By stewartb

Some further background on Labour and ‘buses’:

From Hansard volume 760: Commons debate on Economic Growth, 21 January 2025

Rachel Reeves (Labour, Chancellor of the Exchequer): “A number of local authorities and, indeed, Labour mayors have raised with me bus procurement and the importance of buses for the local economy. I look forward to working with them, particularly David Skaith in York and North Yorkshire and Steve Rotheram in Liverpool, to boost bus services in communities, and particularly rural communities, to support jobs in the UK. At the Budget, I allocated more than £1 billion for local bus services, and that includes £712 million for local authorities to support and improve bus services in the next financial year.”

Presumably there’s been a Barnett consequential? But still no Block Grant Transparency report published for you and I to find out.

Later in the debate, from Alison Hume (Labour, Scarborough and Whitby): ‘The bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis builds innovative electric buses, employing 800 people in Scarborough. The Chancellor has spoken about the need for public procurement to take better account of employment and environmental standards. As bus services are brought back into the control of mayors and local authorities, will the Government use public procurement to back British companies such as Alexander Dennis to boost economic growth?

Rachel Reeves: ‘My hon. Friend is a good advocate for businesses, including Alexander Dennis in Scarborough. The Government will soon publish a new national procurement policy statement, which will set out our priorities for public procurement in support of our mission to grow the economy. In addition to the answer I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), we recognise the importance of buses in growing our economy by getting people to work, but also the opportunities to use public procurement to buy more buses made in this country, supporting good jobs here in Britain.’

And from this local news source (4 April 2025): https://www.thisisthecoast.co.uk/news/local-news/uk-mayors-being-urged-to-buy-scarborough-buses/

‘UK Mayors Being Urged to Buy Scarborough Buses’: ‘Mayor’s across the UK are being urged to buy British buses when they look at moving to franchised bus systems. Many of the newly created regional Mayors have powers over public transport and many are looking at franchising models to provide more integrated transport systems.

‘Scarborough Councillor Liz Colling drew attention to the town’s own bus manufacturer during a discussion with the Chief Exec of the York and North Yorkshire Mayoral authority – James Farrar.

‘In January Alison Hume, the Member of Parliament for Scarborough and Whitby pressed the chancellor on whether the Government will “back British companies such as Scarborough’s Alexander Dennis to boost economic growth” through the use of public procurement. The company, which is a major employer in Scarborough, is the world’s largest manufacturer of double-decker buses and is Britain’s biggest bus builder. James Farrar says local manufacturers are being considered in the conversations.’

On October 9 2024 the same local news source had this headline: ‘MP Watching Developments at Whitby Mine and Scarborough Bus Firm’. It includes this extract from a statement from Alexander Dennis:

‘The company’s investment in people, products and facilities, as well as those made by other UK manufacturers to strengthen the domestic manufacturing base are currently not honoured by government policies that would reward the higher wages paid and better employment rights offered in the UK. Companies have been put at a disadvantage by policies that actively underpin and encourage an uneven playing field working against British bus manufacturers. (my emphasis)

‘Import duties are often used to incentivise investment in domestic products and jobs, ensuring they are not undercut by lower-paying and lower-security roles elsewhere, yet the 10% tariff applied to electric buses is even lower than the 16% rate for equivalent diesel vehicles. While many countries increasingly employ trade remedy measures to promote domestic manufacturing industries, there is yet to be any such action in the UK.

‘Despite various stated political ambitions to support local businesses, supply chains and communities, authorities are prevented from considering such wider benefits due to the subsidy control legal framework, underpinned by the Subsidy Control Act 2022. This sets out requirements and prohibitions which include an inability to grant subsidy that gives any additional consideration or weighting to domestic manufacturers over any non-domestic provider.’ (This is Westminster legislation applying across the UK.)

The statement goes on: ‘In Scotland, UK-based vehicle manufacturers are at an additional disadvantage when in direct or indirect receipt of Scottish Government funding as they must adhere to advanced Fair Work First standards of employee remuneration, welfare and safety, while no such requirement is made of suppliers whose production takes place in other countries. Neither are bus operators incentivised or rewarded for choosing companies that meet Fair Work First standards when funding is awarded. This not only puts domestic manufacturers at further competitive disadvantage, but also undermines the value of this flagship policy as government-funded work is shipped offshore.”

So in England, Alexander Dennis does NOT have to ‘adhere to (such) advanced Fair Work standards’?