As I write, the Labour Party has just published its election manifesto. The Lib Dems published the day before. I was expecting the Labour manifesto to set out plans for the wholesale reregulation of buses, but it doesn’t.
Instead, it simply says that Labour “will ensure that councils can improve bus services by regulating and taking public ownership of networks and will give them resources and legal powers to achieve this cost-effectively.”
Curious, don’t you think? Because councils already have the legal power to reregulate buses thanks to the Bus Services Act 2017. Perhaps Labour has not read the act. The manifesto doesn’t actually say it positively wants or expects councils to reregulate buses; merely that it will give them powers to do so. Powers that they already have.
Labour manifesto: Playing to a crowd?
Now, you can argue that the processes and procedures that councils currently have to go through to reregulate buses are too time consuming, too complex and so on. But that’s not what the manifesto says.
Of course, the manifesto may well simply be playing to an audience that wants to hear the language of regulation and public ownership. I understand that. But since a Conservative government has already given councils powers to reregulate, I do have to wonder what the difference between Labour and the Conservatives on bus policy really is these days.
The Lib Dems, meanwhile, say nothing about the regulatory regime they would like to see. The closest the party’s manifesto gets to on this is a rather vague statement about “giving new powers to local authorities to improve transport in their areas.” But the manifesto is silent on what these “new powers” might be, or over what aspects of transport they might apply.
Both parties promise millions of pounds to restore bus routes that have been cut. That is fine. Labour promises free bus travel for under-25s where councils reregulate the services.
It’s a pity if you are under 25 but living in an area where the council chooses not to reregulate services. That seems a bit divisive to me. Surely a benefit such as this should be available to everybody under 25, and not just to some but not to others?
So the Labour Party and the Lib Dems – two parties that you might expect to be far more vocal in seeing bus services brought back under full public sector control – are surprisingly cautious in their approach to bus policy.
And the Conservatives too?
By the time you read this, the Conservative Party will have published its manifesto. I fully expect it to talk up the ability of councils to reregulate, or franchise, bus services based on what Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps have said in recent weeks.
Given the historical support of the Conservative Party for deregulation, it is this party’s manifesto policies on buses that seem to me to be much more alarming for those who support the deregulated market.
How times have changed!
