Local Transport Bill [Lords]

I shall come back to the hon. Gentleman in a minute. The Bill is a direct response to what local authorities, transport users and, in some cases, transport operators have told us about the different challenges and circumstances faced in different parts of the country. In the summer of 2006, the Government launched a wide-ranging review of bus services across the country. In December 2006, we published our conclusions in ““Putting Passengers First””, and in May 2007, we published the draft Local Transport Bill. That was followed by a period of consultation. As I said, I made a series of regional visits to listen to people's views about how the draft Bill could help in their areas and to their suggestions about how it could be further improved. As a result of our public consultation and scrutiny, including a report from the Transport Committee, we were able to make some very significant improvements to the Bill before it was introduced to Parliament, including the following: taking powers to set up a statutory body to represent bus passengers; ensuring that the provisions of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, following representations from the trade unions, apply where staff are affected by a quality contract scheme; and giving traffic commissioners the power to require operators to invest in improvements or compensate passengers where services are not operating properly. The Bill was introduced in the other place in November, where it benefited from further changes, including measures to boost community transport and to improve the accessibility of taxi buses.