Buses (Deregulation)

: In that case, I shall move on. My local PTE says that under the relevant section a quality contract can be used to bring in a form of re-regulation if that is the only practical way to do so. I am told that it is a cumbersome, bureaucratic process, but I am also told that PTEs, working together, are determined to try to crack that nut. I urge my local PTE to do that; in fact, I urge all PTEs to do it, including those in west Yorkshire, the west midlands and the north-east. As I am dipping my toe in the water of this debate, I also ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether any applications—from what I am told, they will come in the summer of this year, so that people can try to make progress in 2008—can be considered sympathetically, rather than bureaucratically.