Local Transport Bill [Lords]

As I understand it, the registration restrictions are part of the answer to the problem that I outlined. I accept that my right hon. Friend has made attempts to deal with that problem, both by allowing traffic commissioners not to allow more registrations and by giving guidance on how such issues should be dealt with. However, when the different companies challenge the issue it becomes so complicated that the arrangement is unworkable. It is in the interests of the travelling public to move to quality contracts. To answer one point made by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet, let me say that the quality contracts are not anti-competitive. They transfer competition away from the road, where it is wasteful and causes congestion, to a tendering process. That is exactly what happens in London. Incidentally, as those who participated in the debate on concessionary fares last night will know, the contracts deal with that problem. If the concessionary fares are put into a quality contract, there is no need to deal with all the complicated calculations about what would have happened on a bus before the people with concessionary fares got on to it. The real answer for transport in metropolitan areas, and in most of the rest of the country, is to move to quality contracts, which are close to the system in London. Many hon. Members have made points about the complications that might be caused by the approvals boards and by traffic commissioners making decisions. I cannot see any reason why traffic commissioners should be able to put themselves into a better position than elected councillors to make decisions about the quality of bus services. That simply offends against local democracy. Placing a statutory duty on the integrated transport authorities to consult interested parties, and to get the process checked by an independent body, would provide as much security against judicial challenge as anything else. This is a fight against avaricious bus companies that have made hay while the sun has shone over the past 20 years. They have used a system that, to give it the benefit of the doubt, was set up to allow bus companies to respond to passengers, whereas in fact they have responded to subsidy. As all junkies will—these people are subsidy junkies—they will fight to keep what they want: their subsidies. I shall finish with a quotation from Brian Souter, cited in the Sheffield Star on 30 October 2006. He said:"““If franchising or Quality Contracts are brought in we will put all our depots up for sale in South Yorkshire. That is not a threat””—" it clearly is—"““it's just that we don't think it is the way to make the system work””." I think that it is the way to make the system work, and that the travelling public will benefit from it. I hope that Ministers and elected councillors on passenger transport authorities or integrated transport authorities have the stomach for a fight to get a better transport system in metropolitan areas and elsewhere.