Paul Kohler MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Jun 2025 · Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill · Hansard source

  More

  If someone is using a ticket that has already been used, it is an overcrowding issue, so is there a flaw in that change? The previous drafting made sense: if two people had a photocopy of the same ticket, and knowingly attempted to enter using that same ticket, that was not a defence under the original drafting, unless they reasonably believed that the ticket had not already been used. That has been removed in the final version, and I wonder whether that is a mistake in the drafting—I cannot see the logic of that.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I have read paragraph 19 of the explanatory notes, but given the physicality of the description in the Bill, what is the legal justification for saying that it also covers electronic tickets? We can assume that it does, but I can see a defence barrister making a lot of the physicality in the description in proposed new section 1A(4) of the 1991 Act. There must be some legal reason why we can say absolutely that that description includes electronic tickets.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I do not have an objection, but I do have a question about the change of wording in proposed new section 1A(3), if that is possible.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Department for Transport · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Minister for his compliments. Does he accept that Active Travel England will get £100 million less next year, and does he think that is a sensible way to move forward?

• 25 Jun 2025 · Department for Transport · Hansard source

  More

  As we all know, strong connectivity is vital to economic growth and social prosperity. It is not just about convenience; it is key to boosting productivity, attracting regional investment and raising living standards. Central to that is making public transport more available, affordable and accessible. The transport crisis in this country is clear. Since 2015 the number of local bus journeys has dropped by more than 1 billion—a quarter of all trips—with many routes cut and fares up by more than 50% since 2013. Rail use remains below pre-pandemic levels, while Government rail subsidies have surged to over £22 billion, 65% higher than they were before the pandemic, despite repeated above-inflation fare increases. So what is the plan? The estimates offer us some hope, but the picture is mixed. Let me begin with the positive aspects. The 4.4% rise in capital spending is welcome, especially the boost for Transport for London and High Speed 2, which shows much-needed recognition of the transport network’s capital needs. The continued support for East West Rail and the trans-Pennine route upgrade is also welcome, as they are vital to connecting communities and driving growth—exactly the kind of strategic investment we need. Sadly, although the Conservative Government claimed to back motorists, they did the opposite, and fewer than half our roads are now in good condition. The new road funding settlement is good news therefore, but it clearly falls short of what is needed. The support for devolution is also encouraging. Local leaders are best placed to deliver for their areas, and increased autonomy for transport in city regions is positive, even if not all the new money is in fact new. However, areas outside combined authorities must not be overlooked. Of the negatives, the most concerning is the £150 million cut to day-to-day spending this year and over the spending review period, which will affect subsidies for trains and buses. The reductions threaten already fragile services and the efforts to promote walking and cycling, and raise serious doubts about the Department’s ability to achieve its stated priorities. There is a clear mismatch between the Government’s ambitious transport goals and their budget priorities. An £81 million rise in central administration costs, largely to cover the higher employer national insurance contributions that the Government introduced, raises questions about whether resources are being prioritised towards administrative overheads, rather than directly supporting frontline transport improvements. Despite pledges to address climate change, the budget lacks detail on funding for green infrastructure, public transport decarbonisation and active travel, leaving the DFT open to accusations of setting green ambitions without a clear financial or operational pathway—greenwashing, effectively. The £50 million in costs tied to the closure of phase 2 of the HS2 programme further reflects issues with long-term strategic planning. Not only does the expenditure represent sunk costs, with no return on investment; it casts doubt on the Department’s ability to deliver the major infrastructure projects that are so vital for national connectivity and economic growth. The Liberal Democrats propose simplifying ticketing, improving accessibility and boosting connectivity, and also increasing usage and income by freezing fares. We also advocate a 10-year rail electrification plan—investing in zero carbon by ensuring