Local Transport Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 24: 24: Clause 18, page 17, line 23, leave out ““proposed”” The noble Lord said: I should like to continue the debate on quality contracts now rather than wait for Report stage. Amendment No. 24 would fundamentally change the Bill so that the local transport authority is the body that takes the decision on whether a quality contract scheme should be approved or made. If an operator believes that the decision of the local transport authority has breached its human rights, or unfairly or unreasonably prevented it from continuing to trade either completely or in part, or is not in accordance with the Bill’s guidelines, they have a right to seek to pursue the matter through the courts. We do not want to end up with the situation in which we found ourselves following the Transport Act 2000, which provided, as we know, in theory for statutory quality partnerships and quality contracts. But, in practice, the requirements, the procedures and the criteria set out in that Act meant that those provisions were little used. As I understand it, there is only statutory quality partnership in place in England and no quality contracts anywhere in England, so it does not suggest that the Transport Act 2000 has been particularly a howling success. We do not want to end up making the same mistakes again, but the Bill looks likely to achieve that feat. With the right of a veto by an operator on frequencies, timings and maximum fares in a quality partnership, a local transport authority may well take the view that it is not in a significantly stronger position than it is now, where, in return for providing improved infrastructure, it essentially gets some potential improvements in vehicle quality. Hence this Bill will not result in any significant increase in the number of statutory quality partnerships, although it probably would have done before the Government gave bus operators an effective veto on frequencies, timings and maximum fares; hence the importance of quality contracts. However, as the Bill stands, with the apparent time-consuming and costly procedures involved in securing a quality contract, it is unlikely that more than one or two of even the largest transport authorities will think it worth the cost, hassle and uncertainty of going through the extended quality contact procedure. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, asked precisely that question, and did not get a very informative answer when he asked how many authorities were likely to be interested in going down that particular road. Indeed, it seems odd that the Bill on the one hand expands the existing duty of local transport authorities to develop policies relating to transport so that they must cover all aspects of transport, and take protection and improvement of the environment into account, and on the other says, ““Even though we deem you capable of carrying out this major function, we do not trust you to look after the interests of the public you serve over issues such as frequencies, timings and fares, so we are going to bring in other bodies, such as the Approval Board and Transport Tribunal, to decide what you’re going to be allowed to do to bus services””. To believe that a local transport authority is going to put its bus operator or operators out of business through unreasonable schemes and then be left trying to explain to its electorate why bus services upon which they depend are no longer running is, frankly, extraordinary. The only recent example of which I can think of an attempt to put a bus company off the road is the highly questionable methods of Stagecoach to overcome the local bus operator in Preston. Needless to say, Stagecoach is among the strongest opponents of the Bill’s proposals, which would put an end to that kind of activity if only the Government would facilitate rather than impede their implementation. However—my noble friend Lord Snape hinted at one example—maybe the Minister has examples of local transport authorities that have sought, like Stagecoach, to use questionable measures to put bus operators off the road. If so, I ask him to give the details when he responds. The quality contracts procedure is in marked contrast to the Bill’s provisions in relation to local road user charging schemes where decisions are to be made by local authorities, even though there will no doubt be some who say, as some bus operators claim will be the situation with quality partnerships or contracts, that a road user charging scheme would either put them out of business or adversely affect the finances of their business. In line with the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, I again ask what evidence my noble friend has that local transport authorities will think it worth going through the quality contract procedure. How long does my noble friend think the procedure will take? First, as I understand it—I am quite happy to be corrected—there will presumably have been an attempt to make a quality partnership scheme in most circumstances. There will have been a veto on frequencies and timings by one or more bus operators. The matter will have gone to the traffic commissioners to consider. It is not clear whether they simply uphold or dismiss the objection, or whether they can amend the local transport authority’s partnership scheme. If they can amend it, could there then be further admissible objections by either the original parties involved in the application or a new party who claims who be affected by the amended scheme? That could lead to even more delay? Will a party involved be able to appeal to either the transport tribunal or the courts against a decision by the traffic commissioners on a quality partnership scheme and, if so, on what grounds? If a party can make a further appeal in this way, that will be even more delay, and we have not even started on the quality contracts process. Again, can my noble friend say if it will be possible to go straight to a quality contract process only in certain limited circumstances without first having tried the quality partnership route? If so, can he reiterate under what circumstances