Local Transport Bill [Lords]

I begin by declaring an interest over and above the fact that I legitimately represent my constituents, a point to which I shall return in a moment. Prior to the 2005 election, in common with many Members who have spoken, much of my mailbag was about the appalling public transport situation in my constituency and the surrounding environment. Hon. Members will have different ways of expressing their relationship with their electorate at election time, but as a result of the sheer volume and persistence of that mail, I gave a personal pledge in my election address to seek re-regulation of local bus services to some extent in this Parliament. Having been re-elected in 2005, I immediately wrote to the then Secretary of State for Transport about the matter, to urge that it be taken forward. As other Members have said, the process has been slow, because the Government placed their faith in the Transport Act 2000—not unjustifiably, although we have ultimately had to revisit our position. Quality contracts could not quite get over the hurdle that was set in that Act. When I originally wrote, and certainly when I made my election pledge, I privately said to myself, ““I don't know whether we are going to make progress.”” It was a risk, but I felt I had to do it, so I declare that personal interest. I know that other hon. Members have been plugging away at the matter for a lot longer than I, and I am glad to be on board with them. I shall say a little more about how we got to where we are. There was a change of Secretary of State when my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander), who is now the Secretary of State for International Development, took up the post in 2006. When there is a change, we often think that we might be able to make a bit more progress. I went to see my right hon. Friend the then Transport Secretary on 23 October 2006, a date that I am given to understand was the 20th anniversary of deregulation. I cannot remember whether the meeting was open or for Labour colleagues only, but my right hon. Friend announced that the Government intended to revisit the question of regulation, I think for the first time since 2000. That news was very welcome to me and to many other hon. Members, although I shall return to the Opposition's response in a few moments. My right hon. Friend was not able to say that regulation was a done deal, or that everything had been sorted out. As today's debate has shown, problems remain that need to be discussed. The matter has never been straightforward, but at least we are now able to have the debate and to make progress. I hope that the Bill will become law and thereby change the lives of people in three sections of the community that I represent. I shall say more about that later, too. In a small way, it was an historic meeting. Coincidentally, the next day I had a meeting with the former Chancellor, now my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The questions of whether we could afford regulation, and what model we should adopt, remained uncertain. I told the former Chancellor that the Transport Secretary wanted to make progress but that we needed the Treasury's agreement. We did not expect a blank cheque to pay for the proposals, but it was clear that there needed to be agreement and co-operation between the Departments involved if the scheme was to work. The then Chancellor said, ““Stephen, I completely understand what you are saying. If we can't get a grip of this type of measure, what are we in government for?”” That is precisely the task before us today—to take matters forward. In that regard, I commend both of the right hon. Friends to whom I have referred already, and also my right hon. Friend the Minister of State who opened the debate. She has taken up the story and brought the proposals to fruition. My right hon. Friend the former Transport Secretary said that the proper provision of transport was a matter of social justice for all our constituents, and I think that that puts the Bill in the right context. That is why I find the Opposition's response so surprising. As I said earlier, I made an election pledge to my constituents that a Bill along these lines would be brought in, but I did not anticipate that it would not get cross-party support. I was not expecting a fight, although now I am looking forward to it. This Bill divides the Government from the Opposition. The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) will probably say that there is clear blue water between us. I welcome that, as it gives me an opportunity to explore the Opposition's lack of support for the Bill. The Opposition's approach is anti green, in that it rejects the idea of congestion charges—although I am more interested in the question of bus regulation. Their approach is also anti localism, in that it would take away discretion in this area from local authorities. The Opposition's approach is also very much centred around London and the south. It is anti the rest of the country, because the measure will help the parts of the country that are not London. It is a very small view. Of course, the Tories can make their electoral calculations. I do not know whether bus companies—Stagecoach and others—make electoral contributions to the Tory party; perhaps we could be told. That might be part of the story; I do not know. I am struggling to understand why the difference in opinion has come about. I do not think that I am the only one to have been taken by surprise