that all new lines are fully electrified. Buses, the nation’s most popular form of transport, get little support from the estimates. The franchising reforms in the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill are welcome, but they will not restore regular, affordable services without funding and expertise. We need more than just three people in the bus centre of excellence. Years of neglect following Tory deregulation have destroyed much of our national bus network, isolating communities and holding back growth. Clearly, the Chancellor’s hike of the fare cap from £2 to £3 should be reversed, as it is causing real hardship for some of the poorest in society, yet the estimates reveal continued cuts to bus subsidies, which is precisely the wrong approach when communities desperately need reliable, affordable bus services. The Liberal Democrats believe that active travel infrastructure must accompany public transport reform, but the Government’s approach is disappointing. Although £246 million is currently allocated to Active Travel England, funding is set to be cut by more than £90 million next year, undermining Labour’s earlier promises of unprecedented investment. The Liberal Democrats propose a different path: a nationwide active travel strategy to build new cycling and walking networks that are better integrated with existing transport. This cost-effective, ecofriendly approach would connect homes, schools, high streets and transport hubs. These estimates show a Department and a Government who lack ambition. While increasing capital spending and investing for the future are positive, cutting day-to-day spending is a poor decision from a Government who say economic growth is their highest priority. We need a transport system that works not just for the next decade, but for the next bus, the next train, the next school run and the next hospital visit. This means funding day-to-day services properly, empowering local authorities and putting passengers at the heart of every decision, for which the Liberal Democrats will continue to fight.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. The Lib Dems support the Bill and applaud the Government’s ambitions. This is an excellent move forward, and we support the purpose set out in clause 1. The stated aim to “improve the performance, accessibility and quality of bus passenger services” in the UK is vital. However, buses have for too long been a poor relation in public transport, which is why we are pushing the Government to give local authorities a general duty to promote the use of bus services. The bus is the most popular form of public transport, but it has long been neglected and, to some extent, looked down on. New clause 22 would ensure that local authorities have a duty to encourage the use of buses and promote their benefits and services, but it is only a general duty. Subsection (2) would not be mandatory; it simply suggests the things that a local authority might consider. Although the Government’s ambitions are wonderful and to be commended, we want local authorities to start saying to people, “Yes, buses are important, and we have a role in providing them.” That is why we are pushing the Government on that.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I am a councillor in Merton.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  The concern raised by many stakeholders about this Bill is not about its contents. We all agree with its contents, but the money and expertise are lacking. Local councils do not have either. As I said on Second Reading, although this Bill “hands councils a set of keys to a new bus network, it does not ensure that there is fuel in the tank.” —[ Official Report , 2 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 97.] We have great sympathy with Conservative new clauses 14 and 18. It is important that we ask local authorities to list the objectives and evidence. It is also be important to go through the costs. Those constraints and disciplines are crucial and will avoid ideological decisions. We have seen that already with rail nationalisation, where a Transport for London model, which the industry and many Labour Members supported at one point, would have been a better approach than concession contracts. New clauses 14 and 18 are a useful brake on letting ideology, rather than pragmatism, take control. They are not impediments; they are things that surely should be done and are good practice. We will support new clauses 14 and 18. On new clause 30, we want to make it easier for local transport authorities that do not have the expertise. Having a number of off-the-shelf approaches to franchising is surely a good thing. There are specific issues in rural areas and villages, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk will speak to, but in urban areas we have real issues with bus routes that do not keep to local authority boundaries, but cross them. There are problems of co-ordination when bus routes cross boundaries, and an absence of buses because of those problems. Having a number of off-the-shelf ways to help authorities would surely be a good thing. I will leave it to my hon. Friend to take on that matter.

