Local Transport Bill [Lords]

It is a pleasure to follow most of the contributions to the debate, and particularly pleasurable eventually to follow the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight)—I apologise for mentioning him when he is not in his seat—who admirably performed the role of the parliamentary equivalent of a speed hump. I am delighted that the Bill has come before the House. My comments are intended to be supportive. Like some of my hon. Friends, I shall suggest ways in which it might be improved. For years, various Labour colleagues and I have striven to make the case for bus operators to be made more accountable to the communities and passengers whom they serve. Indeed, on occasions I have referred to myself and my hon. Friends the Members for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) and for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), among others, as"““We few, we happy few, we band of brothers””." Now, we are joined by some energetic sisters in the shape of our hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) and for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) and my right hon. Friend the Minister. During at least nine years of debates in the Chamber, Westminster Hall and elsewhere, it sometimes felt as though we had fired off all the ammunition supplied to us by constituents and our own personal experiences, only for it to bounce off the rather thick-skinned responses from Ministers suitably briefed by their civil servants. That is one point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers); beyond that, however, I cease to agree with anything that she said at all. While I am mentioning the hon. Lady, I should say that I displayed geographical ignorance earlier by not identifying the fact that she is herself a London MP. Given that, I wish to change what I said earlier and say that it is a pity that, if her party has its way, the benefits of regulation in London, which her constituents enjoy, will continue to be denied to my and most other Members' constituents. I accept that it is desirable for us to move forward on a voluntary basis if we can; one voluntary agreement is probably worth 10 pressed ones. I also accept that we need not necessarily always go down the road of quality contracts and that a range of measures could be deployed. Indeed, there might not be a quality contract for the whole area of regions such as West Yorkshire—not even for the whole of Leeds, where my seat is located; the contract might apply only to parts where it has been impossible to provide decent services by any other means. The hon. Lady painted a rather rosy, Elysian-fields picture of the products of bus deregulation, but it in no way conforms with my or my constituents' experiences. I wish I could say that it did and that the Bill was unnecessary. I cannot remember a time during my 11 years as an MP, or the years that I served as a councillor, when I have not been involved in taking up constituents' concerns about the removal of, or damaging changes to, services provided to local communities. Since deregulation, quality and standards have fallen dramatically and fares have gone up by almost 50 per cent. in real terms in West Yorkshire. The number of passengers has fallen by almost 40 per cent.—in round figures, that represents about 100 million passenger journeys. The declines in most other passenger transport executive areas have been even more precipitous; I understand that in PTE areas overall, patronage has fallen by about 50 per cent. The problem with the deregulated system is that bus companies can pick and choose what services they provide and make profits even when they provide a poor service. Services are chopped and changed and are missing or late. Passengers feel powerless and vote with their feet, if they can, by using their cars. Many people in my constituency—and I am sure that this picture is replicated the length and breadth of this country—are being denied a reliable and affordable service to work, schools, colleges, shops, health centres and hospitals. As a result, they turn to councillors, MPs and the passenger transport executives, but they find that nothing can be done to resolve the problems. While my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough was talking about having held public meetings, a Conservative Member shouted, ““What next?”” My hon. Friend did not rise to the bait, but we all know what is next—nothing at all. Communities, passengers, MPs and councillors can bring no power to bear on bus operators to ensure that they address the needs of passengers and communities. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet talked about empowering customers, yet her party's amendment would deprive communities and their elected representatives of the ability to bring to bear powers that would provide the exact empowerment for which she purported to argue. Passenger transport executives subsidise about 13 per cent. of services, and the rest are simply out of their control. There is little or no competition for contracts, so it is absolutely impossible to gauge whether there is value for money. I intervened earlier to drive home the point that even in its own dogmatic, market-driven terms, deregulation has been a failure. The local network in my area comprises high-frequency routes such as service 4 into Pudsey, the 16 to Farsley and the 42 to Old Farnley, together with a combination of other routes on the Leeds-Bradford corridor. Services that serve local communities have been subject to successive changes that tend to have concentrated bus resources on high-frequency major routes, which are obviously primarily focused on generating profit. We talk about voluntary partnerships, but partnerships always exist on the basis of what bus operators are prepared to do; there are very few concessions to meet community needs. I will not run through the roll-call of services that have been lost in my constituency over the past 11 years, because it would take up far too much time. For example, changes to services in Guiseley and Yeadon have resulted in the loss of significant links with nearby Bradford, which has caused tremendous hardship for regular travellers who depend on those services. Frequency has been reduced on services that penetrate local housing estates and provide links to Pudsey town centre, to the Owlcotes shopping centre and to Bramley. There is a frequent service through the centre of Farsley, one of the small villages in my constituency, yet half a mile away older people living in sheltered accommodation have lost their vital bus link into the Farfield estate. Links to local facilities such as health centres, post offices and supermarkets are often ignored as part of the operator's service planning process. Another notable example in my constituency of the lack of bus links is the lack of any services to the recently rebuilt Wharfedale