Local Transport Bill [HL]

My Lords, I think we get into a difficulty here. From the centre as a Minister, it is hard to try to legislate for every situation. I sympathise with the point my noble friend makes. It is clearly in the interests of operators, I would have thought—particularly where there is a commitment to ensure that timetables are kept to and that we have good frequency, punctuality levels and so on—that there is close co-operation with the Highways Authority. If the Highways Authority takes the view that bus priority and bus lanes are going to improve the quality of punctuality, that has great value, and one would hope that establishing bus lanes and so on would survive the rigours of a change of political control. All we can do from the centre is to try to encourage that process and to hope that quality partnerships further underline its importance. That is something we can try to encourage in guidance and best practice. I not think we can go much further than that.