Local Transport Bill [Lords]

May I first put on record my thanks to the Minister for inviting me to a meeting with her officials last week to discuss some of the issues in the Bill? The Minister treated us to a rose-tinted opening to this debate, frequently ignoring both history and reality. The history that bus patronage fell fastest between 1950 and the mid-'80s was conveniently sidestepped. The important fact that investment in our bus fleet is now at its highest was forgotten. A lot of the time the Minister was, like her Government, mired in complacency. Over the last two years, I have had the pleasure to participate in six Westminster Hall debates on buses. [Interruption.] Is the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) laughing? If so, that is because they follow a predictable pattern of which both he and I are aware. Labour Members rant ancient socialism and bureaucratic central control, and do not want to listen to examples of where partnerships are working. I then cite examples of where those partnerships are working and where bus services are improving and have improved, and we all troop off to do something else afterwards, no one having convinced anyone of anything. Today, we will follow that pattern. I could have exactly predicted so many of the contributions from Labour Members, and interesting though those were, they failed to convince anyone. The contributions that I heard from my hon. Friends were interesting. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) gave a typically coherent and clear speech exposing the flaws in the Government's position on road pricing. He talked clearly about the impact of the coercion of local authorities by national Government with no regard to local transport needs. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) made a number of interesting points about the need for tighter restriction on foreign-registered vehicles. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) raised well-founded concerns about the clauses on Wales and the possibility that the Bill would be a way of introducing tax-raising powers for the Welsh Assembly. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) made a short speech, which included the important point about the need to consult on congestion charge schemes. I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). He was quick to criticise my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers) by saying that she was making an incoherent argument, but at no stage did he answer her principal reasoning, which was that quality contracts and statutory quality partnerships have not been taken up because so many people have realised that they cannot be taken up, that they are wrong-headed and that they are not the way forward. He failed to give any answer to that point The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) told us that she would make a brief contribution, and at one stage during it she talked about buses being the No. 1 issue in her postbag. The No. 1 issue in my postbag and in that of the majority of my hon. Friends is some of the failings of her Government: her Government closing local post offices without regard; her Government causing chaos on welfare and tax credits; and her Government's inability to grasp the problems of the immigration system. Those are the top three issues in my postbag. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Bromwich somewhere—[Laughter.] The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) mentions buses in Wimbledon, and he, of course, brings me on to the real problem with them: the fact that Transport for London is a regional body, not a local one. When the suggestion was recently made that it needs to space out some of the bus stops to help with particular problems in respect of children waiting outside our town centre, it failed to listen. We do have problems with buses in Wimbledon—