in my view there is a trade-off between providing the sort of service that attracts passengers and a willingness to set fares at a rate that makes the subsidy manageable financially, which is obviously a consideration for the Government.
There is also the very sensitive subject of concessions. In London, approximately 40% of passengers were not paying a fare. There are, of course, statutory concessions for bus passengers—the Freedom Pass in London and the national bus pass scheme—but they are targeted largely at elderly people. A large number of voluntary and discretionary concessions have been granted that could be removed without amending the statute. At some point it is worth having a serious debate about how we are going to respond to the fall in demand, and perhaps today is the time to kick it off. Is it by cutting services, which in my view leads to a spiral of decline, or by ramping up services but controlling the subsidy, as I am calling it, through a combination of fares and more limited concessions? These are hard topics to face, but they are serious ones if we are going to look forward and discuss public transport, and buses in particular, in towns and cities in the coming decade.
The second subject that I want to concentrate on—the restrictions being imposed on the use of private motor vehicles in towns and cities—led the committee down some paths of inquiry it had not particularly expected to follow. While passenger demand for public transport has fallen, demand from local authorities for new public transport infrastructure has been rising. To some extent, this has been encouraged by the Government making funding available. I will step out of my main stream of thought for a moment to say that one of the issues the committee raised was whether the funding system is fit for purpose: in other words, whether bidding for government money in a competitive environment produces the best outcomes. Is it the case—the committee thought it might be—that bidding processes reward local authorities that are large and good at bidding, rather than those with a fundamentally good case for new transport provision? That is a point on which the Minister may well want to comment.
Where does this demand for new investment and infrastructure come from? From talking to highways engineers and local councillors in various places that we visited, it appeared that a lot of it came from the fact that they had set targets for reducing the number of vehicle trips in towns and cities and wanted the money not only to build the public realm in a more pedestrian-friendly fashion but for the transport infrastructure that would substitute for people using their cars. A target of 20% or 30% is found almost universally. When we quizzed the Minister about this, she said that this was not a government or national target but entirely a local matter. However, we inquired into why all the localities tend to come to the same number.
Those of us with experience of local government know that a lot of policy development takes place on the basis of what academics in the field are saying and what the professional bodies that represent that particular branch of local authority officers are disseminating. We discovered that the academic world was pushing strongly for this 20% to 30% reduction, partly on the basis of meeting non-statutory interim targets for net zero and partly on the basis that, if all vehicles become electric and the pollution and air quality problems largely dissipate, we will not have enough electricity to run them. These people have a vision of towns and cities with much more public transport, much larger limitations on car use and limitations on car ownership, because the electricity simply will not be available to run them.
However, there has been no real discussion about this. The Minister’s point that this was not a national policy, which I obviously accept in good faith, was controverted for me when my attention was drawn, only a matter of days ago, to the newly published Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) Vision to 2030, which is by a national body that reports to the Department for Transport and thus to my noble friend. On page 11, one sees that part of its vision for 2030 is for:
“Half of all journeys in towns and cities to be made by walking or cycling”.
It makes it slightly more difficult for the Government to say that they do not have a national policy on this if one of their executive agencies so clearly does. It needs to be flushed out and discussed. Does it command the support that policymakers think it might? If it does, why are they so reluctant to discuss it in public? Some honesty and openness on this would be very helpful.
I will not go on much longer, except to say that other topics we discussed included post-project evaluation, which we think needs to be undertaken much more seriously and in a much more determined way. This was the subject in our reply from the Minister on which we detected the most stickiness and defensiveness from the department. It is really not very keen on post-project evaluation, but we will continue to press on that.
Finally, we had a number of recommendations that I can summarise as “How to make public transport more user-friendly”, thinking about it from the perspective of the passenger. Examples include ticketing and timetables, better information and more integration of services, which we think the Government need to take in hand. There is also the issue of our rather fractured local system, with local authorities being required to adopt an enhanced partnership or a franchising model with local bus providers, which can make the situation more difficult. With that, I shall bring my opening remarks to an end and beg to move.
“maker and breaker of cities”.
Decarbonising the economy to reach net zero by 2050, adapting to the impact of a changing climate and achieving the 2030 sustainable development goals are, we are told, all crucial to the UK’s future economic and social prosperity. The public transport which helps to address these issues is a vital contributor to our future well-being.
Having spent 30 years representing five rural villages—some on remote moorland—on Bradford Metropolitan Council, I have concerns about appropriate public transport accessibility for such areas. I helped to instigate a “wheels to work” scheme for young people unable to reach FE colleges, apprenticeships and work because of the lack of appropriate public transport. The recommendation for local transport authorities to adopt either an enhanced partnership or a plan to establish a franchising scheme should contribute to alleviating this kind of problem. Also, the demand-responsive transport—DRT—trials taking place may show that this could also be of benefit in remote areas that are difficult to access. The BusMan Transport Consultancy has said:
“DRT has the potential to enable a public transport service to be provided in a sustainable way in small and medium-sized towns at times of lower demand”.
