Local Transport Bill [Lords]

No, I do not want regional authorities to be involved. The hon. Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford) made an interesting contribution, notable for two things—his failure to condone under-age drinking and his indication that he makes election promises that he does not keep. I guess that that will be noted by voters at the next general election. The Local Transport Bill covers a broad array of topics, ranging from commercial bus services to road pricing, community transport and local transport governance. It is not a technical Bill; it is a wide-ranging Bill that has a wide-ranging impact on local transport in this country. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire said, it is a proverbial curate's egg; it is good in parts, but thoroughly objectionable elsewhere. The hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) said that it is bad manners to eat an egg whole—it would certainly be bad manners to eat this egg whole. On average, each person makes 1,000 trips each year, 40 per cent. of which are of less than 2 miles in length. Although it is true that people travel further and more frequently than before, a large number of those trips are over a short distance. The key to delivering successful local transport plans lies in delivering measures that generally and genuinely deliver a modal shift from cars to public transport. That can be achieved only through providing services and infrastructure that address the transport needs of the public. Put simply, the public must be taken where they want to go, when they want to go, in a safe and convenient manner—this Government have failed to do that at any stage during that past 10 years. With those points in mind, I shall consider some of the Bill's provisions in the short time available. It would amend the duties of local transport authorities in terms of producing and implementing local transport plans, and provides that the policies must cover all aspects of transport, rather than only transport facilities and services as currently required. Under the Bill, those policies must also take into account the protection and improvement of the environment. Considerably more detail must be provided on that requirement. The key point is that a local plan can be effective only if it is truly local. It will not be effective if it is tainted by flawed national objectives and ambitions imposed by national Government on local transport plans, as we have seen happen so often in the past 10 years. In its scrutiny of the draft Bill, the Transport Committee rightly made the point that the over-prescription of guidance has increased the costs and production time of local transport plans without creating any greater certainty about funding fulfilment or delivery. We want to avoid a situation in which the Government provide extra funding through local transport plans and seek to override local aspects of such plans—we saw that happen with the transport innovation fund. That is ill advised, as several of my hon. Friends pointed out in the debate. The Bill would give the Secretary of State the power in future to increase the number of passenger transport authorities—or integrated transport authorities as they will be known. The new integrated transport authorities will have the sole responsibility for writing local transport plans in their area. It will be important to understand the new role and functions of those bodies and to determine whether the change of name is anything more than a cosmetic exercise. A further element of transport governance that the Bill will change is the role of traffic commissioners. The Bill seeks to establish a new statutory office of senior traffic commissioner. In theory, that could help make more effective the important work done by the traffic commissioner network, but there must be doubts surrounding the extent to which the Secretary of State can issue guidance to the senior traffic commissioner who can then issue directions and guidance to other traffic commissioners. It will be important to know the exact extension of the power of the traffic commissioners and whether they are suitable to undertake their new roles. Indeed, the Government must confirm to what extent they expect traffic commissioners to have a role in economic regulation. Several hon. Members have mentioned road pricing. The Government's position on that seems to change from ministerial speech to ministerial speech. We have U-turn followed by U-turn, so we can truly say that the Government are running around in circles. The Government's position in the Bill was excellently explored by my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet earlier—they dither on road pricing, but there cannot be any confusion about our policy on it. We have been clear from the outset that we agree with the 1.8 million people who signed the Downing street petition, and we will oppose any proposals for a spy in the sky national road pricing scheme. The Minister claimed several times that we were not listening to the people. Well, on this issue the Minister and her Government are clearly not listening to them. A national scheme is unpopular and unrealistic, but I suspect that road user charging or an increased use of tolls may well be part of the Government's strategy for tackling congestion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North made clear, these schemes must be local and require local consent and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire pointed out, they must not be used as the Trojan horse for a national road pricing scheme. The Bill proposes to establish on a statutory footing a passenger watchdog for buses. In principle, we welcome that move, as we have seen that it works well in the rail industry. The key question is what form the new body will take, now that the Government consultation on the subject has ended. The National Consumer Council is right to make it clear that the body should have a remit to improve bus travel and advocacy. We support that position. We have heard several notable contributions on community transport. The Bill aims to support the further development of the community transport sector by removing unnecessary restrictions and by strengthening the system for issuing permits to community transport providers. That is a welcome move and any proposals that help to strengthen the community transport sector will enjoy our support. The key part of the Bill is about quality partnerships and contracts. The Government have recognised that the fundamental driver behind improvements to local bus services is an effective partnership between the local authority and the operator. In the draft consultation, ““Putting Passengers First””, the Government said:"““A key ingredient of success has been effective partnership””." That can be seen up and down the country. We have cited the case several times already, but one needs merely to ask operators in Brighton and Hove how they have achieved 50 per cent. growth and they will say that it is down to a good working partnership with the local authority. Operators invest in higher quality services, new vehicles and staff training, and local authorities invest in traffic management schemes to give buses priority and to provide better bus stations, shelters and passenger information.