I was surprised to hear Huw Merriman, the Conservative MP for Bexhill and Battle and a member of the Transport Select Committee, call for the bus market to be regulated when the buses minister, Nasrat Ghani appeared before the Committee on 13 February as part of its inquiry into the health of the bus market.
Mind you, I concede that over the years he’s not the only Conservative MP or councillor to have questioned the merits of deregulation.
I’ve always regarded Mr Merriman as one of the more informed members of the Select Committee, so his comments really did take me aback.
Not understanding?
“Why is the bus market not regulated in the same way as train services are?” he asked, adding “Why do we cede so much control to bus operators who then decide that they are not going to stop at a surgery or hospital” and he complained that the operators “are taking big profits out”. A Conservative MP complaining about business making profits. Whatever next.
Mr Merriman did not appear to understand that if a service is deemed to be socially necessary then the relevant local authority can subsidise it.
Indeed, he even claimed that because the Bus Services Act prevents local authorities setting up new municipal operations they are unable to step in and run a service not provided by private operators: “How would a local authority be able to step in and run it if the municipals cannot?” he asked.
“Through a tendered service; you do not need a municipal to do that” came the obvious reply.
Oh dear Mr Merriman. A basic, core part of the bus legislation did not appear to be well understood by one of the more informed members of the Committee.
I don’t know which companies operate in his constituency, but they clearly don’t seem to have much of a relationship with their local MP.
Good news
The good news from the minister’s appearance before the Committee is that she does not seem totally convinced by the need for a national bus strategy, although she did not rule it out, it must be said.
I’m not sure I understand this sudden desire for a national strategy. First, it would be mighty difficult to develop given the myriad of government departments that, in one form or another, have an interest in bus provision.
And second, I recall that when the Competition Commission last undertook an investigation into the workings of the bus market, one of the industry’s central points was that bus markets are local and that each local market has different requirements.
Quite how you can have a national strategy when the markets involved are all local and different I don’t really know. The industry’s desire for a national strategy seems to me to contradict this claim that bus markets are local.
Set a few performance targets for sure, such as all diesel buses off the roads by 2040, but a comprehensive national strategy? I’m not convinced.
