Local Transport Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 62C: 62C: Clause 43, page 39, line 25, at end insert— ““(6A) If the traffic commissioner sees fit, guidance can be given to the authority to incorporate the proposed service into the quality contract scheme.”” The noble Lord said: The Bill’s proposals for the registration of new services under a quality contracts scheme are different from the potential restrictions available under a quality partnership scheme. The Bill seeks to make the rejection of such applications the norm and the acceptance the exception, determined by a clearance certificate provided by the relevant local transport authorities. Although I have made it sufficiently clear that I do not think that quality contracts are particularly beneficial, or even that many people will take them up, I can see that barring some applications for registration would make sense under such schemes if things were to work as planned. In most cases, having new services registered alongside would undermine the network planned by the local authority under a quality contracts framework. However, operators obviously usually make applications for commercial reasons. A route suggested by an operator can usually be expected to have sufficient customers if the operator has done the necessary research. As such, that quality contracts procedure could benefit from having this valuable information fed into the discussion. It would therefore make good sense for local transport authorities to have a mechanism for taking suggestions on board and allowing quality contracts to be made in collaboration with operators. The initial setting up of a scheme requires extensive consultation, but transport needs change. Having operators as an extra resource to help authorities in subsequent periods to determine their transport needs under a quality contracts scheme would help the scheme to be a success. More people might take it up. I have suggested in my amendment that the role could be taken up by the traffic commissioners, who could give an authority guidance to incorporate a service into their quality contract if he saw fit. The Minister might have other ideas as to how this might be done. I simply wanted to raise the issue of the operator not having much input into the process after a scheme was set up, especially if quality contracts are to be continued beyond the initial 10 years. I beg to move.