by it. The reasoned amendment could not have been put in clearer terms. It is about re-regulation, as I call it—I know that that is not the Front Benchers' preferred phrase, but it is my shorthand—and refers to"““preventing free competition between bus operators””." That is where the Opposition have located themselves—they are not with the ordinary folk who need to use the buses, but completely on the other side. There is an issue to be teased out there. Let me come on to why I made the issue the subject of an election pledge, and the people who are contacting me in large numbers. We all have stories to tell about the issues that result in the biggest postbags. There are a range of such issues, and as I say, the issue at hand is one of them. As other right hon. and hon. Members will know, the subject is frustrating, because one cannot do anything about the problem. We can lobby and have discussions—I have had countless discussions with the private operators—but we do not get anywhere. The operators give us the flannel, and the public relations soft soap. They know that they have us over a barrel. I have said that three parts of my community are particularly affected. I shall give some insights into the stories that those people commonly tell. On the issue of surprise, hon. Members will no doubt have seen the Help the Aged briefing produced for Second Reading. It begins by saying that the organisation welcomes the Bill. Why is that? Well, it is no coincidence or surprise to me that one of the three groups of people in my constituency who come to see me in large numbers on the issue are the elderly, who are particularly affected by the sometimes rogue operation of private bus services. The elderly do not have choices; they simply have the bus service—or, more commonly, they do not have the bus service. Help the Aged gives a little example to show the unsatisfactory way in which the system interacts with the elderly. It mentions a community of elderly people who live at the bottom of a hill, and a bus service that was moved to the top of the hill. That has happened in my constituency. The people affected find it extremely difficult to get from the bottom of the hill to the top. It sounds so simple, but it is life-changing for those people. We are talking about an elderly community in sheltered housing, and those people's one means of getting out. Hon. Members have made the valuable point that bus services allow such people to get to the shops, to get a chance to go to hospital and to visit other parts of the constituency. Under the scheme that is to be introduced on 1 April, they will be able to get around the country, but without that, or if they feel excluded from getting on the bus, all those things are denied to them. Without being over-dramatic about it, one could say that the life chances of those elderly people were affected. They have put in, paid their taxes and brought up kids and grandkids. It is a time in their lives when things should be made easier rather than more difficult, and they should not be excluded by being unable to join in. The measure will enable us to get a grip of those issues. There will always be stresses and strains—other Members have spoken about quality contracts and the like—but there will be occasions when we can win. I hope there will be more occasions when we win than when we do not. We will have to see how the system operates. Another group in my constituency who wrote, making the case, although not in such large numbers, were mums with kids. Some took the kids to school and were trying to stop people driving Chelsea tractors to school, but more commonly, they were mums who do not have a car. Some took young children shopping with them. They reported that services that used to run in a way that helped their lives were cut off or late, or did not turn up, or were so unreliable as to make those trips not worth while. One could predict that those two groups would be affected by the lack of bus services, but the third group—young people—stunned me. While I was receiving correspondence and being lobbied by the first two groups, several mums came to see me independently. One mum told me that her 17-year-old daughter had gone to the pub in another village. Perhaps she should not have been going down to the pub, but I will not censure her for that. The girl had come out of the pub at 11 pm and gone to the bus stop on her own. She was waiting in a fairly isolated little village and the bus did not come. What can be done about a vulnerable young girl in that potentially horrible situation? It was not her fault. She had behaved responsibly. I could not get from the bus operator a sensible explanation of why that had happened or any recognition that there was anything wrong. I was told that it was one of those things. Fortunately in that case nothing happened, but we have all read about less happy outcomes. I do not want to be part of a system that inherently allows that to happen. I put on the record my thanks to my local passenger transport executive, Merseytravel, which for a number of years has been pushing for measures such as quality contracts. I look forward to the time when it becomes an integrated transport authority, stepping in in some of the cases that I have outlined. I welcome the Bill and I welcome what my right hon. Friend and others have done. I look forward to the fight in due course and to explaining the issue to my constituents, who will be amazed that there is still something to talk about.