Local Transport Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend is right, and I thank him for the work that he did in the Transport Committee, scrutinising the Bill. It allowed us to make amendments to the Bill to improve it, and I shall come to those later. He is right to say that the Bill's success will depend on its practical implementation and the relationship that can be built up between local authorities and the bus operators in a positive way for the benefit of bus users. As I was saying, the actions that we have taken during the 10 years of the Labour Government have made a real difference. They have meant the development of not only the partnerships to which reference has been made, but the partnership between central and local government. It has meant that we have managed to halt the decline in bus usage and delivered the first sustained year-on-year increase in patronage. About 500 million more journeys are made than was the case 10 years ago.