HERTFORDSHIRE (PUBLIC TRANSPORT) (Hansard, 1 November 1974)

§ Mr. Geoffrey Dodsworth (Hertfordshire, South-West)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment the subject of public transport facilities in South-West Hertfordshire. In the recent General Election many of us felt it necessary to express our grave concern about the parlous economic condition of the country. While of course that was given serious consideration by the electorate at large many other matters of more local significance were raised with candidates throughout the country. My discussions with colleagues and friends make it clear that in many parts of the country the subject of the unsatisfactory and inadequate state of public transport has been raised.
If we are to consider the economic state of the country and the proper utilisation of our fuel resources we shall have to consider a restriction on the private use of motor cars by the rationing of petrol, physically or by price. If we are to contemplate such a thing, we must ensure that we have a satisfactory and reliable public transport system. In a modern society transport is at the very heart of the everday lives of all of us.
I am bound to say that in South-West Hertfordshire there is dissatisfaction with the transport system on the grounds of uncertainty, unreliability and inadequacy, particularly among schoolchildren and working and retired people. I give some examples as illustrations rather than in the hope of getting a specific response.
There are 2,772 bus passes for schoolchildren and the local authority pays the London Country Bus Services £554 per day in respect of them. There are 825 rail passes, but I do not know exactly what the cost is. In addition, 49 coaches are hired on county contract every day at a cost of about £1,000 per day. This is truly a monumental cost.
However, a different scene emerges when one contemplates the benefits. Peti- 646 tions are being organised by the parents of children at two of the schools in the area. There are 59 parents of children using the 346D bus route—South Oxhey to North Watford—who have signed a petition because they are so dissatisfied, in another example more than 80 children have been arriving at school between 10.30 and 11 a.m. That may be a cause of satisfaction for some of those children, but no satisfaction for teachers or parents. Those parents, too, have thought it neecssary to organise a petition.
Some children travel to the Queen School on route 311. The bus company admits not being able to cope with the problem of providing services for more than 400 children and the company is under constant pressure to provide private coaches. In six days recently buses did not run at all on the 301 and 302 routes in time for the children to get to school and the children were left standing at bus stops for as much as three-quarters of hour.
All this adds up to an uncomfortable and unsatisfactory story for schoolchildren in South-West Hertfordshire. Of course one understands the difficulties caused by the shortage of buses and crews, but the problem cannot be left there. I am bound to say that in the discussions I have had with the company I have had nothing but courtesy, kindness and attention, and some modest, and in one case significant, improvement in the service. It does not solve the major problem, which is an across-the-board one.
Retired people, whose sole means of transport is in many cases the local bus service, have to my knowledge had to wait for over an hour for buses which in the end did not arrive, so then they had to return home. I had a complaint yesterday from someone who waited one and a quarter hours for a bus on a road where there is a choice of six bus routes. My correspondent pointed out that young girls were experiencing difficulties in the area through being forced to accept lifts in cars from strangers as the only means of getting home.
The following comment by my correspondent accurately represents the views of many of my constituents: We would prefer a regular service every two hours rather than the phantom half-hourly service which exists at present. 647 That is the root of the matter: the promised timetable which is not realised. That causes major dissatisfaction.
In another case a lady complained to me that people who wished to visit patients in hospital were unable to do so at visiting time because, by the time they arrived, official visiting time was over. In this case the bus conductor admitted that frequently people had to wait for a bus for more than two hours. This is particularly true at the Mount Vernon Hospital which is adjacent to my constituency.
Once again, we have to consider the use of existing resources rather than rely on the published timetable, which may not work in practice. We must make proper use of what we have, and promise rather less. We must consider paying higher rates of pay for late night work, even if this means increased fares in the evening, if we are to provide the service. We must examine all the alternative forms of bus transport which might be used. The number of pay-as-you-enter buses should be increased. My constituents comment that it would help them, even if the services were not running properly, if they had information and, on occasion, an apology.
We must consider the method of operation of the system itself. London Country Bus Services admits that it is unable, because of shortage of buses and crews, to provide the service that the area needs. We shall have to examine the whole licensing system to see if we can find an alternative of local bus services and fill in the deficiencies of the present London Country Bus Services. Privately owned buses in some cases seem to be able to offer a viable alternative. We could consider the minibus and the dial-a-bus. I understand that the dial-a-bus system is beginning to operate in Hampstead Garden Suburb and in other parts of the country. It is having teething problems, but it is a practical way of solving the problem. I know that the public demand action and we cannot just wring our hands.
