Local Transport Bill [HL] Bill

moved Amendment No. 5: 5: Clause 3, page 5, leave out lines 35 to 39 The noble Lord said: Subsection (6) of new Section 4C gives the Secretary of State the ability to guide the senior traffic commissioner on how to exercise his functions under this section. Further, subsection (7) states that the senior traffic commissioner must have regard to this guidance. I question, as we all did at Second Reading, the involvement of the Secretary of State at all, given that the Bill ostensibly gives the traffic commissioners the autonomy that they need to operate effectively. What guidance does the Minister envisage that the senior traffic commissioner will be given, and how will the phrase ““have regard to”” work in practice? If the senior traffic commissioner is to make the decision to deploy other commissioners, will the Secretary of State provide guidance on how to do that? If so, this is hardly the bottom-up approach that takes into account the needs of areas that would work best. This is reminiscent of the first group of amendments but I should still like the Minister to pursue this matter. Given that the budgetary implications of the modified traffic commissioner network are hardly spelled out in the Bill, will the Minister clarify whether the Secretary of State would give guidance based on financial restrictions, for example? If the network is to function, funding should not take precedence over need, otherwise the entire purpose of the network will be undermined. I suggest that these subsections be removed as they are an unnecessary feature of this part of the Bill, whose tone is otherwise one of giving traffic commissioners more independence. If nothing else, they serve to confuse the situation. I beg to move.