(Editor’s note: This column was written before changes in regard to bus service provision in England during the ‘lockdown’ period were confirmed).
I think we can say with some confidence that Boris Johnson will not look back on 2020 with fondness, a sentiment that will surely be shared by almost everybody.
And 2021 hasn’t got off to a great start, with the new virus strain and new ‘lockdown’ measures expected to be in place until late March or early April, by which time sufficient doses of the vaccine should have been delivered to allow restrictions to be lifted.
Bus support set to be looked at by the Treasury?
With the Treasury keen to significantly reduce the level of subsidy being poured into the railways, and to see service levels there cut by anything up to 50% to reflect the collapse in demand, one must ask at what point it will take the same view in relation to bus services.
Buses serve a different market and different demographic. For many people, bus services are a lifeline in a way that, arguably, train services are not in the same way. But I cannot help feeling that the level of subsidy that the Treasury has been providing to bus operators won’t be maintained for much longer.
And when the pandemic has passed and life starts to return to normal (or near normal), will demand for buses return or will it remain depressed? Train operating companies, for example, only expect demand to return to around 80% of pre-lockdown levels. That may take some years in any case.
Difficult decisions lie ahead over public funding for bus
If the commercial bus market shrinks materially, what happens then? I have posed this question before, but we are getting to a point where some difficult decisions are going to have to be made. If the commercial market does shrink, will local authorities step in to replace the routes lost through the traditional means of subsidised services, and if they do, where will that money come from?
And in any case, what is the right level of service in any one area from a social and economic point of view?
Will we see a move away from the traditional scheduled patterns to more demand responsive services – an innovation that has slowly been happening anyway?
All of this says to me that there may be merit in pausing the publication of the National Bus Strategy until there is a clear understanding of the longer-term impact of the pandemic on the demand for bus travel. I cannot really see what is to be gained by putting out a strategy in the next few weeks when life is so uncertain.
Thanks to Claire Haigh for her work at Greener Journeys
Meanwhile, Claire Haigh has stepped down as Chief Executive of Greener Journeys. I cannot think of anybody who has shown as much enthusiasm to and commitment for the cause of transport decarbonisation and the ‘green’ transport agenda as Claire has.
Just as Stephen Joseph was the Campaign for Better Transport – an organisation that I can’t help feeling has lost much of its profile since he left – so Claire was Greener Journeys. I wonder what her departure will mean for the future of that organisation.
The good news is that I understand Claire plans to take up a new role in the wider transport decarbonisation space. With the Transport Decarbonisation Plan due for publication in the spring – assuming it is not delayed again – I have little doubt that we haven’t heard the last of her.
What of the future for Boris as the country’s leader?
On the wider political front, there were ever more mutterings within the Conservative party during 2020 that Boris Johnson’s hold on leadership was slipping.
There was much discontentment at Number 10’s handling of the pandemic. Relationships between Number 10 and the parliamentary party became very strained, not just over how the pandemic has been dealt with but more generally, with growing concerns of too much centralisation of power in Number 10.
Junior ministers – and even some Cabinet ministers – have complained that they were shut out of the decision-making process. Every ministerial utterance had to be cleared by Number 10. And of course, Boris Johnson’s chief advisor, Dominic Cummings, was something of a hate figure for most Conservative MPs. The warm glow of a stunning general election victory in December 2019 evaporated within weeks.
Much of this criticism may have been unfair. I am sure that any Prime Minister would have struggled with the pandemic, as many leaders across Europe did. But be in no doubt that through 2020 the parliamentary party was becoming increasingly restless. By mid-2020 the mutterings that Boris Johnson may not be Prime Minister by summer 2021 became louder and more frequent.
‘Debt mountain’ will need to be serviced in the future
There was mounting speculation that Boris may even step down voluntarily, citing health reasons following his own close encounter with coronavirus COVID-19. And opposition within the Conservative party to ‘lockdown’ measures became ever louder and more hostile.
But politics is a fickle business if nothing else. With Boris having delivered Brexit with a trade deal signed, and with the arrival of two vaccines giving hope that the end of the pandemic – and ‘lockdowns’ – is in sight, may Boris’s fortunes have changed?
He is not out of the woods yet, and there is a huge challenge ahead to rebuild the economy. There will surely be some unpopular measures as the Chancellor starts to pay off the debt mountain. We still have weeks of ‘lockdown’ to endure, and much could go wrong with the vaccination programme.
Recent opinion polls make grim reading for the Conservative party. One suggested that it could lose its majority if an election were held tomorrow. But an election is a long way off. There is a scenario now where Boris Johnson could manage to secure his position as party leader more firmly than at any time since he himself succumbed to the virus many months ago.
Talk of his demise within the parliamentary party may yet prove to be premature.
