Local Transport Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his detailed and careful explanation of the Bill. The Bill has indeed had the benefit of proper consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny, and it now falls to your Lordships to start the formal parliamentary process today. As the Minister explained, the intention of the Bill is to reinvigorate local transport arrangements. I am sure that all noble Lords will recognise and accept the need for change. As I see it, the Bill proposes change in three main areas. First, it seeks to improve local bus services, whose patronage has in the main remained stubbornly low outside London despite the increased usage of other forms of transport. Secondly, the Bill seeks to address some of the historic anomalies in the UK’s transport governance arrangements, which have too often proven an inflexible hindrance rather than a help. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, the Bill seeks to bring forward local road pricing schemes. I will turn to each topic in turn. The Minister sought to place the Bill in the proper context of the Government’s overarching transport strategy: to reduce congestion and to improve public transport. Those are laudable aims, especially considering the cost implications and the frustration caused by congestion, which shows no sign of abating. Indeed, it is worth remembering that total car traffic has increased by 850 per cent since 1955. I can remember when I used to park my car in Barnet High Street in order to go to the café—how things have changed now. Unfortunately, the Bill lacks the vision required for such revolutionary speak. What is needed is a holistic approach to the whole issue of congestion and public transport, with attention paid to all the constituent causal elements, rather than just to those that the Bill seeks to address. The Bill is a mere tweaking at the edges and will not serve the Government well in the long run. It is clear that the existing arrangements for buses have room for improvement. Bus patronage is declining in many areas and shows little sign of improving without a dose of good management and effective legislation. Agreements between authorities and operators to devise services and timetables with the reasonable aim of providing a better service to the public can sometimes be viewed as collusion rather than co-operation. It is evident that full advantage of the provisions of the Transport Act 2000 has not been taken. The Bill seeks to make it easier for local authorities to draw up partnerships and contracts with bus operators, as explained by the Minister. I am not confident that quality contracts are necessary for an effective local transport system. The lowering of the bar for the introduction of such schemes through proportionality criteria, as the Bill proposes, interferes with the market and risks allowing regulation by the back door. Harmonious working relationships ought to be available without franchising and a partnership approach should suffice. We will be pressing this view in Committee. Even if quality contracts were desirable, local authorities could be discouraged by the significant resources inevitably required to demonstrate and meet all of the new public interest criteria, both when setting up new arrangements and, subsequently, during potential appeals from operators. There is a lack of precedent for the quality contracts. I understand that no local authority has changed its arrangements since the Transport Act 2000. Perhaps that situation will persist. The proposals to improve both voluntary and quality partnerships are rather more promising and worthy of development. They seek to allow authorities greater powers to enhance partnerships. We will be aiming to refine the proposals to ensure that partnerships are fair, genuine and balanced for all. Your Lordships will want to clarify the definition of ““admissible objections”” from bus operators, which is a bit ill defined at present. However, the real and perceived restrictions imposed by the Competition Act, which will discourage the proposed multi-operator voluntary partnership agreements, undermine the need for change. If a scheme is evidently in the public interest, common sense should prevail. Only then will partnerships have the desired result. Punctuality is one of the public’s main criteria in assessing the utility of their bus service; the Bill’s acknowledgement of this is welcome. Proposals for local authorities to share the responsibility with operators are fair. However, the use of traffic commissioners for this purpose will require further consideration. The existing local governance arrangements for transport in the UK need reform. That is particularly so in large PTA-governed urban areas outside London. The arrangements in those areas are outdated and do not make much sense. The inflexibility of current legislation prevents rational changes to reflect modern patterns of transport needs. It is right that local areas should be able to decide on the most appropriate governance arrangements for themselves. The bottom-up reforms proposed to allow improved governance are welcome. It is crucial, however, that these changes arise from local action as intended. In addition to allowing local areas to initiate a review of their governance arrangements, the Bill retains the ability for the Secretary of State to do so. We need to avoid situations where this direction becomes unnecessary interference. If change is to be effective, that must not happen. Local authorities need to be partners in the recognition and implementation of change. The Bill also makes changes to the traffic commissioner structure. While not as prescriptive as the draft Bill proposed, the Bill expands the role of traffic commissioners. In Committee, we shall seek to ensure that the proposed structure and role of the traffic commissioner is appropriate and does not become another layer of bureaucracy, while still achieving the objective that we all desire. Perhaps the most controversial proposals concern local road pricing schemes. As the Minister explained, the proposal is to make the introduction of local road pricing schemes easier, removing the requirement of approval from the Secretary of State and ostensibly putting the power of decision into the local domain. Why? National road charging schemes have been shelved and the Bill does not make provision for the introduction of such a scheme. That has been made clear many times. The removal of the Secretary of State's approval for local schemes could, perhaps, be viewed as distancing central government from potentially controversial decisions, while leaving local authorities to gauge the acceptability of charging schemes. That is hardly leading from the front. The use of the Transport Innovation Fund, seemingly to encourage and to coerce local authorities to adopt road pricing schemes, demonstrates that all too often devolution is accompanied by terms and conditions given from the centre. My noble friend Lord Glentoran, who speaks for Welsh affairs on these Benches, will be making important observations about the Welsh provisions with regard to road pricing and my noble friend Lord Roberts of Conwy will be adding his own perspective. I will not steal their thunder, but I recommend that the Minister listens to them with great care. The removal of the absolute requirement to consult the public before introducing a scheme, as the Bill proposes, is unacceptable. The opacity that this could bring undermines the advantage of holding such decisions locally, and public support is paramount if a scheme is to be successfully introduced. Polling shows that the primary concern of British motorists appears to be the cost of motoring, and the public will not support a scheme—local or otherwise—that serves to increase significantly the cost of motoring and bring about another stealth tax. As no reference is made in the Bill to the reduction of other taxes or charges, the public cannot be assured of that at present. This is especially true in the proposals for Wales, as my noble friends will explain. Additionally, the use of pricing to bring benefits with regards to climate change is given the briefest of mentions, and should be expanded on if the Bill is serious about this issue rather than using it as an afterthought. The Bill makes a welcome attempt at resolving the very real problem of collecting charges from foreign registered vehicles. That issue will become more apparent should local pricing schemes become widespread, and we will seek to investigate how best to refine the proposals to ensure it becomes a reality. However, as it has been demonstrated that the DVLA estimates that its records for UK drivers are only 81.5 per cent accurate, more attention needs to be given to this concern if road pricing of any sort is to be introduced successfully. In conclusion, I believe that the objectives of the Bill are reasonably clear and agreed. I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ views on how the proposals contained within the Bill can be refined for the benefit of passengers, car drivers and the wider economy.