Local Transport Bill [Lords]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Transport proposals are often at the core of the most intense debate in local areas. In Greater Manchester a tremendous row is going on about the transport innovation fund proposals. A referendum on the matter has been proposed, but many of us believe that the question has been fiddled. Transport is not an easy subject, and to take it further from the democratic process may well be a mistake. My final amendment does not focus on the detailed working and structure of integrated transport authorities and how they could be made fair, democratic and effective; it deals with how they are created. We had that discussion in Committee. The Government's position is that ITAs should be created by statutory instrument, under the affirmative procedure because they fundamentally change the structure of local government. Highways powers will be changed, and borrowing powers may well be transferred to different authorities. People will be able to vote more easily to effect some policies as an elector if the proposals go ahead. One of the reasons that the local government structure is not as good as it should be is that these issues are extremely difficult to deal with. People have interests and they often have rows about boundaries and about the powers involved. When I proposed the super-affirmative process—the regulatory reform order—rather than a simple SI, the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton) made two points in Committee on 8 May. One of those points was that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of the other place had concluded:"““we do not consider these delegations inappropriate””," but that is not the same as saying that the proposals are better—that a regulatory reform order or a super-affirmative process would not be better, because the difference between a super-affirmative process and an ordinary SI, apart from the fact that if there is dissent, there can be longer debate on the Floor of both Houses, is that representations can be made directly to the Committee dealing with them and amendments can be made to the regulatory reform order before it is placed before both Houses. On issues that are highly controversial, that separate parliamentary pathway, with more consultation and more ability to amend, is better than an SI, which would be passed on a whipped vote, as the recent changes to Cheshire were. The other defence deployed by my right hon. Friend was that SIs had recently been introduced for changing local government structure. If one thinks back to the rows and debates that took place about Cheshire, it seems that the system has not worked to the satisfaction of hon. Members or the electorate in Cheshire. People did not feel that they had been convinced. I have spoken for longer than I intended, but in the debate at the start of this group of amendments we have unearthed something unsatisfactory as the Government try in new clause 10 to improve the process of setting up integrated transport authorities. I leave my hon. Friend the Minister with one final thought. If, by means of ITAs, we are trying to set up not good transport authorities with elected members who have a relationship with the electorate, but a process that is moving towards the quangoisation of transport, looking to the way that Transport for London has been set up in a completely different political context, it would be easy to interpret the provision as a way of saying that transport in the metropolitan areas, and possibly eventually in the shire counties or the unitary authorities if they go for the same structure, are on the way to being quangos, because we are creating an almost equal status for non-elected members as for elected members, with no clear idea of the purpose of their voting on that body.