• 18 Jun 2025 · HS2 Reset · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for advance sight of it. What we have heard today is clearly a damning indictment of Conservative mismanagement. Connecting our largest cities with high-speed rail was meant to help boost economic growth and spread opportunity. The original idea—a high-speed rail network connecting London to Manchester and Leeds—was clearly the right one, but what we have ended up with is years of delay and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being poured down the drain, with no end in sight. The litany of errors that the Secretary of State has outlined is truly shocking and shows that the Conservatives were comatose at the wheel. A lack of oversight, trust and planning has left us with a high-speed railway drastically reduced in scale and inflated in price. The shocking allegations of fraud by a subcontractor are emblematic of the Tories’ lack of oversight and interest in properly safeguarding the public interest and public money, as we saw with the scandal of personal protective equipment procurement during covid. We must now make sure that any money lost to fraud is clawed back as soon as possible. May I ask the Secretary of State three things? First, can she guarantee that, if any fraud has taken place, any money lost will be returned to the Government and her Department as soon as possible, and that the police will be provided with the necessary resources to investigate the matter fully? Secondly, the Secretary of State has said that the ministerial taskforce set up to provide oversight on HS2 had inconsistent attendance from the then Transport Secretary and Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Does the Secretary of State agree that those right hon. Members should apologise for those particularly damning lapses? Thirdly, we share the Secretary of State’s confidence in Mark Wild and Mike Brown, but can she say when she expects to be able to give the House an accurate assessment of the scheme’s full costs and of when HS2 will finally be up and running?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  This is the last one; I will.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Let me begin by laying my cards on the table. I am, of course, a liberal and have always supported the right of individuals to choose freely when they want to end their life. I have no religious or philosophical objection to assisted dying, and when the debate on the Bill began, I assumed I would vote in favour of it. However, as the debate in this Chamber on Second Reading progressed, and in particular as a result of the compelling speeches by the hon. Members for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) and for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), and in particular from the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), I came to the reluctant decision that the state of palliative care in this country and the safeguards against coercion in all its forms were not sufficient to vote in favour of the Bill. Despite the changes in Committee, my mind has not changed. I will again be voting against the Bill. However, let me be equally clear that amendments 103 and 104, in my name and to which I will now speak, are not wrecking amendments, but critical to ensuring proper parliamentary scrutiny if the Bill becomes law.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Giving people a choice when they look on the internet and see how awful their death might be because of the shocking state of palliative care is not a free choice. This is an extraordinary Bill. It has 55 clauses and 38 regulation-making powers, of which five are Henry VIII powers—in other words, powers to modify primary legislation. As Ruth Fox of the non-partisan Hansard Society, which is absolutely neutral on assisted dying, made clear, there are lots of powers in the Bill conferred on Ministers. Why is that a problem? Lord Hermer KC, the Attorney General, in his Bingham lecture last year, puts the point as follows: “Henry VIII clauses…upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law…but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty.” I am afraid the Bill is an example of such excessive reliance. That is a major problem because in large part the safeguards are left to be decided by regulations. What level of qualification and training will doctors need to have? How will mental capacity be assessed? Who can be a proxy? What happens if the self-administration of drugs goes wrong and a person suffers complications but does not die? When pressed on the key safeguards and key issues, supporters of the Bill say that they are problems that can be approved later. The same goes for how the Bill will actually be delivered. Will it be delivered by the NHS, and if so, how? Will private providers be commissioned, and if so, how, by who and on what terms? Will for-profit providers be allowed? All those questions go unanswered by the Bill. I had hoped that they would be answered in Committee, but they were not, and instead we got even more reliance on delegated powers. First, that means that MPs cannot make a judgment about assisted dying and how it will work in practice. On training, for example, MPs might assume that the training provided will be a robust two-week course on assessing coercive control, but there is no such requirement in the Bill. Indeed, the impact assessment suggests that it would be a short course. Secondly, regulations cannot override statute and are ultimately bound by it. While it might be reassuring that a code of practice must be issued to take into account how depression can impair a person’s decision making, as the Royal College of Psychiatrists recently reminded us, that does not change the fact that impaired judgment does not mean that someone lacks capacity. Thirdly, leaving all those matters to be considered by guidance and regulations places them outside the democratic control of MPs. With limited exceptions, we will not get a vote on those regulations, and will have no input, directly or indirectly, in formulating them. The case for the defence might be that reliance on such guidance and regulations is inevitable with a Bill of this complexity, but the experience of other common law jurisdictions suggests that that is not the case. In Victoria, the first Australian state to legalise assisted dying, there are only 20 pages of regulations and much more has been included in the Act, which is necessarily longer than the Bill before us. That is a good thing, as it means more parliamentary scrutiny. I wholly understand why it was not possible for the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) to draft a Bill as detailed as the Australian Act before Second Reading, but I had hoped that with the help of Government resources, those gaps would have been filled in Committee and on Report. Sadly, that is not the case. [ Interruption. ] I had much more to speak about, but heeding your cough, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me say clearly that I will vote against the Bill, but even if Members disagree with me, they should please vote for my amendments.

