HC Deb 03 June 1981 vol 5 cc916-7
9. Mr. Booth

asked the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will take steps to avert a cut of 60 million miles in the bus service mileage operated by the National Bus Company in 1981 involving 4,000 redundancies.

Mr. Fowler

Over recent years the National Bus Company has faced a decline in demand on stage carriage services. It has, therefore, carried out a series of market analysis projects which are enabling it to reshape its services in line with current demand. It would be wrong for it to operate services where there is insufficient demand and local authorities do not consider that revenue support to it is the most cost-effective way of providing essential transport.

Mr. Booth

Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that the combined effect of his transport supplementary grant regime and last year's legislation is that the biggest bus company will have to slash the number of passenger service miles operated? It will be the most massive cut that has ever taken place in a single year and will throw thousands of bus workers out of jobs. In addition, it will deprive hundreds of thousands of people of their bus services. The right hon. Gentleman has already acknowledged that inter-city coach services are expanding. Therefore, those cuts will affect rural areas and off-peak urban services. His policy will damage those areas that have no alternative to the bus.

Mr. Fowler

The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. I accepted the revenue support bids from the shire counties with only one exception. The National Bus Company operates in the shire counties. There can be no correlation between that and the transport supplementary grant.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the financial burden on the National Bus Company might be eased if we were to reconsider the interest that it pays on its historic debt, which runs at about £17 million per annum?

Mr. Fowler

The National Bus Company feels strongly about that. Neither the Labour Government nor this Government have felt able to agree to such a request. We are unertaking an independent appraisal of the financial effect of the allocation of debt between particular subsidiaries. That appraisal resulted from a meeting with the National Bus Company and the unions involved. I hope to make a statement on that in due course.

Mr. Newens

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that to allow private bus operators to offer cheap fares on the most popular routes prevents the public operator from subsidising less popular services from the receipts that he would have obtained? Is not the right hon. Gentleman's policy bound to result in the cutting of more and more services in rural areas and on less popular routes?

Mr. Fowler

The hon. Gentleman does not understand the policy. On stage carriage services the traffic commissioner system—which has a 30-mile circumference—continues. Therefore, the premise on which the hon. Gentleman's case is based is false.