Local Transport Bill [HL]

We come to that issue in the next amendment, and I shall be happy to deal with it there. I know that the noble Lord is somewhat concerned, perhaps even slightly obsessed, with road pricing. He made a point about road pricing being instituted by the ITA without local authority consent. Perhaps I should respond to that by explaining that the Bill does not allow an ITA to make a road-charging scheme without the agreement of a local traffic authority, which is, of course, a council. That is made clear in Clause 90 of the Bill. The fact that particular functions of a local traffic authority can be delegated to an ITA does not mean that the local authority would cease to be the statutory traffic authority. In any case, Clause 90 of the Bill makes clear that an ITA can enter into a scheme only with one or more other authorities. If it were the intention that a delegation under Clause 74 could have the result that an ITA could make a scheme on its own, Clause 90 would have to be very differently drafted without requiring there to be a joint scheme within the ITA’s own area. There are checks and balances at work here. It is probably worth the noble Lord reflecting on that as well.