If it was me I would actually pull over and tell the passengers and ask if they wanted to continue or not considering the problems.
Saying that I don’t think this is a problem that is just at Go North East either as Stagecoach seem to have buses out on the road with faults as well although I think the difference here is that Stagecoach have not made the drivers that it’s there fault if they is an accident.

It does seem like Go North East have took cost cutting to the extreme where it’s potentially now putting both drivers and passengers at risk and the drivers rightfully are not taking it.