• 13 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I agree entirely with the hon. Member. It would not be a free choice if we make that choice now, given the standard of palliative care.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Secretary of State for her speech, and congratulate the Aviation Minister on the Bill. The challenge facing the aviation sector—as with our entire economy—is decarbonisation. Reaching net zero by 2050 is essential, and given the scale of the scientific and technical challenge, it is clear that decarbonising aviation will not be easy. Sustainable aviation fuels have an important role to play in this effort. We consequently welcome the establishment of a SAF revenue certainty mechanism, which has long been called for by many in the aviation industry and which, as we have heard, is vital to ensuring that the SAF mandate is both feasible and achievable for airlines. Providing SAF producers with a guaranteed level of revenue will be key to unlocking investment in the sector—which, I think, answers some of the questions posed by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon). It will help to stimulate private capital at this early stage, and will support the UK’s ambition to become a global leader in SAF development and production. The growth of the industry also has the potential to generate jobs and economic activity across the country. However, while my party supports the Bill, there remain important questions, regarding in particular the scrutiny of the mechanism, international alignment, and the wider strategy for aviation decarbonisation. The Bill sets out the broad principles for the revenue mechanism, but leaves much of the detail to secondary legislation and ministerial discretion. That is, to a degree, understandable—the early stage of SAF technology and the uncertainty in market development mean that flexibility is crucial and necessary—but the Government must ensure that Parliament has an adequate opportunity to scrutinise the development of the mechanism, and the SAF sector more broadly. Given the importance of SAF to achieving net zero in aviation, it is vital that the House is updated regularly on progress in the industry, and on whether any adjustments to the mechanism are necessary. That is especially important in the light of previous Government promises to kick-start the domestic SAF industry—promises that have yet to materialise. In 2022 the Conservatives promised to have five commercial SAF plants up and running by 2025, but, as so often, they failed to deliver. I will therefore be pushing in Committee for the Bill to increase the level of ongoing scrutiny. It is also crucial for the UK to work collaboratively with international partners on net-zero aviation technologies. Currently, the criteria for both what qualifies as SAF and what levels of different technologies should be used differ between the UK and the EU, with each jurisdiction prioritising different fuel types at different times. Given the inherently international nature of the aviation sector, closer regulatory alignment with the EU and other key partners is essential to fostering growth in the industry and ensuring that there are sufficient levels of SAF production internationally to support the transition. The Government must therefore work more closely with the EU and others to ensure that our frameworks dovetail. Finally, while we welcome this Bill, it is important to acknowledge that SAF alone will not be enough to decarbonise aviation, as the Chair of the Transport Committee made clear. Although SAF can significantly reduce the carbon intensity of air travel, flights using SAF will not be carbon neutral, so many of the necessary emission reductions to reach net zero will need to come from other areas. By the Government’s own estimates, SAF could cut emissions by 6.3 million tonnes of CO 2 equivalent by 2040. That is not insignificant, but given the projected growth in passenger numbers, it would represent only a 0.8% reduction in overall aviation emissions compared with today. While the Lib Dems support the Bill, we continue to urge the Government to take more ambitious action to decarbonise the aviation industry. With plans for airport expansion still on the table, the Government must clearly articulate how net zero aviation will be achieved by 2050.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Police Presence on High Streets · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) on securing the debate and on her excellent speech. I once lived in Erdington, and her constituents have a wonderful advocate in her. I hope I can call her a friend. As all hon. Members agree, a visible police presence is essential to tackling crime on our streets and high streets. That is why I took the Mayor of London to court and stopped him from closing my local police station in the heart of Wimbledon, and why my constituents are still concerned about its long-term future. After a recent stabbing near a Co-op in Wimbledon, I received a letter from Jack, a pupil at Holy Trinity primary, who wrote: “The relationship between local police officers and