HC Deb 11 November 1974 vol 881 cc202-14

11.30 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Clemitson (Luton, East)

There is one matter on which virtually everyone in Luton will agree. Trade unions, company managements, old folks' clubs, townswomen's guilds, churches—I have had letters from all of them in the past few days—not to mention thousands of individual men, women and children, all agree that the bus service in Luton is awful. It is at the point of near breakdown. That phrase "near breakdown" is not mine, although I totally agree with it. It was used officially in describing at a recent meeting between the chairman of the county council's public transport advisory group and the general manager of the United Counties Omnibus Company.

I have no doubt that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of the Environment are close to becoming immune to complaints about bus services, but I hope and trust that they have not reached the point of total immunity. At random, I shall quote three of the many complaints which have reached me in recent days. First: I should like to complain about the No. 28 bus. Many times I have had to wait up to 50 minutes for a bus. On Friday 16th October I waited 55 minutes in the town centre. Then I decided to walk, and the bus passed me after I had walked nearly a mile. It was pouring with rain. That came from a 75-year-old pensioner who for the last 12 years has been an outpatient at the local chest clinic.

Second: I have a part-time job in the centre of Luton, hours 9 to 3.45. I was leaving home at 8.10 a.m., most mornings not arriving at work till 9.10, 9.15 or 9.30, and some mornings 9.45 a.m. I estimate that travelling with United Counties was costing me £3 a week—£1.20 in bus fares and the rest in lost time through being late. In desperation I gave in my notice, but my boss has now arranged for me to be picked up by car each morning. Third: Last evening I arrived at the No. 4 bus stop at 5.20, to catch the bus home. I eventually arrived home at 7.15 p.m. and was forced to take a taxi. The No. 4 bus from Vauxhall Motors which is usually at the stop at 5.20 went by half empty at 5.30 and did not bother to stop. At 6.30 a No. 4 double-decker completely empty went by and did not stop…My elderly sick mother was being looked after by a neighbour, so you can appreciate my dilemma at not getting a bus. I was not prepared for the rain or else I would have walked, a distance of half an hour, so my only alternative was to pay over 50p for a taxi, which I cannot afford every evening. I do not wish to bore the House with a catalogue of complaints, but I assure the Minister that the complaints are innumerable and come from every part of the town and every bus route.

The people affected are not a small minority of the population. Forty-six per cent. of the people of Luton are wholly reliant on public transport, and some 80 per cent. are partially dependent. Moreover, as in every town, it is the poorer sections of the community, those who cannot afford cars, who suffer most. Luton may be a car making town, and it may be a relatively affluent town, but there is no free issue of cars at the end of the final assembly track at Vauxhall Motors.

Also, as in every town, the older inhabitants are among the chief sufferers. A letter from the secretary of the Luton Old People's Welfare Committee puts the point well: Our own organisation, dealing continuously with such a large number of the town's elderly folk, has for a long time been greatly concerned with the effects that waiting for buses for an hour or more at a time has on these people. The very devastating effect on health alone is appalling, and a great many of the old folk are being forced to stay at home, thus often having to forgo what little social life they can get, and indeed are entitled to. Many have been rehoused, as you know, with the changing times, often to the extreme outskirts through so many districts in the old areas being demolished. This of course is progress as we know it today, but we cannot help but realise how difficult it is for many of them, who now have much longer distances to go, even for their everyday needs. Concessions are admirable and many elderly folk are very happy about them, but at the same time what use are they if they cannot be taken advantage of owing to non-existent bus services? It is not only in football that Luton is at the bottom of the league.

In reply to the complaints that the populace of Luton continually makes about appalling bus services, three things are offered: excuses, passing the buck and the promise of jam tomorrow. The excuses are one variant or another of "We have not got the buses", "We have not got the parts" or "We have not got the crews." I call them excuses not because genuine problems do not exist. They do, but problems must be faced and overcome.

There is no shortage of ideas, and good ideas, among the people of Luton and the trade unions representing the work force about how, within the limits imposed, a better service could be provided. But the point is, who listens and who will accept responsibility? The management blames the suppliers for the lack of buses and the Department for the lack of money. The Department says that problems must be met at a local level. And so the merry-go-round goes on, so the buck is passed.