According to Transport Focus, a more open-data environment is needed to meet customer expectations. There is a role here for local authorities in managing data. Local and regional authorities can act as neutral protectors of sensitive data provided by operators. This will enable public authorities to ensure that appropriate data is available to planners of public transport services.
By 2050, one in four people will be over 65 and an ageing population will have an impact on the design and accessibility of public transport. Public transport will be key to the well-being of the elderly; without a reliable and suitable service, many elderly people could suffer from loneliness and isolation. Improving the safety of stations, bus stops and transport interchanges by ensuring that they are clean and well lit should be a priority for local and national government. Fear of unsafe places can deter the elderly and all vulnerable people from using public transport.
Local transport authorities have been expected to produce local transport plans every five years. In 2008, that requirement was removed, and 61% of authorities have not updated their plans since 2011. Those plans are clearly out of date and in many cases of no value. If new developments are to encourage public transport use, effective integration of land use and transport planning will be key. To help integrate transport and planning, the Government should link the production of local transport plans and local plans. Can my noble friend tell us whether that would be possible and whether there are plans for it to happen?
The report says:
“Public transport investment and objectives should focus on the factors which are most important to users: convenience, reliability, fares, punctuality, safety and frequency.”
If all the recommendations in the report were met, we would certainly have a world-class transport system.
I hope we could do this in future. I am sure that when she responds, the Minister will tell us that the legislation on electric scooters is imminent—even if she does not, I hope it is. As part of the legislation, I am convinced that there needs to be education here, not just in London but in many other cities, for cyclists, pedestrians and scooter drivers so that they all work together. It does not make much difference to the end result—you are still going to get there on time—but you will not have the hassle that we get at the moment.
There are examples in other cities as well, but the other issue is the cost of public transport, which the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also mentioned. We have seen evidence of what is happening in Germany, with very low-fare season tickets, and just last week, another batch of season tickets covering regional trains and buses was announced. Austria and Switzerland have done the same. Apart from the benefits of simplicity and flexibility, there is the benefit of cost.
We have to understand that getting around the city—or villages, for that matter—is an essential part of life. Having buses cancelled outside London is really serious for people. We must recognise that many of us, as politicians, rightly set out our experience of travel, but many people cannot do what we do because they cannot afford it. They cannot afford a car or to get there by other means. Apart from the issues of poverty and shopping, there is getting a job. We need some regulation in the bus sector to support the continuation of the whole system, as noble Lords have mentioned, rather like we have on the railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, many more people use buses than use railways, but we do not get the same policy input into them that we should.
Sadly, a vociferous minority of politicians and business leaders like to use their own motor transport to get around, and they would rather have extra road space for them, with the effects on charges, safety and pollution, than succumb more to what happened during the Covid restrictions, which I thought was a really good change to the use of road space.
I hope we can get back to a situation, that probably existed in some of our lifetimes, whereby many people cycled long distances to work because it was the only way to do it and it was cheap. Now, you would probably get run over before you got back after your first day at work.
I am very pleased to have been part of this report. We have said some good and useful things but it is only a start. In future, I would like discussion about scooters, bikes and walking—active travel, as we call it—and the changes that will happen to freight distribution in cities and elsewhere. We need to look at what happens in the countryside, because if people cannot get around, there are no buses and they are imprisoned in their own home, that is just as bad as anything else.
I think the committee—it is not for me to decide, but I shall make my arguments—has a long way to go, but we have started. This will be a very interesting debate and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The report goes on to say:
“The principle of joined-up planning for new homes and infrastructure has long been acknowledged at a national level and is mentioned as a key element of the Government’s Industrial Strategy”.
That was four years ago but the basic principles still apply, and it is absolutely fundamental. It is not enough for the Government simply to note the recommendation, as opposed to actively trying to do something about it.
The problem is that post-war planning policies—so over 60 years old—have encouraged out of town development, often aided by grant regimes to recover old industrial or brownfield land. It was understandable and was right at the time; however, journeys have become dependent on the availability of a car. Once purchased, it is often cheaper for a household to use that car than to take public transport. As the noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, pointed out a moment ago, it can also often be faster. Shopping malls, retail parks and business parks, some very substantial, have led directly to increased car use. Journeys have become more complicated for individuals, particularly those going to work, who measure cost and time in reaching a decision as to what form of transport to use. Things were much simpler when most jobs were in city and town centres, but that is less the case now. We need to reverse the trend, hence the importance of integrating local transport planning with local plans. So, paragraph 114, which recommends joining them together, is central to the Government achieving some of the objectives the report has set.
