Local Transport Bill [Lords]

This is worrying progress that we are making. If the hon. Gentleman reads the Transport Committee's report on local transport plans, he will see that we found a lot of evidence—it is similar to the evidence that the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire found—of unnecessary interference from the centre. I am strongly in favour of local democracy and having the right to tax locally and take decisions locally in line with what is appropriate for local areas. That principle is behind much of what I am saying. I am not against congestion charging in principle, either locally or nationally, but it has to be appropriate to the area and not introduced because the Government are pressing for it. In five or six years of my asking, no Minister has answered my question to my satisfaction. Although I accept that London is a special case that has historically had investment in transport of 80 per cent. more per capita than the English regions, I have tried to find out why that 80 per cent. difference has gone up to 150 per cent. difference. There has been no answer to that question. At the same time as we in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Southampton are desperate for investment in tram systems, the investment in London is increasing and much of it, such as the £2 billion spent on the Metronet fiasco, is being wasted. That money could have bought us tram sets in at least three major urban conurbations. I want to finish with two points. First, I thank the Minister for allowing me time and access to the Bill team. I had a long discussion with her and the Bill team about quality partnership schemes. I do not have time to go into the detail, but at the end of that discussion I was convinced that quality partnerships would not work. Let us start to think about what a quality partnership is: frequencies, fares and timing are controlled in the partnership but there is access for others. It will be extremely difficult to get an agreement between the bus companies and the authorities about who will run the prime service at 8.30 or 9 in the morning—the most profitable routes. Anyone who is running a bus service will want to run those routes, not the 11.30 off-peak route. Let us consider how access is organised. I understand, although I do not have quite enough interest to read it all, that the Minister has issued 70 pages of guidance on how to deal with that. That shows that quality partnerships—[Interruption.] I am happy to give way to the Minister, if she wants. She was just agreeing with me, I think.