Labour MPs plan to aid buses
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A CAMPAIGN to get more help for the financially troubled bus industry has started at Westminster led by Mr Leslie Huckfield, MP for Nuneaton, and chairman of Labour's backbench transport group.
He is principal sponsor of a Commons motion which draws attention to the industry's problems, and later this month he is to lead a deputation from the transport group to Environment Secretary Mr Anthony Crosland.
Describing the situation facing the National Bus Company as " very serious indeed," Mr Huckfield told CM: "Unless local authorities or central government pay up more than they did last year in bus grants, we could lose up to 40 million route miles of bus services and up to 10,000 jobs on the buses."
Mr Huckfield's Commons motion, signed initially by 39 other MPs, with many more expected to add their names, calls on the Government to provide continued support both on revenue and capital account to the industry.
It rejects any solution based on the liberalisation of licensing regulations and the expansion of services by private operators. Mr Huckfield said that Transport Minister Dr John Gilbert is considering proposals for experiments in about four areas involving a liberalisation of the normal procedure for putting a bus on the road.
This, in Mr Huckfield's view, would be the thin end of the wedge, with minibuses being operated privately, but only so long as they were profitable. He believes that only a properly funded National Bus Company can provide continuity of service.