hospital and to primary health care facilities at Eccleshill in Bradford. I cannot remember a time when I have not been taking up bus service-related issues, and the present time is no exception. At the moment, my constituents and I are pursuing issues surrounding the removal of the 81 service, which serves several communities, and the 966 service that serves Yeadon. As other hon. Members have pointed out, the decline in bus services and patronage not only affects passengers but everyone, whether they use buses or not. Poor services lead to increased car use, which creates even more congestion, pollution and road safety hazards in our communities. The message in the Conservatives' amendment is, ““We'll just have more of the same; we'll do nothing.”” They said that the Bill could have been introduced in various guises of which they might have been more supportive, but we have not been given any examples of what those approaches could have been. It is absolutely crucial that we get quality contracts right. We cannot have another false dawn such as that which many of us predicted in discussions relating to what eventually became the Transport Act 2000. It has taken us many years of cajoling and debate to get the message across that we needed to replace the ““only practicable way”” test. Like many of my colleagues who have this issue engraved into our very hearts and souls, I have some reservations about the process that is being proposed for the introduction of quality contracts. It feels as though having achieved the long-sought breakthrough, we are beginning to bend ever so slightly to the will of bus operators and, dare I say, the advice of civil servants. Quality contracts should be the last chance saloon; they should not be resorted to glibly or mischievously. Far from being in the last chance saloon, bus operators, through the process laid down in the Bill, will be able to engage in a quasi-legal pub crawl in the taprooms of the traffic commissioners and the transport tribunal before going for a big judicial booze-up in the courts. That will unnecessarily delay the process that is laid down. To move on to another analogy, I do not want an insuperable legal high-jump to be replaced by an interminable bureaucratic marathon. We do not need a long period of instability and uncertainty created by unnecessary tinkering with the structures and processes. It seems to me, especially in discussion with those responsible at the sharp end for delivering the measures in the Bill, that the new process could involve agreeing a plan with the Government on funding for associated bus priority measures, an inquiry by the traffic commissioners, an inquiry or appeal by the transport tribunal and, potentially, a judicial review. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley made it absolutely clear that whatever safeguards are built in, we will still find ourselves subjected to judicial review by bus companies who fight tooth and nail to prevent the introduction of quality contracts. My right hon. Friend the Minister referred to the approach as being belt and braces, but to my mind, it is not only belt and braces, but safety pins and keeping our hands in our pockets as well—it really over-eggs the process. Try as I may—hon. Members with more experience may be able to correct me—I have not been able to find a parallel in local government decision making for this two-stage appeal process followed by an opportunity to go to court. In planning, major decisions are made that affect individuals, companies and commercial interests through applications, enforcement notices and structure plans, but we do not have a three-tier, or two-tier—call it what you will—appeal process. We do not have such a process in environmental health enforcement, licensing appeals or the allocation of school places, so why do we need it in this case? Quality contracts in places such as Leeds and West Yorkshire will ultimately prove to be the only mechanism available to deliver the sort of services that communities need and passengers deserve. They should provide greater reliability because services will be thoroughly monitored and good performance incentivised. If we get them right, they will provide more stability with fewer changes to fares, times and frequencies. There will be better integration—a point made time and time again in this debate—and an ability to make services cleaner and greener, as the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) rightly said. Implicit in the Bill is the assumption that local authorities and passenger transport authorities, or whatever their successors are called, will somehow engage glibly and mischievously in the pursuit of quality contracts, but nothing could be further from the truth. There are so many risks and complex issues that have to be taken into account before anyone embarks on this process. The transition to quality contracts and the associated legal process would be difficult enough, even if the Bill were straightforward. Those who want to introduce such contracts will have to address issues such as the location of depots, bus fleets, or what to do if there is currently a monopoly, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley. All sorts of approaches could be implemented, such as the closing down of depots. No local authority or passenger transport executive in its right mind will engage in the process unless it can be confident that it will achieve value for money, that resources will be better spent than under the status quo and that it will find operators to run the services laid down in the contract. To suggest otherwise is to fly in the face of reality, experience and logic. The point has been made about the extra measures introduced on statutory quality partnerships. To echo the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough, if operators are not happy with what has been suggested, they can simply walk away. I have still to hear a cogent argument that explains why the measures are necessary in such situations. I close by saying that I welcome other measures referred to, such as the establishment of a bus champion. I hope that it will not be a half-hearted measure, but a rigorous proposal that has teeth and that is sufficiently regional or local for us to understand what the challenges facing passengers and communities might be. In conclusion, it came as no surprise that the Opposition oppose the Bill, and specifically the quality contract measures that it contains. Change must come. Those of us who have any affinity with our constituencies and any sympathy with those who depend on buses know that change must come. The status quo simply cannot be allowed to continue. The case is overwhelming. I, along with a number of my hon. Friends who have spoken, want to ensure that the Bill puts into effect practical proposals for ending the long nightmare for bus passengers that has followed from bus deregulation.