Local Transport Bill [Lords]

I very much welcome the Bill and am pleased to have an opportunity to take part in the debate. I was in the Chamber for the introductory speeches, and am sorry that I missed the middle part of the debate. I am as amazed as my hon. Friends—our amazement is shared by Liberal Democrat Members—at the opposition of Conservative Members to the Bill. It seems perverse and strange. The Tory script about road pricing is also becoming slightly monotonous. Derbyshire has some good-quality local partnerships, but I know the frustrations of its public transport unit and councillors about the limitations on what they can do to preserve, promote and save bus services when operators want to pull the plug or jack up fares. Other Members have quoted examples of such frustrations, and how they have had to be dealt with. I want to focus on the Bill's community transport provisions, which have been mentioned only briefly: clauses 52 to 54, which amend sections 19 and 22 of the Transport Act 1985. I come to the debate via discussions of the concessionary fares scheme, its impact on community transport in Derbyshire and how to retain the excellent gold card scheme promoted by the excellent Labour county council—a scheme that is well in advance of our very good new national scheme. Last night, my hon. Friends the Members for High Peak (Tom Levitt) and South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), with whom I have worked closely on the matter, flew the flag, and I want to carry on today by explaining some of the connections. Just before I came into the debate, I spoke to the chief executive of Amber Valley community transport, who described the Bill as a ““lifeline”” for our local dial-a-bus services. I shall come back to explain why that is the case. It is partly because of the way in which Derbyshire services operate, which might not be the same as other community transport services. I applaud community transport, which is itself a lifeline for many people who would otherwise be isolated at home and unable to access commercial scheduled services. Anything that can be done to promote that service, which the Bill does by providing additional flexibility, is very important. Amber Valley community transport was founded in 1986, when it managed to get three staff and a small group of volunteers. It mushroomed, and today has 18 vehicles, a staff of 40 and support from more than 100 volunteers. It operates dial-a-bus, dial-a-ride, rural bus challenge and contract services for groups. In Amber Valley alone, it transports more than 1,500 people a week on 250 journeys, with 36 different scheduled services. Dial-a-bus has 500 trips a week to eight different towns. Eight community transport services in Derbyshire all operate on a similar basis. A complex range of services is provided to a large number of people, and that is why it is pleasing that the Bill contains provisions enabling the community transport sector to have more flexibility in relation to two aspects: the vehicles that can be used and allowing drivers of community bus services to be paid. That will have an important impact. I will return to the impact on our dial-a-bus services and concessionary fare schemes, but I will give another example of how the new provisions will help. Clause 52 would remove the current restriction that prevents the use of public service vehicles with fewer than nine seats under a section 19 permit. The effect will be that younger drivers, who have licences to drive but not necessarily for larger vehicles, will be able to operate scheduled community transport services. That will provide a broader range of drivers who can operate dial-a-ride services for, say, single wheelchair users, not the large buses. That will greatly increase the number of people who can use that service, which individuals pay for, but at a subsidised rate. That service provides assistance to a large number of people in our area. That is the first example of how the flexibility can be used. The second example relates to the relaxation on volunteer drivers. That is important for us because we have an excellent gold card scheme, operated county-wide, under which the dial-a-bus schemes in Derbyshire have been brought within the free fares scheme. That might have been lost because of the difficulties of translating it into a new scheme. Our services in Derbyshire differ from those in many other areas because they are scheduled—there are 36 different scheduled services in Amber Valley alone—and have printed timetables. I first got involved in the scheme with my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak when community transport came to us and said, ““Why don't we get the fuel duty rebate? We run scheduled, registered services, according to a printed timetable. If we were a commercial service, we would be getting fuel duty rebate, but because we're not, we don't.”” We trailed around Transport Ministers—they kept changing at the time; I am pleased that we now have a bit of stability—and eventually, to our great delight, a Budget came along that extended the fuel duty rebate to community transport. The argument is relevant to this debate. It seemed unreasonable to say that because someone was disabled or elderly with mobility problems, that person could not get on to a scheduled bus service and would therefore have to pay more, because, unlike with a commercial service, there was no fuel duty rebate for the services used. Why should it also be the case that that person cannot access the concessionary fares scheme when we have scheduled services with printed timetables? The services are demand-responsive. If a commercial operator bought an adapted mini-bus and was prepared to pick up in isolated areas, it could register as a demand-responsive service under the concessionary fares scheme. Yet community transport could not register under the scheme even though it has a timetabled service that picks up disabled and elderly customers for shopping trips to local towns. It uses volunteers to assist in doing that, and I have travelled on those buses and helped those people on their shopping trips. It is an important lifeline for them to get their shopping every week. However, by virtue of the Bill and extremely useful discussions with Transport Ministers and officials, we have ensured that the Bill recognises paid drivers, which means that our dial-a-bus services will be registered section 22 services. As they have organised and regular scheduled timetables, they will be eligible to come under the concessionary fares scheme with a few adaptations. I thank Ministers for giving us that flexibility and enabling us to do that. One of the most important things to come out of that is the need to have partnerships, which is why the Opposition's opposition to the Bill is so bizarre. The whole point is to promote partnerships. My little example of how it will help our community transport services highlights the partnership that we have developed on our new scheme with excellent help from Transport Ministers and officials and a visionary Labour county council, which helped to develop and support it in the first place. The council has agreed to retain the subsidy to community transport while it moves on to the new system. That is very important. Derbyshire county council is excellent. It always gets top ratings in the Audit Commission reports, not just for transport, but across the board. It is a fine example, particularly as a former Conservative Prime Minister was extremely keen to get rid of it. Derbyshire county council was a real bête noire of previous Conservative Governments, and it is interesting that it is now one of the councils that is most applauded by the Audit Commission. The partnership between the Government, a Labour county council and an excellent community transport service—its staff and volunteers are brilliant—is what we need to make progress. They are helping people to stop being isolated and get out of their homes, and providing a range of services that are critical to the social mobility, fairness and justice that we say we want. I believe that those are the most important developments that the Bill and our transport system could bring about, and I applaud all the elements that have made them possible. I hope that we shall go from strength to strength in developing and expanding our bus services even further.