RURAL bus services will be cut under city leaders’ plans to seize control of fares and routes, a North-East Labour MP warned today (Wednesday).

Kevan Jones broke ranks and sparked a party row by attacking proposals for a ‘quality contract’ across Tyne and Wear, to take back powers from the private bus giants.

The move is strongly backed by other Labour MPs and council leaders – and is viewed as a model by the party at Westminster, which wants to end the deregulation “free-for-all”.

But, intervening in a Commons debate, Mr Jones said the shake-up would backfire in rural parts of his North Durham constituency, where unprofitable routes are propped up.

And he branded the new combined authority’s plans for resolving disputes about which routes should survive, if the cash runs out, as “bureaucratic nonsense”.

Mr Jones told MPs: “I have grave concerns about the quality contract. The impact on my constituency will be quite pronounced.

“Those are the bus companies’ most profitable routes. That profitability sustains the rest of the bus network in rural County Durham - and infrastructure such as Stanley bus station and the bus station in Chester-le-Street.

“There will be only one winner - the bus company that wins the prize of running buses in Tyne and Wear. There are currently three operators in my constituency and two will be losers.”

But Bridget Phillipson, the Houghton and Sunderland South MP who led the debate, said the change would ensure profits are reinvested in bus services that needed subsidies.

She said: “I am not opposed to bus operators making a profit, but I do question the excessive profits made by companies such as Stagecoach in the region.”

The private bus giants stand accused of axing vital routes with little notice, or of demanding rising local council subsidy to keep them running.

But, speaking afterwards, Mr Jones said the combined authority would be taking on a £100m liability – at a time when funding is still shrinking.

Replying in the debate, gleeful Conservative transport minister John Hayes said bus policy was now a “major dispute in the Labour party”.

The debate also heard protests that the region is short-changed in Government transport funding – and that poor links make it difficult to get to work.

Hartlepool MP Iain Wright said his constituents considering a job in Middlesbrough quickly discovered that the last bus home is at 6.14pm.

And he read out a response from Northern Rail to protests about jam-packed trains: “There's nothing we can do to resolve overcrowding issue in the short term."

Mr Hayes was urged to guarantee that decrepit Pacer trains will be replaced as part of a new contract for the Northern Rail franchise, but failed to do so.