We have had a fairly wide-ranging discussion around this group of amendments. That is no great surprise because they are fairly broad in their extent and in the range of concerns that they cover. I should offer an early admission, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston: in framing our response to this group of amendments, we had not anticipated that he would raise issues particularly relating to equalities and to bus users who have a particular disability. That is an oversight on our part because we had not anticipated that admissible objections would be abused in that way. I apologise for that as it is clearly an important subject. We shall have to think carefully about what the noble Lord said. He made some important observations and comments.
We have addressed equality issues. Chapter 3 of the impact assessment, which looks at the Local Transport Bill, covers some of them. I found the document helpful. It provides an interesting background on the nature of bus users, breaking them down by race, gender and so on. Part of the Government’s overall drift is to improve transport provision for people with disabilities. We have made some considerable progress in that regard. In framing legislation, we have to take very careful account of some of the general principles involved in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, which in many ways is landmark legislation.
We take particular care and concern of those issues. I am very mindful that we shall need to study carefully the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, on the Bill. We do not anticipate that the admissible objections process would be used or abused in the way in which the noble Lord thought might be the case. I take his point that frequency of service and timing are very important. In Government, we feel that we have an obligation to raise standards on provision, which is part of the Bill. Raising standards on bus provision means that we have to take account and ensure that others, on our behalf, take account—that is how this works—of people’s disabilities and what they bring as passengers.
I live in an area where bus services are very good and we have a modern fleet. I know that the company that provides the service is very mindful of people with disabilities and provision is sensibly made to ensure that a wide range of customers find the service easily accessible. It is probably a model of good practice. I know other areas are moving in the same direction, if they have not already got there.
That said, the issue of admissible objections is important. I am grateful to all Members of the Committee who have addressed it, even though the purpose of the amendment is to strike away the provision. Perhaps I should explain how we arrived at our position on this concept. In the draft Bill, published last May, the provisions on quality partnership schemes included a requirement that, if a local authority wanted to specify maximum fares as a standard of service, the scheme must include a procedure for reaching agreement with operators on the initial determination or subsequent revision of such fares. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, picked up on the point that the draft Bill included no such provision for requirements about minimum frequencies or the timing of services.
In consultation, operators argued—we thought not unreasonably—that they could be put at very grave financial risk if provisions on any of these matters were imposed by local authorities without their agreement. In fact, any sensible local authority would take care to consult operators, even before consulting the public, to ensure that its proposals were practicable and cost-effective. It seems highly unlikely that a requirement would be imposed over the heads of operators.
The Transport Committee in another place commented that it is not right that one party to a partnership—the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Snape—can set bus frequencies, timings or anything else without the consent of the other parties. It recommended that the Bill should include provision to guarantee that partnership criteria such as frequencies and timings are set by agreement between the authority and the bus operators. The Government accepted the committee's view that the spirit of partnership needs to be maintained as far as possible.
At the same time, we do not want to enable operators simply to veto any proposal to include frequency, timing or maximum fare provisions in a quality partnership scheme. In particular, we would not want a single operator to be able to block a scheme that had good support from other operators in the area. In short, operators should have a right to object, but not all objections should be of sufficient weight to rule out frequency, timing or maximum fare provisions being included in a quality partnership scheme.
The provisions in Clause 12 are supplemented by those in Clause 17, which enable the Secretary of State, or Welsh Ministers, to specify in regulations the meaning of ““admissible objections”” and ““relevant operator””. The regulations would also describe how questions as to whether particular objections and operators fell within those categories would be determined.
If this amendment and the related amendments to Clause 17—that is, Amendments Nos. 16, 18, 20 and 21—were accepted, operators would have no redress if a local authority imposed a totally unrealistic frequency or timing requirement or a maximum fare that was totally inadequate to cover the cost of providing a service, particularly one of the quality required. Rather, they would have one option left open, which would be to withdraw services entirely from the area covered by the quality partnership scheme—in other words, the exercise of a veto. We can argue that that would render the scheme worse than useless, and it would obviously have a seriously detrimental effect on the interests of passengers. Indeed, if the Government accepted these amendments, the potential effect would be contrary to one of the stated aims of the Bill, which is to improve the provision of public transport.
Therefore, we need to strike a reasonable balance. We are aware that these are sensitive issues requiring further consultation with all involved—in particular, the local authorities and the bus industry—before any regulations are made. I make the commitment that that careful further consultation will take place, and we will work closely with stakeholders on the development of the regulations, so there will be an iterative process.
Meanwhile, the draft guidance, which has been made available in the Library of the House, gives a clear indication of the Government’s intentions in this provision. They are set out in box 1 of volume 3, which deals with quality partnership schemes. I stress that this is only a preliminary view, and the Department for Transport will no doubt develop its thinking further in the light of the views of interested parties and, of course, in the light of the comments made today in Committee.
To summarise the description in that box, the Government consider that an objection should be ““admissible”” if, first, it is made in writing within a specified time by an operator of services directly affected by the proposals; secondly, it is made either on the grounds that it would not be reasonably practicable for operators to meet the standards of service specified at the time they would come into effect or that the likely demand for the services would not be sufficient to enable operators to provide services to the standard specified on a commercial basis; and, thirdly, the traffic commissioner has certified that the evidence submitted by the relevant operator is sufficient to substantiate the objection.