the community they serve is built on proximity and familiarity, and losing this presence could erode the sense of security we currently enjoy.” When a young person feels the need to write to their MP about such matters, we should all take notice. Years of cuts have eroded the link between the police and the public. Despite an increase in Government funding in the current police grant, it still falls short of the minimum that chief constables said they needed. For example, the Met, which serves Wimbledon, faces a £130 million shortfall. Just this week, Sir Mark Rowley and other police chiefs wrote to the Prime Minister to warn that, without proper funding, there will be “far-reaching consequences”. In short, these funding shortfalls risk undermining public confidence and the police’s ability to deter everyday crime. Admittedly, the Home Secretary tried to reassure the Home Affairs Committee, on which I sit, two days ago that neighbourhood policing in London was safe, but sadly we have heard such reassurances before. It has now emerged that neighbourhood policing figures were artificially inflated under the Tories, with the Home Office now admitting that it over-reported numbers. In fact, England and Wales have more than 6,000 fewer neighbourhood officers than the Home Office previously claimed. Our communities were told they were better protected, but they knew that they were not. Nowhere is that more visible than on our high streets. In Wimbledon, there is now no dedicated town centre team, only a neighbourhood team stretched across a larger area. Without visible and trusted neighbourhood policing, crime flourishes and communities are left exposed. We know that the demands of a busy town centre, retail crime, antisocial behaviour and the night-time economy exceed those of a residential neighbourhood, yet under the Met’s new ward shake up, there is still no confirmed timescale for when police teams will be redeployed, and there is no guarantee that high streets like Wimbledon’s will have dedicated officers. That is why the Liberal Democrat councillors in my area are campaigning for a dedicated town centre policing team in Wimbledon and a local policing hub in Old Malden, along with initiatives such as a town centre pop-up on Friday and Saturday nights and a night-time safety street stall. Those practical steps would restore safety, visibility and trust, but so far nothing has been done by the Labour-run Merton council to address Wimbledon’s policing needs. I hope that Jack’s words ring loudly in the ears of the Government. If a child is asking who will protect them on their local high street and we cannot give them a clear answer, the system is broken and we must fix it together.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I completely agree. The point is that this is about not only getting people out of poverty but growing the economy. People need access to bus routes; otherwise they are left with expensive and much more environmentally damaging private transport. Put simply, a poor or non-existent bus service is not just an inconvenience. It is a barrier to opportunity, a brake on economic growth, and an obstacle to achieving net zero. Given the decline in local bus services under the Conservatives, my party and I warmly welcome the Government’s renewed focus on this issue. The Bill includes measures that are long overdue and that my party will support.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I agree. We must not focus only on passenger numbers. It is also about connectivity, and about making sure that rural areas thrive.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the community on its success, and I agree that we need funding for these critical services. The placing of socially necessary services on a statutory footing is a beneficial change to the enhanced partnership model, as it ensures that local authorities assess the impact of service changes and consider alternatives. The Bill also rightly lifts the outdated, ideologically-driven ban on municipally-owned bus companies, empowering local authorities who wish to use it, rather than infantilising them. Taken as a whole, the measures create an improved set of options from which local authorities can choose the approach that works best for them. As the Secretary of State noted, it is important to realise that this is not, and must not become, a one-size-fits-all approach. Not every local authority will wish to pursue franchising, establish a bus company or abandon the partnership model. What works for Greater Manchester or London may not work for Oxfordshire or Cornwall. It must be up to local leaders and, ultimately, local communities to decide what works best for them. I welcome the fact that the Government are not mandating a certain approach. Therein lies the challenge: empowering local authorities in law is one thing, but enabling them in practice is quite another. Although the Bill hands councils a set of keys to a new bus network, it does not ensure that there is fuel in the tank. Franchising is complex, resource-intensive and unfamiliar to the vast majority of local authorities. It