Local Transport Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord leading for the Liberal Democrats was about to intervene, so I was doing him the courtesy of waiting for him to do so, but as he has not I shall say a few words on the amendment, which is the culmination of seven long and expensive years on behalf of the Passenger Transport Executive Group. It has consulted everybody and spent lots of money; restaurateurs the length and breadth of the country have benefited from the campaign they have waged in order to get their toys back in the box—in other words, to get their hands back on the controls on bus services. I listened with interest to the noble Lord who moved the amendment. I read it along with him because, for some reason, the Passenger Transport Executive Group did not send me the brief that he has just used. I found it anyway and I was interested to see that the arguments are still just the same. He used the phrase, "““the mistake of the Transport Act 2000””." I said in Committee on the 2000 Act in another place that it was no mistake that quality contracts were seen as the last resort and that every other avenue had to be explored before quality contracts, which have always been resisted by the bus industry, were implemented. I am not authorised to speak for the whole industry but, certainly in the areas that I know, the bus industry is convinced that those who operate the services have the expertise to do so rather than having to be told which services to operate and how much to charge, which would be the effect of the Government accepting the amendment. In other words, although the Passenger Transport Executive Group says—not in this briefing, but it has said it on other occasions—that it does not seek a return to the situation prior to the 1986 Act, it seeks the effect without the cause. It wants to lay down services, fares and standards without the responsibility of ownership which, I suppose one could argue, would give it even greater advantages than it had prior to the passage of the 1986 Act. The PTEG always used the argument that, since the implementation of the 1986 Act, there had been a steady decline in bus usage. To a certain extent that is true in certain parts of the country. Let us wind the clock back a bit further to before 1986. There has been a steady decline in bus use throughout the United Kingdom since the 1960s. The reason for that is obvious—the all pervasive spread of the private car has meant that many people who formerly travelled by bus now prefer to drive themselves to and from work or any leisure activity.