Local Transport Bill [HL]

My Lords, if it is Conservative Party policy to reduce fuel tax, we will all be interested to hear about it. I am not sure whether the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is senior enough or responsible enough to make that pledge, but it is very interesting that, at a time when we are talking about global warming and the cost of motoring in general, the Conservative Party should be so irresponsible as to make that suggestion. However, let us not bicker among ourselves; there is plenty of time in Committee for that. It is surprising that so far there has been no mention of the railway industry. If we are to have a different charging regime for local road pricing, such a regime will have some impact on the railway industry. I have a number of questions to put to my noble friend arising from those potential charges. Does he agree that local transport authorities should take account of relevant rail plans—network route plans and other plans—when devising local transport policies and plans? Does he think that they should consider how their proposals will impact on rail capacity and whether they need financially to support enhancements to the rail network in their area from the extra income that they will gain from these proposals? If local areas wish to introduce local road pricing schemes, should they not be required to consult Network Rail and the train operating companies because of the impact that such charges will have on rail carriers? If extra capacity is to be created on local rail and other public transport networks to take care of the additional traffic that will be generated from these road pricing proposals, should local authorities not be able to borrow money against the revenue stream that will arise from a road pricing scheme? I hope that my noble friend will look at those questions, as there is an opportunity for local authorities to be able to finance better public transport in their area without the burden necessarily falling directly on Her Majesty's Government’s taxation policies. Turning from the railway industry to the impact of these proposals on the bus industry, I draw your Lordships’ attention to the entry in my name in the Register of Members’ Interests. Nowadays I carry out consultancy work for First Group plc and I spent many years working for the National Express Group—indeed, I was chairman of its major bus operator for some years—and there are a number of matters in the Bill on which I should like to comment and to which I will return at a later stage. The Bill has come about as a result of quite a few years of lobbying by passenger transport authorities and their executives. The great myth about bus passenger carryings is that it is only since the 1986 Act, which deregulated bus services, that passenger carryings have been falling away dramatically. That is not true but it is the great myth that PTAs and PTEs have tried to instil for many years. Again, there was not a great deal of defence of the 1986 Act in the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. The Transport Act 2000 and the Bill before your Lordships today arose directly out of criticism of the 1986 Act, much of it based on myths perpetuated by local authorities. I do not think that the average bus passenger cares who owns the buses or, for that matter, what colour they are. The average bus passenger is concerned to see that the bus arrives at the time stated in the timetable and is not held up unduly by congestion along the journey. It is an oft repeated remark, but it deserves putting on the record again, that we will never tempt motorists out of their cars if the bus that we are trying to tempt them to join is in the same traffic jam as they are in, listening to whichever radio programme they choose in the warmth, comfort and isolation of their motor car. The Conservative Party cannot have it both ways. It cannot say, on the one hand, that we must have no congestion charging or penalising, as it would put it, of the motorist and, at the same time and in the same breath, that we can have proper bus priority measures. The two are incompatible. To introduce proper congestion-busting bus measures we need to restrain the private car. Again, there is nothing revolutionary about that. It was the Conservative Government who gave permission and the financial wherewithal for the Midland Metro system to go ahead in the area that I used to represent when I was in another place. They did so on the understanding and the clear direction that car restraint measures were introduced on the adjacent A41 trunk road. That was eminently sensible and everyone supported it. But where are such sensible proposals these days from the Conservative Party? It professes to be the motorists’ friend and says that there should be no car restraint, although proper provision has to be made for public transport. The two are incompatible and it is time that the Conservative Party recognised that. The other great myth is that London has a successful system and the rest of the country should emulate the London experience if we are to have proper bus services. The Department for Transport, or whatever it is called these days, not too long ago carried out a survey of bus passengers—surely the people who count. The DfT figures showed that 83 per cent of bus users outside London were satisfied or very satisfied with their services, whereas 78 per cent—5 per cent less—were satisfied in the capital. I need hardly remind your Lordships of the capital experience of investment. The latest figures that I have are for 2005-06, and it is costing £638 million to subsidise London buses. That may be a very good investment—I do not criticise it—but it is a bit more than the £128.6 million that the rest of the country gets. If we were to have an honest and straightforward debate about these matters, the fiscal imbalance between the two would have to be recognised. All too often it is ignored when PTEs and PTAs, in particular, demand a repeat of the London experience in their areas. The proposals in the Bill envisage three different ways of operating buses throughout the country: the voluntary partnerships, the statutory quality partnerships and the quality contracts. I have some trouble with the English language, as your Lordships may have noticed during the debate, but I do not understand what a statutory quality partnership is. A partnership is a partnership—an agreement between two separate bodies. How can it be statutory? The Labour Party used to demand statutory industrial agreements in the 1970s. I used to point out to the likes of Eric Heffer that there was some contradiction there. Needless to say, I did not get much change from him. I cannot see how one can make a partnership statutory. In any case, voluntary partnerships in various cities around the country have been extraordinarily successful. However, they need both sides to participate. The great myth that the PTAs and PTEs put around is that the only people who seek to co-operate in these matters are the local authorities. They say that the wicked capitalists who run the buses—they put me in that category at one stage; I cannot understand why—are not interested in partnership, yet I have previously during these debates drawn the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, to the fact that, in Birmingham, where there was a freely entered into agreement between the company of which I was chairman at the time and the passenger transport authority to provide bus lanes along the No. 67 bus route, the city council, which was under the so-called progressive partnership of Conservatives and Liberals, took out that bus lane on a temporary basis four years ago and has still not replaced it. It takes two to tango. A quality partnership must be a proper partnership and recognised and adhered to by both sides. In Birmingham, there are numerous examples of great growth in bus use on certain routes where proper bus priority measures have been laid down. The city of York, where there are something like 12.5 miles of bus lanes, has also seen extraordinary growth. In Sheffield, where there are fewer than two miles of bus lanes, there has been significant growth on certain routes because of a voluntary quality partnership. Growth can be achieved, but it will not be done by the imposition of statutory quality partnerships or, even worse, the protracted legal wrangling to which they will lead if the local authorities are unwise enough to introduce quality contracts. I am sure that we will return to many of these matters in Committee. I apologise for detaining your Lordships for so long. It is a matter about which I feel strongly. I shall underline that in Committee, no doubt much to my noble friend’s chagrin.