Local Transport Bill [Lords]

In new clause 10, the Government are trying to set a better framework. Some on the Labour Benches are just trying to encourage the Minister to make the framework a little more specific to secure democratic accountability and prevent the misuse of powers. Finally, I turn to the potential extension of the new PTA areas and the new ITAs. I think that that is a real possibility in south Yorkshire, north Derbyshire, north Nottinghamshire and perhaps even north Lincolnshire. The issue is exciting, because the current PTA boundary ends at the bottom of my garden. There is nothing intrinsically wrong about that, but the problem is that the travel-to-work area does not end there. The travel-to-work area of Sheffield, as a city region, extends into north Derbyshire, north Nottinghamshire and north Lincolnshire. Good relationships are now developing between the various local authorities, which want to come together on issues of transport, and perhaps skills, to consider how they can work together better. I do not think that everything is sweetness and light between the districts and county in Derbyshire, and elsewhere, about how that will be done; there are some tensions that will have to be talked through. However, the possibility of doing that is a positive and helpful step in the Bill. I ask the Minister to think about the one issue that might be restrictive. I am thinking of representatives of an ITA that incorporated only part of a county but the whole of certain districts within that county, which could happen in, for example, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. In such a case, there would have to be a decision on whether the county or each individual district was represented on the ITA. Might not making that decision, and saying that only one or the other could have representation, create a further problem for an agreed way forward between the county and districts on those other issues? Will the Minister think about how such a restriction might prove more unhelpful than it need be?