Read the full text of the letter below...

Dear Secretary of State for Transport — Rt Hon Louise Haigh MP,

Thank you for prioritising the nation’s neglected bus services with the Better Buses Bill announced in the King’s Speech.

Deregulation has been a disaster. Privatisation has caused “serious human rights impacts.”

We know early and formative work on the Better Buses Bill concludes shortly. The Bill needs to put the people of this country at the heart of our bus network. We call on you to address the following three issues.

Public Ownership

Your plan to lift the ban on council’s setting up publicly owned bus companies from scratch is a game changer.

However, many councils face bankruptcy; this power means little without funding to establish and grow operators. Please match this legislation with the funding to deliver it.

Deregulation leaves new council-owned bus companies vulnerable. The wealthy international owners of existing privatised bus companies may fund “bus wars” to run their new council-owned competitors off the road.

Public control, or franchising, ends deregulation — but historically involves a competitive tender for a contract. Retained EU legislation, used in your Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, allows contracts to be directly awarded to public operators.

We call on you to make direct award to public operators the default approach, where a council operator exists, and ease any legal hurdles for other councils.

We also note the call of some Mayoral Authorities to be allowed to temporarily directly award contracts to incumbent private bus operators for a one-off, short, and fixed-term transition phase to allow public control to begin sooner.

We support this suggestion, but only if: (i) a direct award to a public operator has been attempted; (ii) the powers are limited in scope and time to the bus franchising transition; (iii) new powers do not open the door to unaccountable outsourcing in this or other sectors.

Public Voice

Bus franchising has often been referred to as “public control.”

In Europe, publicly owned and controlled services (such as Paris Water) have company boards bringing together: local councillors; the company’s workers, through their trade unions; academic experts; and service users, through delegates from an open membership forum.

76 per cent of the public agree with having representatives from local businesses, community groups, and drivers on a transport board.

We believe this model must be adopted to deliver greater scrutiny and involvement at Transport Committees that design and oversee newly publicly controlled services.

Employment

Bus workers deserve dignity in their work. Passengers also benefit from a healthy and well-treated workforce. Eroded pay and conditions have sparked a driver shortage leading to unreliability and service cuts. The pressure placed on drivers, cleaners, and depot staff comes across in interactions with passengers.

In London, franchising delivered a race to the bottom on terms and conditions. Minimum standards, developed by trade unions, must be written into all contracts.

In France, some franchising systems retain workers as local council employees, even when private firms receive a management contract, protecting employees from attacks on their terms during transfers. We support Direct Labour Organisations for bus workers.

We believe your Better Buses Bill could be the start of a regeneration of Britain's bus networks — fit for the 21st century and supporting a just transition.

Please, take these actions to make sure we, the British public, are at the heart of your reforms.

Yours sincerely,