COMMENT
In the 13 months since she became parliamentary under-secretary of state for transport — England’s bus minister — Nus Ghani has gained a reputation for missing major bus industry events and either sending a recorded video message or passing the gig on to a civil servant.
The UK Bus Summit is harder for a Westminster politician to avoid, as it is staged there. In the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre opposite the eponymous abbey and in the shadow of Big Ben. Difficult for even this minister — who also is an assistant government whip — to plead a pressing appointment closer to the seat of power.
Even so, she rolled up later than expected on 6 February to make what should have been the keynote address to a gathering of transport professionals, local authority and passenger representatives, and vanished the instant she finished her delayed speech, leaving no opportunity to hear the questions that her audience was aching to ask, let alone answer any of them.
By default, the keynote words that filled her initial absence came from the recently appointed director for bus, accessibility and active travel at Transport Scotland, herself a late substitute for Scotland’s transport secretary, Michael Math…