requires legal expertise, commercial understanding, operational planning and, above all, funding. The Department for Transport has acknowledged those difficulties, yet this legislation provides little to help overcome them. The Government’s laudable desire to increase their own capacity to advise councils is welcome, but I am not convinced that they are doing enough. The recently established Bus Centre of Excellence, which we will no doubt hear much about during the passage of the Bill, is a positive development, but does it really have the necessary capacity and resources to provide meaningful support to all those who might need it? If we are to see franchising become a viable option beyond a handful of combined authorities, we must take bolder steps to offer councils without either the expertise or the finances more than just a helpline or homilies on best practice. Every hon. Member in this House knows how overstretched their local authorities are—with the exception of our colleagues from Reform, of course, who are sadly absent from today’s debate, no doubt too busy frantically searching for the untapped resources and savings they confidently promised they would discover in their new fiefdoms. As for the rest of us, we know that most local authorities lack the finances, expertise and bandwidth to use the tools the Bill provides. As a result, only the local authorities that already have the capacity to do so will use them, which will exacerbate regional disparities, not reduce them. Even if we overcome such problems, that will not remove the continuing role of central Government in securing access and affordability. That is why the Government’s reckless decision to raise the national bus fare cap from £2 to £3 casts a dark shadow over the Bill. The original £2 cap was not only popular but effective. It reduced costs for passengers and helped to bring people back on to the bus network. It was precisely the kind of policy of which we need more, not less. Increasing fares by £1 per trip may not sound prohibitive, but for those on low incomes or families making multiple journeys, the change represents a significant cost increase, adding £20 to the cost of a weekly commute to anyone who has to take two buses to work while only saving the Government £150 million. Let us be clear: this increase is regressive. It will hit the poorest hardest, particularly at a time of a cost of living crisis. Surely the Government should commit to preserving affordability, not undermining it, as raising fares in the absence of service improvements risks entrenching decline, not reversing it. Even more worryingly, rumours are now doing the rounds that the fare cap may be removed altogether. That would be a catastrophic mistake. We must not allow the progress of recent years to unravel in a Treasury-pleasing piece of virtue signalling that will only save the Exchequer a further £150 million. A thriving, affordable bus network is not a luxury but an essential public service. This Bill must ensure that that is the case. Nowhere is that more true than in our rural areas. As we have seen for years, the current unregulated bus market is failing small villages and remote hamlets, serving them neither efficiently nor sufficiently.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I will simply say that I agree with my hon. Friend. Hon. Members have spoken about rural areas suffering. From 2015 to 2023, Shropshire lost 63% of its bus miles, the largest decline in any part of England. No doubt that was one reason among many that Shropshire voters decided that they had had enough of the Conservatives. In May, they voted a majority Liberal Democrat administration in for the first time. Although the bus service in Shropshire is one of the worst in the country, it is by no means an isolated case. I have heard from colleagues and residents across the country, just as the House has heard today, that in rural areas such as Norfolk, Somerset and Hampshire, having no buses—or one bus a day, if residents are lucky—has sadly become the norm for many villages. This is not just inconvenient; it is holding back our rural economies and stifling growth. I fear that the measures in the Bill will not be sufficient to reverse that decline. Lastly, I want to address accessibility, an issue on which my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the other place and other noble Lords have made good progress and have secured a number of improvements. As originally drafted, the Bill included positive provision on the mandatory training of staff, both in supporting disabled passengers and in tackling antisocial behaviour on board. We support those measures, but the Liberal Democrats believe that true accessibility means more than awareness training; it means fully accessible vehicles, clear signage and announcements, and accessible journey planning tools. Critically, it means accessible infrastructure, from bus stops to ticket machines. The excellent amendment to ensure accessibility guidance on the provision of floating bus stops, which if badly designed can prove a real hazard to disabled people, was inserted