Let's Bring Buses Under Public Control
Privatising bus services has been a four decade long disaster for Scotland. My latest local column for newspapers in West Dunbartonshire talks about the need to bring buses back under public control.
For many people, me included, buses are essential for day to day travel. Everyone should have access to affordable and reliable public transport, but that's far from the reality when it comes to Scotland’s overpriced and fragmented private bus network.
Alongside Glasgow’s Green MSP Patrick Harvie I’m calling for bus services across the West of Scotland to be brought back under public control, so that routes can be planned based on what our communities need rather than what will make the most profit for company shareholders.
Quite predictably, the fiercest opponent of our proposals is McGills Buses owner Sandy Easdale, who has launched a series of unintentionally hilarious personal attacks against myself and Patrick.
Mr Easdale and his brother are very keen for us all to think they are billionaires, but research by journalists has never been able to make that add up. Regardless of the precise figure though, they are clearly exceedingly rich and much of that is because you and I pay them twice every time we use one of their buses.
We pay once for our (overpriced) tickets, then again through our taxes to subsidise their business. In the last few years alone McGills has taken almost £19 million from the Scottish Government to buy new buses.
If privatising the bus network has been so successful, why do these companies constantly need so much money from taxpayers?
Since Thatcher privatised bus services in the late 1980s they have become increasingly fragmented and geared towards extracting profits for their directors and shareholders, rather than providing a decent service.
Companies have no incentive to cooperate to ensure that every community in need of bus services gets one. Their only priorities are grabbing the most profitable routes and collecting as much in government subsidies as possible.
But it doesn’t need to be this way. The benefits are obvious when more people are able to use the bus.
The Scottish Greens delivered free bus travel for young people a few years ago. 15,000 young people in West Dunbartonshire have now taken four million bus journeys for free, saving their families a fortune and helping to reduce the number of cars on the roads.
I know of bus services across the country which have been saved from the axe or expanded because of the passenger increase driven by young people. That’s a win for whole communities, not just those under 22.
But we cannot constantly be on the defensive, fighting to save individual routes from companies who simply do not care.
Putting buses back under public control and expanding free bus travel must be the goal.
Countries like Malta and Luxembourg already offer free bus travel to all of their residents, so why not Scotland?
