Transport (Wales) Bill

This has been a full and interesting debate. I welcome the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) to his new position. I am not sure whether he ever sat in on a Welsh debate as a Whip, but today he will certainly have seen the quality of our debates on Welsh affairs. I thank all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part. I am also grateful to the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, the Welsh Grand Committee and the Economic Development and Transport Committee of the National Assembly, which were all involved in the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. Many people and organisations responded to the public consultation and today’s debate has confirmed the benefit of that work, because as Members have pointed out, after the pre-legislative scrutiny, significant changes were made to the Bill. I shall go through the contributions that have been made, beginning with that of the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Peter Law) who made a speech from the heart. The hon. Gentleman is in the same tradition as his predecessor, Llew Smith; he, too, spoke from the heart about his community and its needs. It is an area of significant deprivation and in the hon. Gentleman’s role as both Member of Parliament and Assembly Member he will have his work cut out addressing those problems. I was grateful for his supportive comments about the NHS, which was founded in Tredegar, and for his compliments on the Bill and the White Paper, launched yesterday. The hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) seemed to be preparing himself for the Committee. He posed a large number of questions in his contribution and I shall run through some of them. He and other Members spoke about cross-border patterns. I assure them that cross-border issues will inform our strategy for the joint transport authorities, if they are set up. Under the Bill, cross-border local authorities will be directly consulted about both the strategy for JTAs and the programmes they develop. The hon. Member for Leominster also commented on a traffic commissioner for Wales, as did other Members. The reason that there is no provision to create a separate commissioner for Wales is that the current commissioners cover Wales. The Assembly is content with their role in Wales and with the presence maintained in Wales by the regional offices of the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) that the Assembly is satisfied with the current arrangements and sees no reason to change them. The hon. Member for Leominster and other Opposition Members asked whether JTAs would simply give rise to more quangos and bureaucracy. The hon. Members for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) and for Bexhill and Battle felt that significant powers could be taken away from local authorities—the reverse of devolution and subsidiarity. In fact, the hon. Member for Clwyd, West may not have read the Bill in what I am sure will soon be his customary detail. Had he done so, he would have seen that subsection (5) of clause 5 makes it clear that local government representation must be more than 50 per cent., ensuring accountability. That will ensure not only that local authorities are properly represented but that they are in the majority on JTAs.