Future of Buses

Part of Business of the House – in the House of Commons at 2:56 pm on 8 February 2007.

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Photo of Nick Brown Nick Brown Labour, Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend 2:56, 8 February 2007

The hon. Gentleman—I hope that I do not do him any harm in saying this—is absolutely right. An appropriate sum of money was allocated to the policy; it is the way in which it has been distributed to individual authorities that has given rise to the problem. Some authorities were given too much money and were reluctant to give it back. That is understandable, but the area that I represent was not given enough money. It says that it needs more, and it does, as I shall point out.

I suspect that the hon. Gentleman will also agree with me about the dangers before privatisation. Unresponsive, complacent, inflexible and inefficient public monopolies are no more acceptable than their under-funded private sector equivalents. Many of my hon. Friends have said that they do not want to go back to the situation of the early 1980s. I endorse that sentiment and I shall propose a better way forward.

The issue is important for the whole country, and especially for English conurbations outside London. It is especially important to the community in Tyne and Wear that I represent, partly because car ownership is substantially lower than the national average and partly because the usage of public transport is substantially higher than the national average. It is those facts that, as well as underpinning the importance of public transport, have got us into the budgetary difficulty that the PTA, Nexus, faces. For those who do not know the area, Nexus covers the five metropolitan district authorities in Tyne and Wear. The funding arrangements for the Government-inspired concessionary travel scheme have left the authority with a shortfall of £5.4 million.

I have raised the issue in an Adjournment debate and in a ten-minute Bill. The Tyne and Wear MPs have had meetings with Ministers and even with the Prime Minister to try to resolve the issue, but it remains unresolved. It is completely unacceptable that the injustice has remained unresolved for 18 months.