Another area of public transport facilities in South-West Hertfordshire is the Metropolitan Line. This has been a continual source of correspondence between my constituents and myself and between myself and the members of the London 648 Transport Executive. I have tried to raise the matter on a number of occasions, but there seems to be some difficulty about accountability in raising such matters with the London Transport Executive. It is difficult to raise the matter in the House, though I count myself particularly fortunate at being able to do so late this afternoon.
We are reaching the ludicrous state of affairs where at public transport stations there are special blackboards ready so that cancelled trains can be marked up. I noticed last night that somebody was complaining, in relation to a service that runs through my constituency. "It was all very fine to have the blackboard to keep up to date with cancelled trains. They not only take the trains away. Now they take the blackboards away." It is a sad reflection that it should be necessary to have a permanent fixture to record cancellations.
People at Rickmansworth believe that when London Transport trains are cancelled and there is a following British Railways train it would be reasonable to expect that train to stop. However, there seems to be a problem of communication—the telephone link exists, but the will does not seem to exist between the two organisations to provide for the convenience of the customer, the commuter.
When I raised this question with the Chairman of the London Transport Executive he said that if the pay were better there would be better crews and if there were better crews there would be better services. When the recent pay award was announced I wrote asking when we could expect a better service. It was pointed out to me that there were a number of other considerations besides better pay, and better housing was suggested as one of them. It seems that it is a case of tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. It was therefore disheartening to learn this morning of a projected increase of 36 per cent. in London Transport fares. Some of my constituents will not view that very benignly. They do not live in the GLC area and they will take the strongest exception to decisions being taken by the Labour group of the GLC, in effect behind closed doors, as purely rating decisions which will have the effect of fining the commuters.
649 It adds insult to injury when the Chairman of the Policy and Resources Committee says that the package will be "an incentive rather than a disincentive" to people who travel. I do not know whom he thinks he is kidding, but he is not kidding any of the people who travel on the Metropolitan Line from South-West Hertfordshire. The commuters of South-West Hertfordshire will not be treated like peasants. They have a service which is unreliable and uncomfortable. They have no prospect of remedy and no hope. When they are told of a prospective increase of 36 per cent. in the fares, it is clear that they will not benefit from cheaper travel. They are quiet, reasonable people, but if they are asked to subsidise the Greater London rate bill and, at the same time, to bear the sort of rates increases forecast for next year, it will be time for a quiet revolution among the commuters in London.
If local government and State controlled organisations are unable to provide a satisfactory service we must seek a substantial relaxation of the licensing and control regulations and call upon private resources. Resources exist which can be better utilised. The Three Rivers Disttrict Council has carried out an admirable survey which I commend to the Minister. It represents a constructive approach to some of the transport problems in the area. It is feasible to suggest that the London Country Bus Services should concentrate on the main trunk roads and allow branch and rural services to be provided in a local form, probably under district and local government supervision. It would mean curtailing the company's routage, but it would be effective, would work and would be honest.
If there is an application made through the proper channels for licences for local bus services in that area I hope that the Minister will lend his weight to it, recognising it as an attempt to make a constructive contribution to solving a problem which is merely illustrated by the situation in South-West Hertfordshire but which applies throughout the country. If we are to solve it, we must adopt a root and branch approach.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Carmichael)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hert- 650 fordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) on being so quick off the mark in initiating an Adjournment debate in this new Parliament and particularly on his choice of subject, public transport. He will realise that probably every Member feels much the same about the problems of public transport as he does. He did a very good job in arguing from the particular, namely, the situation in South-West Hertfordshire, to the general position over the whole country where undoubtedly deep and serious problems exist.
Bus services in this area are provided mainly by London Country Bus Services Ltd., which is a subsidiary of the National Bus Company, having been transferred to the National Bus Company from London Transport by the Transport (London) Act 1969. I must make it clear straight away that the business of running bus services is a matter of day-to-day management for London Country Buses and for its parent company the National Bus Company and it would be wrong for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport or for me to attempt to intervene in the daily working of the service.
The problems described by the hon. Gentleman are unhappily all too familiar up and down the country. They are not confined to South-West Hertfordshire. They crop up in varying degrees in all kinds of bus operations whether in the nationalised, local authority or private sectors. I do not regard these difficulties as stemming from any particular form or organisation of bus operations.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the dividing of services between one group and another. I do not believe that the organisation of the services is as important as he seemed to convey. Nor do the difficulties stem from any lack of willingness to operate bus services. Bus operators are there to provide bus services. It is no pleasure to them to provide poor quality or unreliable services. Indeed, we often do not pay enough tribute to them for their efforts to keep things going in the face of all kinds of difficulties, none of their own making and most of them outside their direct control. I fully recognise that this is no comfort whatsoever to people who are dependent on bus services and find themselves stranded at bus stops in all weathers 651 wondering whether and when the next bus will come.