Meanwhile the people of Luton are the sufferers. They want action, not excuses. They want someone to be prepared to accept responsibility. To the suppliers of buses they say "For goodness sake sort yourselves out and get the buses built, and get the spares to go with them." To the Department they say" Where is the sense in cutting expenditure on buses at precisely the moment when we are facing a severe fuel crisis? Surely it is now that we should be encouraging the development of public transport as a fuel-saving measure instead of cutting back." Yet we hear that the effect of cutbacks on fleet intakes on the United Counties Omnibus Company is that its 1975 intake will be only 36 instead of 50 buses, not to mention that it is still waiting for eight vehicles from its 1973 intake and 41 from its 1974 intake.

To the management of the United Counties Omnibus Company the people of Luton say that to overcome difficulties is what they are paid for. What, for example, is the sense in building an extension, as it is doing at present, to the Castle Street bus garage to improve maintenance facilities but making no arrangements to avoid an even greater deterioration in the service while the extension is being built? Why should not the ever-ailing Court Line fleet be taken over by United Counties, thus guaranteeing the routes served by Court Line and, incidentally, providing more maintenance facilities?

As regards shortage of staff, if we are to have the public services that we need we must be prepared to pay a decent rate for the job and respect the legitimate demands of the workers in the bus industry for reasonable hours and conditions of work.

In reply to a letter I wrote earlier this year to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport, he wrote on 7th August: At the end of the day the remedial action must be for the bus operators, their employees, the local authorities, local employers and the travelling public—all at local level. Consideration of these local factors and on the means by which the needs for public transport are to be met is the responsibility of the new county authorities, under Section 203 of the Local Government Act 1972. This requires them: acting in consultation with persons providing bus services within the county…to develop policies which will promote the provision of a co-ordinated and efficient system of public transport to meet the needs of the county'. As you will know, under the new arrangements for Central Government assistance to local authorities for expenditure on transport, county councils have to produce each year a statement of their transport policies and programmes (TPPs) and it would be entirely appropriate for the county council to consider how best to associate all the relevant local interests in an examination of the provision of public transport in Luton as part of the process of developing their TPP. The Bedfordshire County Council has taken its duty under Section 203 of the Local Government Act very seriously. A detailed and comprehensive report on public transport in Bedfordshire has been prepared for it by Alan M. Voorhees and Associates, and a plan for the develop ment of public transport in the Luton, Dunstable and Houghton Regis area has been produced. Meetings have been held with the United Counties management, and many good suggestions have been put forward. But in the end a co-ordinated and efficient system of public transport to meet the needs of the county cannot be developed unless the authority that makes the plans has the power to carry them out. In short, Section 203 confers power without teeth. We shall never have good local public transport in Luton or anywhere else unless it is controlled locally and accountable locally.

In his letter which I have just quoted, my right hon. Friend said, in response to a call made at a public meeting organised by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) and myself, that he was advised that he did not have the statutory power to hold a public inquiry. However, I respectfully suggest that he has statutory power under Section 9 of the Transport Act 1968 to do something far more important. The section provides: If in the case of any area in Great Britain outside Greater London the Minister considers it expedient for the purpose of securing the provision of a properly integrated and efficient system of public passenger transport to meet the needs of that area, then, subject to subsection (2) of this section, the Minister may by order designate that area for the purposes of this Part of this Act by such name as may be specified in the order and shall by that order provide for the establishment of the following bodies for that area, namely— (a) a Passenger Transport Authority with (i) persons appointed by local authorities whose areas fall wholly or partly within the area designated by the order and (ii) persons appointed by the Minister; (b) a Passenger Transport Executive", I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider seriously the possibility of designating Bedfordshire as just such a passenger transport authority with its passenger transport executive. If that were done, the problems would not disappear overnight. Of course they would not, but there would be a far greater chance that they would be overcome. A locally-owned and operated serice would be far more directly accountable to the people who are served, and far more sensitive to their needs.

A nationally-owned and operated service makes sense where national routes are concerned. It makes little sense where local routes are concerned. I plead for a better, more accountable, more democratic form of public ownership. I suggest that as the people of Luton are agreed on the deplorable state of the present bus services, so they would agree to a large extent on the need for local ownership and control.

Finally, I say two things to my hon. Friend the Minister. First, we need more, not less, investment in public transport. Secondly, to use the word in the 1968 Act, it is "expedient" for the Minister to act in respect of public transport in Luton, for I and 168,000 others can assure him that the present system is as inefficient as it could be.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas)

I understand that the Minister has agreed to two other brief interventions in the quarter of an hour remaining.

11.44 p.m.

