Baroness Randerson (LD)

My Lords, I am pleased to welcome the Statement made by the Secretary of State in the other place. Bus services outside London have been allowed to atrophy and die for far too long. They are vital to society and our economy. They are used by the poorest, the oldest and the youngest. Although we love to talk about trains here, buses are the most used form of public transport. The funding information in the Statement, as far as it goes, is welcome, as are the commitments to reform. The situation with buses has been too complex, too fragmented, too short-term and too competitive. In practice, the competition has led to money going to, in effect, the councils that are best at filling in the forms rather than those most in need. Courtesy of the Campaign for Better Transport, I have some illustrative statistics. Why should Swindon get £3.98 per head for buses and Reading, just down the road and not dissimilar in size, get £168.68 per head? No formula would explain that. Of course, Reading has extremely good buses as a result of extremely good funding. There are currently six different funding pots. We need one single integrated fund with “long-term” written all over it, so can the Minister explain in more detail exactly how the current six funds will be amalgamated and repurposed? I turn to the £3 bus fare cap and its impact. It is, of course, effectively a 50% fare increase in an industry that has already seen fares rise by 59% since 2015, so it will have a huge impact. Yet there were reports at the weekend that the Secretary of State had said that maybe it would be linked in some way to the rate of inflation. Will the £3 cap be applied in the same way as the £2 cap, or will it be amended in some way? What analysis have the Government made to lead them to abandon the £2 cap, which appeared to be working well? In many areas, particularly rural areas, demand-responsive and Dial-a-Ride services are vital. I ask the Minister, because this is not mentioned in the Statement: what will the Government do to encourage these services to ensure proper co-ordination between local authorities, bus operators and other bodies, such as NHS trusts, so that rural areas get a better deal from the providers at various levels in their area and a structure that local people can rely on?