I understand that London Country Bus Services Ltd. has been hit very hard in recent months by a combination of crippling shortages. In the first place, like most other service industries, it is dependent on the availability of staff both to drive and to maintain and repair its vehicles. This is an endemic problem, although it is patchy even in the outer London area. Again, it is dependent on supplies from manufacturers of components to ensure that it has the spare parts needed to repair its vehicles. To take one example, anyone who has tried to obtain pistons in recent months will know that the problems here are not confined to the United Kingdom. Moreover, the supply of new vehicles has been unpredictable and uncertain.
It is not for me to try to make excuses for the company. But it is only fair, having indicated that the problems it faces are by no means unique, to add that I understand that London Country Bus Services has taken a number of initiatives to try to deal with the situation that it finds itself in. First, it has hired a number of vehicles from London Transport to augment its depleted fleet. Next, it has run a vigorous local recruiting campaign in the Watford area. It got some response to this campaign over the summer and, indeed, managed to halve its driver shortage. At one time it was 13 per cent. and it was reduced to 6 per cent., although recently there are indications that this situation is tailing off again.
Again, the company appointed an area manager to act as a local trouble-shooter to deal with operational problems as they cropped up. In recent months I understand that it has succeeded in reducing the lost mileage in this area—that is, the number of services which, although scheduled, did not run.
I was glad to hear that part of the area manager's responsibilities was to keep in close touch with the local authorities in the area and that London Country Bus Services Ltd. is very willing to discuss the problems and the ways in which it is trying to deal with them with the local authorities. Indeed, I am sure that if it has not done so already, the management 652 of London Country Bus Services would be very willing to meet the hon. Member to discuss the situation in depth and in detail. I understand from the hon. Gentleman's speech that he has probably met the management, but perhaps he has not met the area manager who has been appointed. This may be more appropriate.
Increasingly, local authorities will play an important part in determining the level of services in their areas. It is an uphill fight for operators to keep going the services that they have been accustomed to running. Competition from the private car and the pressure of rising costs have eroded a lot of the public transport systems in the country as a whole. When one thinks that they were 16,000 million passenger journeys in 1950 and only about 9,000 million by 1970, and about 2 million cars on the road in 1950 compared with 11 million by 1970, one gets some idea of the way in which the balance has tilted against public transport.
I noted the interesting point made by the hon. Gentleman about the physical or financial curtailment of private motoring, which is perhaps a somewhat unpopular subject.

§ Mr. Dodsworth
The burden of my case was the shift from public transport to private cars and the suggestion that if there is a shift back to inadequate facilities, it will only make the problem worse.

§ Mr. Carmichael
I am aware of what the hon. Gentleman says. I was trying to point out that his suggestion, although unpopular, is being discussed more and more by the public at all levels. There will always be a fairly large percentage of the population who will not have personal transport available. Therefore, it is important that we should discuss these matters in a rational way and realise that, unpalatable though some of these things may be, sometimes if freedom is not curtailed then in certain respects one is left with no freedom at all. In terms of the present subject one might be left with streets empty of buses, and this obviously will hit those who have no access to personal transport.
From the mid-1960s, successive Governments have made increasing amounts of money available to the bus industry. 653 The chief forms of assistance have included a rebate of fuel duty. Partial rebate has been allowed for some time, and full remission of duty was allowed in the Finance Act earlier this year. There have been new bus grants of 50 per cent. of the capital cost of the purchase of new vehicles for use on stage services, as well as the rural bus grant and infrastructure grant. Central Government support from these sources is currently running at about £60 million. But this is general support. When it is a question of what to provide locally, it is right that the local authorities should choose, and be empowered to contribute towards the costs which their choices impose on the system.
The new county authorities have a duty under Section 203 of the Local Government Act 1972 to develop policies which will promote the provision of a co-ordinated and efficient system of public passenger transport to meet the needs of the county. 654 They are also given specific powers to make payments to public transport operators in their areas. These provisions clearly give the new county councils a very important role with respect to public transport in their areas. The new system of transport supplementary grants and transport policies and programmes which will come into effect on 1st April 1975 will encourage the new county councils to reassess their transport policies and priorities and to relate their assessment of the transport needs of their area to their total programme.
It is in this context that the future of public transport services in South-West Hertfordshire should be seen. It emphasises once again the joint role of bus operator and local authority in safeguarding the public transport services which are such a vital part of any coherent local transport policy.