Ding ding! All aboard the ex-Lib Dem minister's solar-powered bus

Vince Cable and Ed Davey, the former business and energy secretaries respectively, are among the Liberal Democrats that lost their seats in 2015 who are plotting their way back to parliament in this general election.

But an erstwhile colleague has rejected the opportunity to regain his seat in Lewes in East Sussex. Norman Baker, the former transport minister who later quit the Home Office in 2014 after finding working with Theresa May a “constant battle”, sighs: “I don’t need to do the same thing over and over again, that’s the definition of madness.

“I ended up being a minister and if I won the seat I probably wouldn’t be in government again. I’d be a backbencher and I did that from 1997 to 2010.”

So, rather than knocking on doors, Baker will be taking delivery of Britain’s first electric-powered bus on Monday. Last month, he became managing director at the Big Lemon, a 10-year-old, eco-friendly bus operator in Brighton, where its single-deckers run on cooking oil – 112 tonnes of fat was used to fuel 16 buses and coaches for nearly 220,000 miles last year.

Partly through crowdfunding and two-year bonds of £100 each to the local community, the Big Lemon last year raised £250,000 to convert two 25-seater buses to run on electricity deriving from solar power. More than 120 panels have been installed on the depot in Brighton, where the buses will be charged at night.

In summer, excess electricity will be pumped into the grid. In winter, the buses will draw some electricity from the grid, but it is expected that through the year the solar panels will generate slightly more electricity than the buses need.

The conversions have been made by Optare, a Leeds-based bus manufacturer. The second bus will be delivered later this week and they will be unveiled to the public on Friday. After a short period of testing, they will be used on the number 52 route, which runs past Brighton Marina and the Royal Sussex county hospital at a cost of £2.50 a ticket.

“We’re a very popular outfit in Brighton, we’re seen as environmentally friendly,” says Baker, who spotted an advertisement for the role while in his previous job as chairman at passenger pressure group Bus Users UK.

“You spend about half your life at work, so you better do something you believe in and I believe in the Big Lemon.”

Even in a party that talks up its commitment to the environment, Baker spoke unusually often about ecology. At the Department for Transport, he helped oversee the Green Bus Fund and increased electrification of the railways.

Baker says the Big Lemon, which also hires coaches for wedding and runs festival services to Glastonbury, is in talks with the DfT for investment to help the group convert a further three buses to solar power. The Big Lemon narrowly missed out on government funding recently, but its founder, Tom Druitt, is hopeful of securing state backing this time.

“Tom wants to expand the Big Lemon model,” says Baker. “Hopefully he will set up Big Lemons elsewhere in the country.” Baker’s task is to help the business in Brighton, where he hopes to win more routes. His major competitors are the Go-Ahead Group’s Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company, and Compass Travel.

Brighton runs a multi-operator ticketing system system that allows passengers to switch bus companies. As minister, Baker pushed for such a system to be rolled out across the country. “I was keen we no longer had situations where you found you had the wrong ticket when a different company’s bus reached the stop,” explains Baker. “We all want more people to use more buses.”

As well as promoting his buses, Baker hosts local radio shows on Sundays and Mondays that play music from the past 100 years and obscure B-sides from the 1960s. Music rather than politics is Baker’s first love. He was once a regional director for Our Price and has been lead singer “on and off” of the Reform Club for 23 years. Indeed, when Cable and Davey are hitting the doorsteps on Saturday, Baker will be singing outside the Pump House pub near Brighton pier. There will be a cover of the Beatles’ You Can’t Do That and he will belt out the Reform Club’s own Piccadilly Circus, first released when Baker was at the DfT.

“I left the House of Commons with a clear conscience,” says Baker. Unlike his still politically ambitious peers, Baker has happily left parliament behind.