Local Transport Bill [HL]

I support my noble friend’s amendments. This is the second time that we have tried to amend the disastrous deregulation of 1986. Looking round the Room, I think that I am perhaps the only one here today who sat in this Room eight years ago when we considered the Bill that became the Transport Act 2000. It was a failure, as my noble friend said. It did not give local authorities enough power to influence what went on on the ground, so we continued to have the bus wars that he described in Preston. Preston is not the only place affected; it happened in Manchester slightly earlier. Why has the 2000 Act not worked? In response to an earlier question from the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, my noble friend the Minister used the words, ““cumbersome and complicated””. As my noble friend described, the implementation of quality contracts under this system is cumbersome, complicated and costly. I believe that partnerships are the best way forward, but local authorities should have a real alternative, because of the suspicion and the problems between local authorities and bus operators. I am not necessarily taking sides; it is always one problem, but we must admit that there are problems. A partnership will not work if there are not two willing parties to it. The local authorities should defend the interests of the public, as my noble friend said. That is their role in their area. If we are to achieve our goal of sustainability, that must include both defending the interests of existing passengers, who tend to be from the poorest and most deprived parts of the community and who rely on bus services because they have no access to any other form of transport, and encouraging more of us to leave the car at home and get on to a bus system that works for that community. I am not sure that bus companies are able to operate in those interests. The deregulation was meant to create an effective network through competition, but it is a funny form of competition. In Manchester, a single local authority operator has been largely replaced by two private operators who operate north and south. There are two monopolies covering slightly different geographical areas. The situation seems to be similar in most areas. I thought that one of the factors of competition was risk, yet we are talking about compensating people who are not able to win a contract in a marketplace. In what other areas would we be talking about public compensation for people who have lost business? If they want to go into a bus service business that involves competition, they have to accept the risk. Local authorities have a right to use their own assets as they want and we have to use the planning laws in a fair and proper manner to ensure that they do not do so in any way that affects the public. Most bus operators rely heavily on public subsidy—the money from local authorities that enables them to subsidise pensioners and non-commercial routes. My colleagues on the Greater Manchester passenger transport authorities never feel that there is an open book arrangement on the amount of money that goes from local authorities to bus companies. Their level of risk is mitigated by public subsidy. I hope that the Minister has listened carefully. My noble friend Lord Rosser asked him a large number of questions and he will need to think about the responses. We are saying that we should not do what we did in 2000, when we tried to change the disaster of 1986, but did not achieve it. If we make it too difficult for local authorities to have a quality contracts system, this will be another failed transport Bill.