Local Transport Bill [HL]

I found the contributions of both my noble friends interesting—not 100 per cent accurate, but interesting. My noble friend Lord Smith said that he was the only Member of the Committee who was around at the time of the Transport Act 2000. He was immediately contradicted by the noble Baroness opposite, so he was wrong there. The same debate took place down the Corridor and I was involved in it then. My noble friend is right that some of the fears expressed at the time of the passage of that Act have been realised, especially the fear that local authorities would not get their hands on what were their assets. Understandably, many local authorities wish to turn the clock back to pre-1986, but that is not possible. We are not going back there, and I am sure that my noble friend would agree with that. He said that he regretted the fact that the London arrangement for buses does not appertain countrywide. That view is widely shared by many local authorities. That is not perhaps surprising when one looks at the cost of the London system of bus regulation. The figures for the support of bus services in London have increased by more than 200 per cent, compared with the last full year before deregulation, which I think was 1985, and by 1,700 per cent since 1995-96. That increase continues to pile on year on year because of the policies followed by the current Mayor of London and Transport for London. I am making no criticism, but I cannot imagine any Government of any political hue having the ability—or the inclination—to spend that sort of money countrywide. We have to accept that London is a different market from the rest of the country. My noble friend shakes his head, but he will have to accept that it is the capital city and that that is because of congestion, I presume—I am not saying that other cities, including Wigan, do not have a degree of congestion, but that their congestion is nothing like it is in London. I understand why no Government of any political hue will follow that example—certainly financially. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked—presumably, he was asking me, as some of his remarks seemed to be aimed in my direction—for examples of local authorities that were not co-operating with the bus industry.