The report tells us that 68% of commuter journeys were by car in 2019. This is not a surprise, given the nature of the journeys a lot of people have to make. The report also tells us that the Government would like to reduce car journeys by 30%. This will not happen unless money is forthcoming to invest in better public transport services, and more journeys go to town and city centres. That takes me to London.
The levelling-up White Paper promised London-style public transport, saying its ambition was for areas outside London to have services
“significantly closer to the standards of London”.
This will involve money, and it will require much greater local control through regulation. The committee report says that London has a £73 per capita subsidy for bus services, whereas the rest of England has only £27. I do not know whether these figures include the cost of concessionary travel, which accounts for one-third of all passenger journeys—the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, pointed out that it is 40% in London—but in practice, concessionary travel is a very important subsidy to keep buses on the roads across the country providing a service.
Whatever the facts are, more fare income needs to be generated and, as a start, it is key that transport planning is not disconnected from new housing development. As the report says,
“transport can be an afterthought”,
when it needs to be a central part of the planning process.
Finally, paragraph 138 states:
“An uncoordinated approach to public transport policymaking in Whitehall has left local areas with often irreconcilable targets”.
It would be so much better if local transport planning was devolved, with a block grant system, rather than being micromanaged out of Whitehall. That is the way to co-ordinated timetabling and putting users first. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to “hard topics” for debate, and I hope that the Government will engage with that.
“Local Planning Authorities have a key role in resisting applications for new developments on suburban greenfield sites that depend upon every house-hold owning at least one car”.
In the Built Environment Committee’s earlier report on meeting housing demand, we noted the opportunities to undertake major residential developments on land around railway stations, creating connections to city centres. It is obviously vastly better for the environment, and for meeting targets for net-zero carbon emissions, to plan for new housing estates to be linked by decent, regular bus services to the neighbouring towns and cities that provide facilities, shops and employment. Reliance on private cars takes us in the wrong direction for meeting climate change imperatives.
The West of England Combined Authority published a strategy last month stating that car use in the region needs to reduce by 40%—a huge drop—if net zero climate targets are to be met by 2030. Congested roads with their pollution from traffic are not only bad for the planet and for health and well-being but a waste of time and energy for commuters, contributing to poor productivity.
Car-dependent new housing estates also prohibit the creation of intergenerational communities. Older people who cannot or do not want to drive cannot live alongside younger households because there is no easy access to amenities—the GP’s surgery, pubs, parks, et cetera. The master planning of each development can make a difference too. For example, Derwenthorpe, on the east side of York, comprises 550 new homes, which are knitted into the fabric of the city through both active travel—an excellent Sustrans cycle lane—and public transport. The developer, the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, has worked with the local bus company to bring a regular service through the new estate to the city centre and to encourage the habit of using public transport and taking the bus. A free bus pass for one year has been offered to new residents and around one in 10 has made full use of this facility.
My favourite takeaway from this excellent committee report, therefore, is its conclusion that councils’ local plans—“local development plans” in the terms of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill—need to be formulated side by side with local transport plans. The Government responded to this recommendation by telling us that the Department for Transport is consulting on guidance setting out how transport authorities should engage proactively and positively with local planning authorities. Will the Minister update us on progress with this guidance?
New homes will be in the wrong places if public transport accessibility is overlooked and transport plans will miss opportunities for viable services if new housing developments are ignored. Bringing the two together will make for the healthy, environmentally friendly, age-friendly, productive and inclusive communities we all need. I commend the report.
The other aspect I wanted to touch on is safety, which is a very difficult problem. One reason that people do not use buses, particularly late at night, is a fear that the buses will not be a welcoming environment and may well be positively hostile. It is not a question of whether the statistics of the number of attacks on buses is small, as indeed it is; it is a question of whether people fear that they may be subject to an attack. It can be about the perception of the difficulties of riding in a bus safely. That is particularly a problem for female passengers travelling on buses late at night. It encourages car and taxi use and prevents people using buses and, indeed, trains. We need to find a solution to that.
One solution, obviously, would be to reintroduce conductors to buses, which would be massively expensive. Another solution is to stop putting the drivers into protected cabins at the front of buses, where they are protected from being robbed or attacked but are then unable to protect the other passengers on the bus. It is a very difficult problem but it must be overcome—and overcome in a way that gets the confidence of potential bus users.
I think our report is very good and we have highlighted a lot of problems. One thing we have identified is that, if we are to sort out the public transport problems in towns and cities, it will be extremely complex and no single solution will be appropriate for the whole country. I support my noble friend Lady Eaton and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in saying that these decisions must be taken on a local basis, and we must trust local authorities to co-ordinate transport and make sure that it is appropriate to their local needs.