that would be, where it would not be in danger of having the quality contract thrown out on the basis that a quality partnership would have achieved the same objectives? The quality contracts scheme appears to be the franchising of a network of services similar to the arrangements for bus services in London and rail services nationally, except that for London’s bus services and the national rail network, there appears to be no equivalent of the procedure set out in the Bill for bus services outside London. A local transport authority submits an application for a quality contracts scheme to the Approvals Board shared by a traffic commissioner. The board considers it, presumably with public hearings—I am sure that the Minister will put me right if I am wrong—and decides either to accept or to reject the scheme, or perhaps to approve it as amended in whichever way it thinks fit. Will the Minister confirm whether my understanding is right? There will then be a right of appeal to the Transport Tribunal on any matter as of right. The Transport Tribunal will then make arrangements for a hearing, hear the appeal, and take a decision. Will the Minister say when he responds whether the Transport Tribunal may amend the quality contracts scheme or simply uphold or dismiss the appeal? Will he also say whether the Approvals Board may amend a local transport authority’s partnership scheme? Will he also say whether a party that did not wish to challenge the original scheme but wanted to challenge the Approvals Board’s amended scheme could do so, and whether that would mean another hearing by the Approvals Board into representations by a new party into its amended scheme or an appeal to the Transport Tribunal? Would a bus operator have to disclose to the local transport authority concerned all information that it put in front of the Approvals Board and the Transport Tribunal in support of its case, including financial information? Would that information also be made public? I understand that, once the Transport Tribunal has taken a decision, there can then be an appeal to the courts. Will the Minister say on what grounds an appeal can be made? If it can be made on the grounds that the decision by the tribunal was unreasonable or did not give proper weight to certain evidence, presumably the case would in effect be re-run in front of the appropriate court. We should be under no illusions that, if a local transport authority decided to go down the road of the quality contracts scheme, the bus operators would resist it all the way if the Approvals Board and Transport Tribunal decisions were not to their liking. The views of the bus operators are on the record, and they do not seem to be keen on seeing anything akin to the London arrangements for buses being extended elsewhere. A lengthy process could lead to other difficulties for a local transport authority. Existing operators who had not tendered for a quality contract or who had been unsuccessful would have little incentive to improve or even to maintain their services in the area concerned. Existing users might move to alternative forms of transport, including the car, probably contrary to the local transport authority’s own transport strategies and plans. Will the Minister, in response to the questions that I have already asked, say how long the Government intend or believe this procedure could take? If, in the normal course of events, the quality partnership route would have been expected to have been traversed before the road of the quality contracts scheme was embarked on, I hope that his view on the time involved will reflect that fact and will include an appropriate period for a local transport authority to draw up and consult on its proposals. If it managed to jump all the hurdles, I hope that it would have an appropriate period to implement those proposals. Will the Minister also say how much the Government anticipate it will cost a party to go through this procedure in full? The amendments also give rise to the question of who should be the key player in determining the frequency and timings of services and fare levels. Those decisions are crucial in determining transport plans and policies that are in the best interests of the communities concerned. Clearly, an affected party has a fundamental right to go to law and pursue through the courts any injustice, unfairness, human rights breach or illegality felt to have resulted from a decision of a local transport authority. That decision would have to have been made after proper consultation and right-to-state-your-case procedures, set out in the Transport Act 2000. The issue is why we need all the other procedures and processes as well. The members of a local transport authority may have fought their successful election campaigns on pledges to deliver improved bus services. Is the will of the electorate to be turned over by an unelected approvals board or a transport tribunal? Does my noble friend think that the London system of franchising a network of bus services is unfair, or is he saying that the problem is getting from the unregulated bus monopolies that we have in reality in many areas to a regulated market of fixed-term franchises, but that once we have got there the problems largely disappear? If the real problem is the first stage of getting from an unregulated to a regulated market, we will not get through it if we have a process and a procedure that will, in my view, deter nearly all local transport authorities—I sense that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, probably agrees—from going down the road of quality contract schemes. We are in real danger of finding that this Bill will give birth to the same number of quality contract schemes as the Transport Act 2000—none—and it will not be because large numbers of quality partnership schemes covering fares, timings and frequencies are being concluded, thus negating the need for quality contracts. It will be because the procedure is designed, no doubt unintentionally, to thwart rather than to encourage progress and the extension of the democratic process into the provision of bus services for the community. I beg to move.