Local Transport Bill [HL] Bill

I recall that when I was managing the transport portfolio in Suffolk, the bus operators would not meet together with us because they were convinced that if they were to do so it would leave them open to a charge of collusion for which the penalties are so severe. I agree with the noble Lord’s comment. The danger is that in recent years the operations of the Office of Fair Trading have related to competition in an intellectual sense. It has lost track of its original purpose, which was to ensure benefits to the consumer. I am not confident that we have progressed that issue much further from when I first came across it in the mid-1990s or from when the Transport Act 2000 passed through your Lordships’ House. I do not believe we have advanced this debate much further since then.