I will concentrate on the North Cotswold Line Task Force. It is a well-established partnership of five shire counties, under differing political control and outside any mayoral combined authority. It brings together planning of housing growth and transport and has real track records in innovation and investment in railway services and infrastructure. Worcestershire, which leads the task force, opened Worcestershire Parkway station in 2020, weeks before the lockdown, having made the case for the station, sorted out its funding and delivered it on a third-party basis, working with the rail industry but managing the whole project itself. Its location as an interchange between the Birmingham to Bristol and Herefordshire/Worcestershire to Oxford-Cambridge arc and London lines has proven very popular. It has attracted the interest of both the Midlands Engine and Midlands Connect in the North Cotswold Line corridor. Within three years of opening, despite the lockdown, around 800 passengers are using it every day. The original forecast said that it would take 10 years to reach those numbers.
The experience of Parkway suggests that we would be unwise to plan for a permanently depleted market for travel. Leisure travel on the line is now at higher levels than before Covid. It is a vivid example of bringing together transport and housing planning. Some 10,000 new homes are to be built around the station in the next 20 years—a new garden town of around 25,000 people. Developers recognise how railway connectivity and modern, accessible stations are really attractive to our growing and increasingly environmentally aware population.
However, many of the “brick walls” that the committee’s report highlights still exist, despite achievements such as this. The task force’s local authorities have put their hands in their own pockets to develop the case for more frequent services on the Worcestershire-Oxford-London line to support the delivery of 50,000 homes for more than 120,000 people across the route. To sustain a higher level of service, as the Minister knows, will require the restoration of two short lengths of double track. Ministerial engagement has been positive, we have strong cross-party support from MPs along the line and we receive helpful advice from GWR and Network Rail.
The committee’s highlighting of costly competitive bidding is also a problem understood by task force authorities, which have committed significantly to levelling up fund and new stations fund applications. I strongly support the committee’s proposition for alternative blocks of funding, avoiding the inevitable wastefulness of public bodies competing for public funding.
What we need is a DfT/Network Rail partnership—or Great British Railways when it is formally in place—that wants to work with motivated local authorities which will get on with good projects themselves if DfT and Network Rail engage closely and offer positive support to well-constructed cases.
Successful schemes have happened elsewhere with direct DfT support, such as the splendid Okehampton line in Devon. For the task force local authorities, much better rail transport is essential to the sustainability of the sheer scale of housing growth they need to deliver. They have brought their local plans and transport thinking together and, as I said, they have financed and delivered major rail enhancements themselves.
In November 2021, the then Rail Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, supported the task force progressing to the second industry stage—the outline business case—for its higher frequency service, with the task force local authorities fully funding and bearing risk on the scheme. In March 2022, DfT officials said that its team could not engage further with the task force until the updated rail network enhancements pipeline was announced. The original pipeline was first set out in October 2019 but has not been updated since; as I understand it, there is no planned date for the update, published in the new year.
We need to move forward now, and as it is some time since we have had a chance to discuss the project with Ministers, my request to the noble Baroness this afternoon is to agree to a meeting with members of the task force board and our Members of Parliament.
I mention just one thing on bus transport in particular. Bus is one of those things that provides the opportunity to vary it to an almost infinite degree: it is not set on rails, it is by and large not attached to cables, and it is capable of adapting, both by the nature of the vehicle and the frequency and position of stops, in ways that most other forms of public transport cannot meet. It should therefore be the initial, and possibly the interim, mode of choice in changing circumstances, particularly changing environments, and especially when we are talking about changes in development patterns within urban areas.
Funding is not always evenly applied or secure over time. Sometimes, it looks as if there is a poor understanding of likely outcomes. There is a need for long-term, consistent, durable and continuous progress towards broadly common goals and an understanding of what good practice in transport looks like. If policies are too narrowly focused or shorter term than the time horizons of the project development and rollout, the result is dented commitment, lack of trust, user disaffection and, ultimately, lack of investment necessary to carry it all forward. I am satisfied that a more holistic approach—if noble Lords will excuse that overused term—is necessary.
Scheme participation procedures that are overcomplex or require expensive bidding processes are rightly regarded with suspicion and deter participants on cost alone. Funding streams that are proposed but which may be turned off at critical stages are also unattractive. Scheme architecture combined with responsibility for the policy, funding, delivery and outcomes—including that very necessary post-project evaluation—are key to this, along with slicker ways of ticketing and improvement of the customer experience. These cannot be left to chance and should not be the subject of a bewildering array of different local schemes, as if every city in the land were some sort of foreign jurisdiction, or indulged in a bidding war for too few resources. For users, relearning car parking ticket technology or public transport ticketing for each municipality is a nightmare and should not be an acceptable outcome in this modern world.
I will leave it there, but it should be said that this is, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, work in progress. It has been a privilege to be involved in this matter, but I would just say that a less defensive and slightly more inclusive approach to discussions would be helpful, especially in the knowledge that there may not be one perfect solution to the matters that we have to deal with.