after representations from the Lib Dem transport lead in the Lords, Baroness Pidgeon. The inclusion of bus network accessibility plans, after pressure from Baroness Brinton among others, is an important amendment that will go some way towards helping us to understand the barriers that disabled residents face in accessing a vital lifeline. We must not be complacent, however. I anticipate that more work will need to be done in Committee, as the Secretary of State has intimated, to probe the Bill’s provisions and ensure that they are as effective as they can be. I will conclude where I began. My party and I welcome many aspects of the Bill. After years of Tory neglect, provisions to give local authorities more control of and input into their local bus networks are long overdue and clearly sensible, but we cannot give local authorities tantalising new powers without a practical means of using them. That will require sustained investment and reform of the funding models. I acknowledge that the Government have promised to include longer-term funding settlements in the spring spending review, but noises off suggest that those are unlikely to address the shortfall in local government funding. The Bill will provide the necessary tools, but if councils are to build something effective with them, they will need not just legislation, but the finance, expertise and flexibility required to give effect to their vision and address their communities’ needs. I urge the Secretary of State to go back to the Treasury and ask for more, because financing a viable bus network is key to growing our economy.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  Those are exactly the kinds of issues that must be addressed, and this Bill does not do enough to achieve that. I will come back to that in a moment. In rural areas, the story is often one of total disconnection, with communities cut off and people unable to get to work or hospital appointments, or to visit friends or relations.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  As other Members have noted, buses are the most used form of public transport, and in much of the country they are the only option available. Outside London, however, bus use is in sharp decline, with more than 1 billion fewer passenger journeys in 2023 than in 2015. That is not because of insufficient demand, but because of the Conservative policy of deregulation that put profit before people, allowing private operators to cream off the valuable routes with scant regard for the needs of the wider community, resulting in increased fares and reduced or completely abandoned services for many—unless, of course, the local authority, starved of access to the profitable routes, met the costs of the unprofitable ones.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I do agree. We must do all we can to reduce bureaucracy. The Bill goes some way towards that, but it needs to do more. The Bill as it stands provides nothing specific for rural areas—no dedicated rural funding stream and no obligation to maintain coverage. It is clear that if we are to be ambitious and achieve the economic growth that rural areas need, we must ensure that local authorities have the ambition and financial means to improve public transport. The Bill is missing an opportunity in failing to do so.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

  More

  I do agree. It is also about funding, which we must explore; but, yes, my party believes in localism—bringing things down to the local level is crucial. It needs to be stated from the off that the Bill does not go far enough. It falls short of delivering the comprehensive, transformative change that our bus network desperately needs—and thus, I urge the Minister, even at this late hour, to be even more ambitious. I will now outline the measures in the Bill that my party supports. Local government, not Whitehall, know what is best for their area. That is why my party has long championed localism, which is all about providing communities with the necessary tools to realise their potential. The Bill’s provisions to improve, streamline and extend franchising rights to all local transport authorities is consequently long overdue and supported on the Liberal Democrat Benches.

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

  More

  Notwithstanding the predictable nonsense from the shadow Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), it is critical that we focus on the needs of the victim. I welcome the Lord Chancellor making that point in her statement, but we need more than fine words. Can she please commit to giving all victims of crime proper access to restorative justice?

• 15 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  Following the fire at North Hyde substation that closed Heathrow a few weeks ago, various lines on the London Underground were brought to a standstill by another power outage this week. It is clear that we need to do more to improve the resilience of our transport energy infrastructure, so will the Secretary of State commit to a full review to ensure that these incidents do not keep happening?