Mr. Brian Sedgemore (Luton, West)

Parliament is privileged tonight, because the eyes of Luton are upon it. The public transport system is in total disarray, and the people are in despair. Daily they hear about the problems put in the way of United Counties. They hear about the Tory public expenditure cuts of 1973, about the shoddy buses sold off to them by the last Tory Government, and about the obstacles placed in the way of the bus company by the county council, the Luton District Council, local industry, the squeeze, British Leyland and Vauxhall.

But only a couple of months ago, in the peace and tranquility of my home, all the management of the United Counties Omnibus Company came along and gave me a glittering array of statistics which showed how much the position was improving. I can remember that they said that the great maintenance problem was about to come to an end because at last they had found a man to organise the maintenance. I thought to myself that it was strange that a bus company that had been running for years had only just decided to find the right man to organise the maintenance. But the service did not get better.

In the last couple of months it has gone from bad to worse and now we are told that one of the problems is maintenance. One of the reasons given is that there is redevelopment of the bus station at one of the sites in Castle Street. It seems extraordinary that the management could not have foreseen that the redevelopment would require some space for the people carrying it out. It seems that it is not the function of management to provide itself with a tear bowl and allow those tears to drip in, letting the public feel sorry for it. The management should not merely feel sorry for the public; it should be acting on their behalf.

I am sure that there is general agreement in Luton that there are serious failures of management in United Counties. There is failure of management in London, Northampton and Luton. That assertion does not come from me, but from the drivers, conductors, inspectors, trade unionists, leading councillors, and from the public. Spare a thought for the public. I represent that constituency which is on the borders of Luton. I think of the roll-call of names. Every night when I go home there is another telephone call. "Will you please answer this call relating to the bus service?" I am asked.

I think of Mrs. Ralph, Mrs. Marshall, Miss May, Mrs. Reinsford, the telephonists at the Post Office, the child who collapsed at the bus stop, the man who did the same, the pensioners who cannot get into town because there is no guarantee that they can get home again. I think of the 50 people I saw on 8th October who were at the bus stop at half past three and were still there at quarter past four, because the bus had not arrived. These people do not want excuses but improvements.

There should be immediate emergency action. That could be done by the provision of extra buses drawn in from other counties under the auspices of the National Bus Company and the United Counties. We have to do something now. I should like to hear the United Counties backing the unions in their request for a £10 pay rise and for better conditions.

I accept that the public and the local authority have to play their part. United Counties has a right to expect them to support the public transport proposals of the county council, to expect them to stand out against future road building which will adversely affect public transport and to challenge the subsidy given to car parking. The company has a right to expect the public and the local authority to challenge the way the Arn-dale Centre in Luton is determining Luton's planning instead of the centre being planned for Luton. They have a right to expect action from the Government over the public expenditure cuts. We have a right to expect management to provide a decent service.

11.48 p.m.

Mr. David Madel (Bedfordshire, South)

I am grateful to the hon. Members for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) and Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) for allowing me to take a brief part in this debate. There is a definite need for a big improvement in the bus service. Most of Luton's buses start from South Bedfordshire or make their way into it, so we are closely linked. The present road system does not make a public transport system easy to operate. The inevitable traffic jams lead to delays.

One service needing special attention is the No. 6 from Houghton Regis to Luton. Many of my constituents are being caused acute distress because of this service. They need the bus to go to work and to shop. If there is to be control of buses by the county council it is bound to need a measure of subsidy. If we are to have this we have to change the rating system. we cannot have a subsidised bus service in Bedfordshire by putting an extra burden on the existing rating system. The rating system would have to be changed.

11.50 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Carmichael)

I hope that in the few minutes left I can cover some of the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) whom I congratulate on obtaining an Adjournment debate on the transport problems in his constituency. I cannot say that my hon. Friend is the first Member in the new Parliament to have an Adjournment debate on public transport, but I think the House will agree that he made up for that by the eloquence with which he brought home to us all the frustrations and miseries experienced by people who, in many cases, are dependent on public transport to get about, to get to school and to lead a full and happy life.

I can assure the House that the Department is not in any way becoming immune to complaints about bus services. I know from earlier correspondence I have seeen that there has been a whole series of public protests, meetings, and petitions about the situation in Luton over the past year.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, bus services in the Borough of Luton are provided almost entirely by the United Counties Omnibus Company which is a subsidiary of the National Bus Company. I must make it clear right at the beginning that the business of running bus services in Luton is a matter of day-to-day management for which United Counties is directly responsible and, ultimately, its parent company the National Bus Company. There is, as I need hardly remind the House, a very clear distinction drawn between the responsibilities of Ministers for a nationalised undertaking and those of that undertaking's own management. I will, of course, ensure that the points made in this debate are drawn to the attention of the Chairman of the National Bus Company.