Although that represents the Government’s current thinking on this matter, we do not wish to set it in stone in the Bill when we clearly need to consult the parties further and ensure that we have the balance right. Even after consultation, we may find that we need to refine the definition from time to time, and that is the advantage of putting the detail in regulations rather than in primary legislation.
I hope that my noble friend Lord Rosser and the noble Lord, Lord Low, now understand the purpose of the ““admissible objections”” provision—I am sure that they did before—and, in view of what I have said, that they will not press their amendments.
I turn to Amendment No. 16A in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley. My noble friend has come at this from a different angle, suggesting that the definition of ““admissible objections”” should be dealt with in guidance from the Secretary of State—and presumably from Welsh Ministers—rather than in regulations. It is a matter of judgment which form of rule-making is preferable in which case; one fits in one set of circumstances and another fits in a different set of circumstances. Regulations have the force of law, whereas guidance, even statutory, is generally something which people must have regard to, take account of, think about, reflect on and so on. They are made by statutory instrument and laid before Parliament and are therefore subject to greater scrutiny and consideration. That is not the case with guidance, unless special statutory provision is made. Introducing a parliamentary procedure for guidance may remove some of the necessary flexibility achieved by setting our provisions in guidance in the first place. Guidance is helpful as it is more easily amended over time to reflect different trends, pressures and even different sorts of services.
I am not attracted to the idea that guidance should be reviewed every five years, which seems arbitrary. It may be better to review it after shorter periods—it depends on the need of the time. It might need to be reviewed more quickly in the light of experience, or it may be so robust that it lasts for longer, but we would know only once it was in place and properly tested. Regulations can be amended at any time. I do not see how the amendment would improve the Bill. For the reasons that I have given, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw it.
The amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is interesting, too, because it comes at ““admissible objections”” from a slightly different direction. If I understand the amendment properly, it would not delete the provisions on admissible objections as they would apply to quality partnership schemes which make requirements as to frequency, timing or maximum fares. Rather, it would provide a power to disapply those provisions by regulations, and, I presume, a further set of regulations could reapply them by revoking the first set. We could, at least in theory, try out both approaches and see which worked better.
I am not persuaded that anything is wrong with the provision as drafted. It would allow regulations to provide that new Section 114(6B), the admissible objections rule, would not apply, "““in such circumstances as may be prescribed””."
The phraseology has that benefit. The rule could then apply in some circumstances, but not in others. Virtually every circumstance could be prescribed, although it would be an unusual use of the power to disapply the rule in all circumstances. I am not sure that much is to be gained by the amendment, and a great deal could be lost because the power to disapply the rule in some circumstances would be lost.
I shall respond one or two of the questions and points that were made in addition to those that I have covered. The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, mentioned services in a partnership having to be profitable. Nothing is specified on that issue, but companies clearly seek to make an overall operating profit from their commercial services. Not each specified service has to make a profit from that perspective; companies operating across the piece will seek to ensure that those services are profitably run. Quality partnership schemes do not rule out some services being subsidised; they cover subsidised services. Local authorities would be able to subsidise socially necessary services which would not otherwise be provided, as they do at present.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to the draft Bill and the quality partnership scheme including maximum fares with the agreement of operators. We have extended the scheme also to frequency and timings, as I have made clear, simply to ensure that authorities cannot impose unrealistic requirements on operators. We have introduced the idea of admissible objections to ensure that operators do not have a carte blanche veto. Instead, they would have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the traffic commissioners that the requirements in the scheme were not deliverable or viable. That is an important test.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, raised the question of the role of the OFT in quality partnership schemes. The local authority function of making quality partnership schemes must satisfy the competition test. That is why the OFT is involved in this issue. In Part 1 of Schedule 10 it is made clear that any registration restrictions would also have to satisfy that test. The OFT is the enforcement agency and could require changes to a scheme if it were found not to meet the competition test.
The noble Lord asked about the general role of the OFT and why it is on the front page of the guidance. It largely drafted volume 5 of the guidance, as agreed through the Bus Partnership Forum. The OFT has a role under Schedule 10 to the Transport Act 2000 to adjudicate on whether quality partnership schemes satisfy the competition test.
I think I have covered most of the issues that were raised during the debate. I cannot see that I have a note on anything else. This is an important part of the Bill. The admissible objection process is clearly an area of concern and one on which there are strong views. We see it as a way of ensuring that we can make partnerships work so that operators can work with local authorities, transport authorities and so on to ensure that we have genuine partnerships that operate to the benefit of all. It is right that issues such as frequency, timing and maximum fares are part of that debate so that we can try to get consensus and an understanding of each others’ problems in providing services.
Local Transport Bill [HL] Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Bassam of Brighton
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Thursday, 6 December 2007.
It occurred during Debate on bills
and
Committee proceeding on Local Transport Bill [HL] Bill.
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2007-08
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