Local Transport Bill [HL]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Rosser and to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. We have two sides of the coin in this set of amendments. We have heard varying views on the subject of guidance documents on quality contract schemes. My noble friend Lord Rosser proposes what we might call an elaborate parliamentary procedure for approving guidance. By contrast, the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, wants to remove the guidance clause altogether. I turn first to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. I should begin by explaining why we need Clause 37 at all—the thrust of the noble Lord’s argument. The Transport Act 2000 in its present form contains no power for the appropriate national authority to provide statutory guidance on quality contracts schemes. In response to requests from local authorities and others, the Department for Transport issued guidance, which might, I suppose, be described as an advisory document, intended to help local transport authorities in preparing their submissions for approval. As under the current legislation the Secretary of State himself or herself would be approving the schemes, and could only do so if in his or her opinion the criteria were met and the public interest served, there was no reason then to have a statutory power to issue guidance. However, the Bill proposes to transfer the Secretary of State’s approval role in England to an Approvals Board independent of the Government. It would be possible, of course, for the Government simply to stand back and let the local authorities and the Approvals Board work out for themselves how best to handle proposals for quality contract schemes. But such is the public interest, and such are the legitimate concerns of bus operators that the system will work to their disadvantage, that we think it would be irresponsible of the Government to take such a hands-off approach. For similar reasons, there is a power in new Section 126B(7) for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to the Approvals Board. Clause 37 of course gives a power to the Welsh Ministers, as well as the Secretary of State, to issue guidance, as they are the appropriate national authority for a scheme in Wales. As the Welsh Ministers will themselves continue to be the approval authority, there may not be such a pressing need for the provision as in England, but since our Ministers in England found it useful to issue guidance on a non-statutory basis in any case, it seems entirely reasonable to allow Welsh Ministers the option of a statutory power, and they are in favour of having it. Issuing guidance under a statutory power of course gives it extra weight. There may well be cases where the Committee would see advantage in that. For example, we have been debating earlier today the provision of facilities for disabled people and ensuring that their concerns are taken into account in consultation about local schemes. We came to the conclusion that that might be a suitable matter to include in guidance, rather than in the Bill. If Ministers included advice on that in the guidance document, I am sure that noble Lords would want local authorities to follow it. They are more likely to do so if the guidance has statutory force. In response to the points raised by my noble friend Lord Rosser’s amendments, we have no objection in principle to the parliamentary scrutiny of departmental guidance. Indeed, a draft guidance document has already been made available for the House—and the Committee in particular—to consider. It forms Volume 4 of the large guidance document that has been laid in the House Library, and copies are available in the Table Office. That volume is a draft of what could become the guidance under Clause 37 if it is enacted. It is very much a preliminary draft, but we hope that publishing it at this stage will help inform the parliamentary debates. Nor do we have any objection to consulting on the guidance, in particular with the local transport authorities to which it is addressed. Indeed, in this day and age it would be most unusual for a document of this type to be published without a period of formal consultation. The department has not done so formally to date, because it is still an early stage in the Bill process. However, there has been informal consultation with a range of interested parties, and the department has taken account of the views of the various stakeholders, even at this stage. The document is available on the internet, and the department would welcome any comments that noble Lords might have. We do not believe that it is necessary for the guidance to be made by order and in particular for such an order to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. We anticipate that the guidance may need to be amended in the light of experience, and it is important that the Secretary of State and the Welsh Ministers have the flexibility to do that as we learn from the implementation of the process. Requiring a debate in both Houses would be very time consuming for Parliament and might mean that the guidance would be revised less often than would be helpful. That could be counterproductive. I say to my noble friend Lord Rosser that the department will, of course, go out to full consultation before any guidance is issued in its final form. We hope by then to have had the benefit of many lively debates in this House. I hope that noble Lords who have not already done so will avail themselves of the opportunity to read the draft guidance, which is intended to make things clearer for local authorities rather than to put additional hurdles in their way. My noble friend Lord Rosser asked whether we would consult on guidance. As I have just said, we certainly will consult. We have already published the initial draft, and we will consult fully and formally next year. My noble friend also asked whether guidance would face parliamentary scrutiny. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not see the need for an elaborate parliamentary procedure that underpins the view that we have as far as the Government are concerned on not going down that more elaborate parliamentary path. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, asked a question to which I do not see an answer in my notes. If I have not covered it, I will ensure that he receives an answer in writing.