Local Transport Bill [HL]

The noble Earl has made some interesting points about punctuality enforcement, although I do not see a golden thread of consistency of approach in the three amendments. Perhaps we expect too much sometimes. The first amendment would limit the circumstances in which the traffic commissioner could formally engage with a local traffic authority to cases where bus punctuality had been consistently poor over a period of time. Where a bus operator is faced with a licence sanction for poor performance under Section 26 of the Transport Act 1985, the traffic commissioner has to be satisfied that there is no reasonable excuse and that the conduct involves either danger or frequent failure. The situation here, however, is rather different. The events described in subsection (1)(a) of new Section 27A, which the clause will insert into the Transport Act 1985, will trigger not disciplinary action against the bus operator but engagement with the local traffic authority. The Government continue to work with stakeholders to develop a robust regime for managing bus punctuality. The stakeholders are keen to encourage such engagement to begin at an earlier stage, for example where operators identify a traffic problem and encounter difficulties in keeping to a timetable without actually failing to meet the punctuality standards. They would like to use the tripartite process of commissioner, authority and operator to nip potential problems in the bud rather than to wait for them to become manifest. The Government fully support that in principle but consider that there is no need to spell it all out in legislation. There is nothing to prevent the three parties meeting to discuss these matters and developing strategies to prevent them getting worse. However, the existence of stronger legislative powers if the situation does get out of control would spur them to do so. Clause 54 will provide that spur and give the traffic commissioner sufficient teeth to act when appropriate. The amendment, however, would pull in the other direction and would in effect deter the traffic commissioner from taking steps unless things were in a very poor state indeed. In practice, the traffic commissioners will use their judgment and common sense, as they usually do, and the clause gets the balance about right. The noble Lord’s second amendment moves in the other direction. It aims to limit the type of remedial measure that the traffic commissioner could recommend to the local traffic authority in his report under new Section 27A(4). It is clearly our intention that any remedial measures recommended should be reasonably practicable to implement and consistent with the local transport plan, so far as that plan goes into such a level of detail, or at least not inconsistent with it. However, I am not persuaded that we need these words in the legislation. In practice, traffic commissioners recognise that they are not experts in traffic management techniques and would be most unlikely to make a recommendation that had not been discussed with representatives from the local authority and accepted by them as a reasonably practicable step that they could take that would not have adverse impact on any of their other traffic management objectives. They are also under a general obligation to exercise their functions in a way that is reasonable and rational. It is not necessary to spell it out in detail in legislation, as the noble Lord suggests. The third amendment in this group is most odd. It affects an order-making power of the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers to amend the maximum penalty which a traffic commissioner can impose on an operator under Section 155 of the Transport Act 2000. At present, that sum is £550 for each vehicle that the operator is authorised to operate under any of the PSV operators’ licences. There will of course be more than one if the operator has operating centres in more than one traffic area. The order-making power simply enables a Minister to substitute a different figure for £550. The order is by statutory instrument, and any proposed use of the power would be subject to consultation. It would be most bizarre for the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers to be obliged to issue guidance in advance, setting out how they proposed to use the power, which would be the effect of the amendment. I see no value in that at all. It would appear to be asking Ministers to fetter their own discretion, or that of their successors, in a way which, if the noble Lord sat back and thought about it, would be most unsatisfactory. The amendments seem to go in different directions. The last amendment is most strange in terms of what it seeks to achieve. Perhaps the noble Lord sees it as a probing amendment, but I am not quite sure what the noble Lord is seeking to find as a result. I am not persuaded by the amendment, and I ask him to think about them carefully and to withdraw them.