Local Transport Bill [Lords]

We are making that provision in the Bill, and as I said, we will be consulting on our guidance and so on with trade unions and bus operators alike to take the provisions forward. They are clearly laid out on the face of the Bill to give a true minimum position. I shall now turn to Government new clause 9, together with Government amendments Nos. 121 and 122. In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley and other hon. Members made an eloquent plea that passenger transport executives that are running a quality contracts scheme should have the power to take over operating the buses if the contractor goes into liquidation or for some other reason is no longer able to provide services under the quality contract before that contract is due to end. They accepted that such a power would not be easy to use and would be used only in an emergency, and they drew attention to similar powers with regard to franchised railway services. My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central promised to consider the matter further in the light of the debate. The Government have now done so, and I am pleased to have moved new clause 9. My hon. Friends have also tabled amendments similar to those that they tabled in Committee. There is not an enormous difference between the two sets of amendments, so I shall describe those tabled by the Government. They consist of a new clause whose effect would be to empower a local transport authority to operate interim services, and two minor consequential amendments. The proposed new power would allow a local transport authority to provide services as an operator of last resort in a quality contracts scheme area. That would be possible only when a quality contracts operator ceased to provide the contracted services before the quality contract was due to expire. The power could be exercised by the local authority only for a time-limited period. In one respect, the power goes further than amendments Nos. 98 to 100, tabled by my hon. Friends, as it would apply to any local transport authority in England or Wales that has made and brought into force a quality contracts scheme, whereas their amendments would apply only to areas with passenger transport executives. It is nevertheless a modest and limited power; it applies in only a very specific set of circumstances, and it certainly would not give local authorities a general power to run bus services.