Julie Elliott MP Standing up for Sunderland Central
Today marks 30 years since the Tories disastrously deregulated the bus market and privatised Britain’s buses.
We have seen fares rise faster than inflation and bus usage has fallen by more than a third.
Research shows that bus passenger journeys in the North East between 1985/86 and 2015/16 declined from 426 million to 180 million – a decrease of 57.7%.
This has contributed to Britain’s congestion crisis.
Quite simply, rising bus fares and slashed services are not acceptable. My Labour colleagues and I are standing up for bus passengers and the option of publicly owned bus companies.