The Bus Services Act 2017 was introduced by a Conservative government allowing any Mayoral Combined Authority to introduce Franchising. In 2022, fares were capped at £2 outside of London on a temporary basis until June 2023, since extended to December 2024, and in 2021 the government announced that any local transport authority could introduce Franchising if they had a viable plan. So what Labour are proposing doesn't appear to be any different to what the Conservatives have delivered. Indeed it wouldn't even need new legislation, since the government can agree to Franchising anyway.
As to whether or not it's a good idea? Politically it's a very good idea. A new government can do literally nothing different to the previous government but be credited with having amazingly "transformed" public transport and "enhanced" deprived communities, yadda, yadda. All the Guardian articles talking about evil bus barons profiting from services (but forgetting to mention the bus companies going bankrupt) and all the John Burn-Murdoch graphs in the Financial Times that show we have the worst buses in the entire world will stop and be replaced by articles about how a local yoghurt-weaving anarchist collective working with their local Labour council have managed to restore a "vital lifeline" to the village of Puddlington-Upon-Thames in Berkshire. (With no mention it is 2 buses on a Tuesday and 1 return journey on Friday evening).
And the likes of Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire (who already plasters her name over all the bus stops as if she has personally subsidised the bus service, in what surely must be a breach of electoral law and which would probably lead to a General Strike if a Tory council official did it) will have more free advertising to ensure the proletariat know for whom they should vote in future elections.
But then what?
Greater Manchester did the figures on the huge mega profits Stagecoach were apparently making (at the same time First, then subsequently Go North West were making huge losses). They didn't show a huge scope for coining it in post-franchising, and indeed predicted a decline in bus use over time. And that was before Covid. And if the private company franchising route is adopted (as opposed to a wholescale pre-1985 renationalisation), the big bad bus barons actually make a decent return under franchising anyway - not so much profit in really good years (not that there looks like any of those coming in the near future), but unlike in deregulation a state-backed cast iron guarantee they won't make a loss.
At one point, lost in the mists of time, there was talk of re-allocating those profits to loss-making services and of stopping "wasteful duplication" on the big south Manchester routes. We don't seem to have heard much of that recently. If that's genuinely that plan, though, it sounds like the sort of thing a 25-year old Marxism and History graduate with a job at the DfT would try to implement, only to be faced in the real world with surprise when the idea of reducing busy York to Haxby buses to free up units and drivers to ferry fresh air to some random point on a map doesn't go down well.
Or perhaps they could go down the "we know best, you'll own nothing and be happy" route? So when the local authority spend £x00 million on some fancy buses along the Anytown Road, and they aren't being used, we'll need to encourage "modal shift" to "fight climate change", and start closing roads to cars and / or introduce pay-by-mile road user charging. Of course when locals say they don't want to use the bus we can call them "far right". But that only gets you so far - voters have a habit of refusing to listen to their betters and accepting they are wrong and that North London knows best.
So it will come down to money. When the council decides to quietly shift funding from bus subsidies to Children's Social Care (the latter being one of its statutory responsibilities it must fund as much as is needed) will they pare back under-used routes in just the same way as the deregulated system would? Of would Franchising mean there's just less money all around for tenders so the entire lot gets chopped - including services that could actually pay their way? Given the political element, my money's on the latter.
And yes, everyone says "I want more bus services". Just like everyone says "I want more public libraries" and "I want more artisan bakers shops and non-chain store craft design boutiques"in their local high streets. They never use them though. They still buy on Amazon, and occasionally go into town to buy some vapes or get a cheap haircut and get their nails done (things you can't buy off Amazon) - whilst complaining "the only shops left are charity shops, vape shops, Turkish barbers and nail salons".
I guess we've got to go through the motions for the next 20 years until the pendulum swings the other way at which point a new model will be thought up as the saviour of public bus services. No doubt at that point the hardcore will complain that "it wasn't real bus franchising".
As to whether or not it's a good idea? Politically it's a very good idea. A new government can do literally nothing different to the previous government but be credited with having amazingly "transformed" public transport and "enhanced" deprived communities, yadda, yadda. All the Guardian articles talking about evil bus barons profiting from services (but forgetting to mention the bus companies going bankrupt) and all the John Burn-Murdoch graphs in the Financial Times that show we have the worst buses in the entire world will stop and be replaced by articles about how a local yoghurt-weaving anarchist collective working with their local Labour council have managed to restore a "vital lifeline" to the village of Puddlington-Upon-Thames in Berkshire. (With no mention it is 2 buses on a Tuesday and 1 return journey on Friday evening).
And the likes of Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire (who already plasters her name over all the bus stops as if she has personally subsidised the bus service, in what surely must be a breach of electoral law and which would probably lead to a General Strike if a Tory council official did it) will have more free advertising to ensure the proletariat know for whom they should vote in future elections.
But then what?
Greater Manchester did the figures on the huge mega profits Stagecoach were apparently making (at the same time First, then subsequently Go North West were making huge losses). They didn't show a huge scope for coining it in post-franchising, and indeed predicted a decline in bus use over time. And that was before Covid. And if the private company franchising route is adopted (as opposed to a wholescale pre-1985 renationalisation), the big bad bus barons actually make a decent return under franchising anyway - not so much profit in really good years (not that there looks like any of those coming in the near future), but unlike in deregulation a state-backed cast iron guarantee they won't make a loss.
At one point, lost in the mists of time, there was talk of re-allocating those profits to loss-making services and of stopping "wasteful duplication" on the big south Manchester routes. We don't seem to have heard much of that recently. If that's genuinely that plan, though, it sounds like the sort of thing a 25-year old Marxism and History graduate with a job at the DfT would try to implement, only to be faced in the real world with surprise when the idea of reducing busy York to Haxby buses to free up units and drivers to ferry fresh air to some random point on a map doesn't go down well.
Or perhaps they could go down the "we know best, you'll own nothing and be happy" route? So when the local authority spend £x00 million on some fancy buses along the Anytown Road, and they aren't being used, we'll need to encourage "modal shift" to "fight climate change", and start closing roads to cars and / or introduce pay-by-mile road user charging. Of course when locals say they don't want to use the bus we can call them "far right". But that only gets you so far - voters have a habit of refusing to listen to their betters and accepting they are wrong and that North London knows best.
So it will come down to money. When the council decides to quietly shift funding from bus subsidies to Children's Social Care (the latter being one of its statutory responsibilities it must fund as much as is needed) will they pare back under-used routes in just the same way as the deregulated system would? Of would Franchising mean there's just less money all around for tenders so the entire lot gets chopped - including services that could actually pay their way? Given the political element, my money's on the latter.
And yes, everyone says "I want more bus services". Just like everyone says "I want more public libraries" and "I want more artisan bakers shops and non-chain store craft design boutiques"in their local high streets. They never use them though. They still buy on Amazon, and occasionally go into town to buy some vapes or get a cheap haircut and get their nails done (things you can't buy off Amazon) - whilst complaining "the only shops left are charity shops, vape shops, Turkish barbers and nail salons".
I guess we've got to go through the motions for the next 20 years until the pendulum swings the other way at which point a new model will be thought up as the saviour of public bus services. No doubt at that point the hardcore will complain that "it wasn't real bus franchising".