Jerome Mayhew

Jerome Mayhew

Conservative — Broadland and Fakenham

Speaking in the House of Commons on 10 September 2025

Debate

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Contribution

My hon. Friend is quite right. There is some good in the amendments. I come to amendment 58, which would reinsert the Secretary of State’s safeguard. That would not prohibit small unitaries from applying or developing a franchise model; it is about the Secretary of State having the ability to sense-check the commercial ability of an organisation to take the very significant commercial risks that franchising brings with it. There is another massive lacuna in the current drafting of the Bill. Having expanded franchising to any local authority, no matter how small and whether district, county or unitary, the Secretary of State would withdraw from any power to intervene if things go wrong. We recognise that there is increased commercial risk and that we will ask potentially small local authorities to undertake wholly novel activities of which they have no experience at all, but the Secretary of State is saying, “We wash our hands of this. We do not want to have any power to intervene, even when there is a prolonged failure of services to the public.”

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