Olly Glover

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this debate and thank the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer) for securing it. She brought to the Chamber her customary passion and championing of the coach industry, of which she always makes us conscious in the Transport Committee. She articulated the distinctive requirements of the coach industry and made me aware of National Coach Week, which I confess I had not previously known was a “week”, but there are weeks on a great many topics these days. We have heard important themes raised during the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) highlighted the critical rural role that the coach sector can play in getting people and to and from schools. The hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) and the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) outlined the critical role of manufacturing for our country’s bus and coach sector, and the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) talked about his own family heritage in the coach sector. Those three hon. Members gave us an amuse-bouche of the passions that dominate Holyrood, which was very interesting for those of us who do not get there often. My hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) talked about the critical role that the coach plays in providing affordable travel. Many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) and the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), talked about the local coach companies that they have in their constituency. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) talked about the need for support and encouragement of the coach sector as a whole. In my constituency, I have several coach companies that provide a critical service, such as Pearces coaches, now owned by the Go-Ahead Group at Thames Travel’s Didcot depot; JD Travel in Culham, which provides private hire; and Ridgeways Coaches in Wantage. Weavaway Travel is based in the next-door constituency, in Newbury, but took over the once-legendary Tappins Coaches brand, which was based in my constituency. The economic benefits of the coach industry are hard to overstate and yet, as the hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard said, we tend not to reflect on them as much as we should. Around 450 million passenger journeys are made by coach in Britain each year. Coach passengers are estimated to spend £8.3 billion annually in local economies through tourism, retail and leisure, with inbound international visitors travelling by coach contributing a further £610 million a year. The industry estimates that a single additional coach visiting a destination each day can generate around £1 million a year for the local economy. With rail prices still generally higher than many would like, private coach operators often present an important, more affordable alternative for long-distance travel. Indeed, for inter-city rail operators, coach operators provide a vital function in the all-too-common rail replacement road service. I was on holiday in Switzerland recently and—believe it or not, fellow hon. Members—I had to go on a rail replacement bus even there, so it is not an issue unique to us. As has been said, coach travel can also be essential to providing some school transport. There are key regulatory and economic challenges facing the coach industry. It has suffered, like so many industries, from the pressure that the last decade has placed on businesses, with uncontrollable shocks such as the pandemic, and completely self-imposed ones such as the Conservatives’ botched Brexit deals, excessive red tape and the huge delays we now see at borders for international coach travel as a result of the EU entry and exit system. Some of the Government’s anti-business policies have further increased pressure, with raised business rates and employer national insurance contributions further threatening the coach industry’s bottom lines. Coach companies do not receive any of the fuel duty relief measures that other modes of passenger transport do. Operators want UK Government engagement with the EU on pre-registration and digital documentation for coach parties, a specific exemption for professional coach drivers from the 90/180 Schengen rule, and continued investment in port and border infrastructure to prevent repeats of the severe queuing seen in past peak periods. As many hon. Members have mentioned, the coach sector faces severe workforce issues. The industry reports that driver shortfall stands at an estimated 5,000 to 10,000, with around 14% of driver roles currently vacant and about a quarter of the existing driver workforce aged over 60. I hope the Minister will specifically address the issue of coach drivers not being allowed to start at the age of 18. That seems particularly anomalous given recent Government announcements about the train driving age being lowered to 18. It is quite hard to see the logic and consistency, so I hope the Minister will be able to shed some light on that. On the planning system, coaches have historically been an afterthought in both local and national transport planning, regulated in practice as an afterthought to bus policy despite being a fundamentally different and deregulated commercial method of transport. That has produced a chronic shortage of coach parking, drop-off space and driver rest facilities, directly affecting operators’ ability to comply with statutory drivers’ hours rules, and has left coaches significantly absent from local transport and spatial plans. Industry bodies are calling for coaches to be recognised as a distinct mode in planning guidance, for motorway service areas to be required to prioritise coach parking and driver facilities, and for more standardised local authority procurement to reduce the administrative burden on operators bidding for home-to-school and other contracted work. Coaches are also an important consideration in improving integrated transport policy. Whether coach operators are given access to major urban bus stations is highly inconsistent, with local authorities and owners and operators of those bus terminals making very different decisions on whether to grant access to national coach operators. Accessibility remains a challenge. The Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 require coaches in scope to be fully wheelchair accessible, but in practice that depends on kerbside infrastructure just as much as the capability of the coaches. Level ground of up to 4 metres is needed, which does not exist at many locations coaches serve. That means vehicles can be technically compliant while still failing to deliver a reliably accessible journey. The accessibility equipment required also adds weight and takes up capacity that could otherwise carry passengers, so the sector’s ask is for a shift from a vehicle-focused compliance regime towards a whole journey accessibility framework covering booking, boarding infrastructure and arrival, developed jointly with local authorities, operators and disability groups. As the hon. Member for Falkirk said, decarbonisation is a challenge for this sector. Unlike cars and vans, coaches are not currently covered by the zero emission vehicle mandate, and no equivalent statutory trajectory or long-term support and road map exists for the sector. Zero emission coaches face a much harder technical challenge than buses or cars, with longer average journeys increasing the importance of range and refuelling infrastructure, with charging and hydrogen infrastructure suitable for coaches largely non-existent on the motorway and major A-road networks. Industry data suggests that roughly three quarters of coach operators currently have no plan to introduce zero emission vehicles, citing high up-front costs and insufficient range as the main barriers. The sector is asking Government to publish a long-delayed low-carbon fuel strategy, to extend infrastructure trials such as a zero emission and hydrogen infrastructure demonstrator to coaches on a similar footing to heavy goods vehicles, and to consider an interim fuel duty incentive for low-carbon fuels to bridge the gap until zero emission coaches are commercially viable at scale. We have heard today of the vital role that coaches play, whether as a long-distance public transport offer, helping children to get to school or enabling groups of people old and young to access tourism, hospitality, culture and so on. Coaches have not been supported or given enough attention. The hon. Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard is moving us on the journey and I hope the Minister will say what more can be done to recognise and support this critical sector.