The picture drawn by my hon. Friend is one which, in different degrees of severity, I am getting from bus operators in many parts of the country, not just one sector or another. There are questions of the availability of spare parts—and this is not an unfamiliar complaint from bus operators of all sorts and sizes up and down the country. There are questions of the delivery of new vehicles, which is unpredictable, with almost all bus operators, including other NBC subsidiaries in other partes of the country clamouring for more.

There are questions of the operating conditions in which the buses are expected to run—the degree of traffic congestion, the extent to which bus priority traffic management measures have been or can be adopted, the parking policies of the local authorities—and there are questions of what can be done locally—such as the staggering of industrial and school hours—to ease the pressures on the bus operator at the peak periods compared with other times of the day when he may have vehicles and bus crews available for operation but considerably under-used.

But of course the picture in different parts of the country is patchy. And it is clear from what has been said tonight and from correspondence that I have received from my hon. Friends that Luton has had more than its share of these troubles. In Luton, too, I understand there have been some particular difficulties. For one thing, the age profile of the United Counties' vehicle fleet compares unfavourably with that of many other operators. I understand that this in part reflects the make-up of the fleet that United Counties inherited from the former municipal undertaking in Luton when the NBC bought it out in 1970.

Again, the maintenance facilities for United Counties have been badly in need of modernisation. I understand that the National Bus Company has shown its recognition of the problems of United Counties in a number of ways. It has injected cash into the company, but the problems relate also to the level of economic activity in the area, the many other job opportunities and so on. This is always a matter of difficulty.

The points made by my hon. Friend bring out very sharply the task that faces us. Everyone regards public transport as indispensable; and yet, against the competition of the private car and the pressures of mounting costs, made much worse by inflation, there is a tremendous uphill battle ahead if public transport is to play its full and proper rôle. It is no good regarding public transport as something that can be turned on like a tap to cope with whatever needs are not being satisfied by other modes of transport. It has to be seen as part of a total transport and traffic package including bus operators, their employees, the local authorities, local employers, schools and the travelling public. Central Government support for public transport has been made clear through general measures of financial assistance—in particular the full remission of fuel duty and through new bus grant, that is half the capital cost of new buses bought for stage carriage use, namely, the normal kerbside stopping local services with which we are all familiar. This support is running at about £60 million a year at present, but I agree that it is a general support. It is only in the context of the particular conditions of particular places that one can decide what needs to be done on the ground. This is where the new powers and duties of county authorities concerned in Section 203 of the Local Government Act are so important. Whilst I have no plans for the creation of a passenger transport authority for Bedfordshire, although naturally my right hon. Friend and I are always willing to consider constructive proposals, the powers under Section 203 acquired on 1st April 1974 give the county council the job of developing policies to promote the provision of co-ordinated and efficient systems of public transport and the power to give operators financial support. There may be circumstances in which a good case could be made out for setting up a PTA in a non-metropolitan county, but in general it seems right to expect county councils first to explore fully these powers which I have suggested.

However, it is not simply a question of money. It is a question of the availability of manpower locally both to drive and to maintain the vehicles, and this is not a problem confined to the bus company. As regards vehicles, it has been allocated an above average intake of new vehicles, and we must not forget that there are other subsidiaries with very similar problems which can press very similar arguments to United Counties. In all, this renewal programme affects some 40 per cent. of the company's fleet. Work has now started on the modernisation of the maintenance facilities, although, admittedly, as has been said tonight, this in its turn has added to the problems temporarily because while the work is in progress there is bound to be further disruption of maintenance schedules.

All this will take time to work through. Meanwhile, I come back again with the point that it is essential to have close liaison between the bus operator and the local authorities. It would be unrealistic to expect any magical transformation to take place, but with good will a way should be found building on the new rôle of the local authorities.

My hon. Friend quoted from the letter of 2nd August, which he had received from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport. It is in that context that the future of public transport services in Luton and, indeed, in the whole of Bedfordshire should be seen. Let me emphasise once again the joint rôle of bus operator and local authority in safeguarding the public transport services which are such a vital part of any coherent local transport policy. I understand that these contacts are being built up, and that there have already been useful meetings and discussions. I hope that it will be possible to build on what I hope is a good start.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Twelve o'clock.