Anna Sabine

I thank the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for securing this debate on one of my favourite topics. I represent the market towns of Frome, Midsomer Norton and Radstock, as well as many larger villages, such as Evercreech and Peasedown St John. On 18 May, five services failed to run on the 172 and 171 bus routes that serve Midsomer Norton, which meant that for nearly three hours during the morning rush hour, between half-past 6 and half-past 9, there was no bus service at all. I have had emails from constituents for whom it meant missing a shift at work or missing medical appointments. I raise this incident not to criticise one operator on one morning—in fairness, the operator has apologised—but because it illustrates something systemic, which is that when the margin for error is zero because there is no back-up or redundancy, any failure becomes a crisis. That is the reality for communities whose transport links are threadbare to begin with. I have constituents who cannot take a job in the next town because the bus does not run early enough to get them there. I represent many young people, including those in my own family, who cannot get a job or see friends because there is no suitable public transport. My constituency is a radiotherapy desert—without a car, there is not one place in my constituency where you could reach radiotherapy treatment within the recommended timescales. Such stories represent the lived experience of a significant portion of my constituency. The Government’s briefing on the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill speaks of bringing power closer to communities, but devolution delivered through metro mayors in large urban centres offers little comfort to places like Frome and East Somerset. We have seen millions for buses being poured into the West of England combined authority, which is welcome, only to find that the focus is on getting people in and out of Bristol even more effectively than they currently are. Devolution that does not reach rural communities is not devolution: it is a redistribution of power to a slightly different tier of city. We need a funding model for bus services that does not treat rural routes as commercially unviable afterthoughts. We need the franchising powers in the Bus Services Act 2025 to be accessible to county councils, not just combined authorities with mayoral structures. We need a duty on operators to provide genuine contingency when services fail and guarantees that, when new housing developments are approved, transport infrastructure is not an optional extra or included in section 106 agreement only to be quietly watered down later. I have spoken in this place before about the link between transport and safety, and in particular about women in my constituency who have told me that they gave up running, cycling or going out after dark in the winter because waiting at isolated bus stops on unlit country lanes did not feel safe. Transport is not just a technical issue, but a question of who gets to participate fully in public life and who is excluded from it, which is why I will continue to campaign for the Government to include mention of women and girls’ safety in the national planning policy framework. I welcome much of the Government’s rhetoric about the importance of improved public transport and the fact they are making spending commitments to support it, but I urge them not to forget places like Frome and East Somerset, where the potential for economic growth is huge if only people could get where they need to go.