Draft Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Enforcement Regulations 2024
(2 days, 3 hours ago)
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The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Enforcement Regulations 2024.
It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. The regulations were laid before the House on 12 September and provide the powers necessary to implement and enforce the live exports ban in the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024. They create a robust enforcement regime that builds on existing requirements for animal welfare in transport, while ensuring that the impact on industry is minimised. The regulations apply across England, Scotland and Wales to ensure a uniform, consistent approach to implementation and enforcement of the ban across Great Britain.
The regulations give powers to the Animal and Plant Health Agency, as the regulator for animal welfare during transport, and to local authorities, which are responsible for enforcement. A key feature is that they strengthen the pre-export controls that the APHA already undertakes for livestock. Transporters of cattle, sheep, pigs and goats to a third country are already required to submit a plan of the journey—the journey log—for approval by the APHA before the journey commences. They will now also be required to provide evidence of the purpose of the export or transit journey. Before approving the journey log, the APHA will need to be satisfied that the consignment will not be exported for slaughter or fattening—I am sure that that will be welcomed across the House. The intention is to minimise circumvention of the ban and any need for enforcement action.
We have worked with the National Beef, Sheep and Pig Associations and with the British Pig Association to set up a process through which they will assess and verify evidence provided by journey organisers. This will be a recognised and straightforward route for journey organisers to supply the APHA with the required evidence. We are doing this because industry is familiar with working with the national associations, particularly on breeding exports, and we believe that that will encourage engagement and compliance with the new requirement.
It is important to be clear that these pre-export controls do not apply to horses. Given the more varied nature of horse movements, the situation is more complex. We are therefore working closely with stakeholders, who know their industry best, to find the most effective solution to prevent horses from being exported for slaughter. We have established a co-design group and expect to present specific measures on horses for consideration by the House next year.
In addition to pre-export controls, the regulations give the APHA and local authorities regulatory and enforcement powers, which may be used in relation to livestock and horses should investigative or enforcement action prove necessary. The APHA will be able to suspend or revoke a transporter authorisation where evidence exists of non-compliance with the live exports ban. There will be an appeal route, first through reconsideration by the APHA and then, if that is unsuccessful, to the first-tier tribunal.
The regulations create a power to prevent the movement of animals by issuing a hold notice where inspectors suspect that the animals may be exported for slaughter. Local authorities are given a power of entry and inspection in relation to premises, including vehicles, vessels and dwellings, in cases where inspectors believe that an offence is being, has been or is about to be committed or where there is believed to be evidence of an offence on the premises. That includes a power of entry to private dwellings, subject to the obtaining of a warrant.
Exporters of livestock and horses must retain export records for three years and provide them to an inspector upon request. Failing to keep such records will be an offence, as will failing to comply with a hold notice or obstructing an inspector. The penalty will be an unlimited fine in England and Wales or a fine limited to level 5 on the standard scale in Scotland.
In conclusion, we are taking a risk-based approach to regulating trade in order to minimise the burden on industry while preventing circumvention of the live exports ban. The regulations are vital to enforce that important animal welfare measure.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. As we have heard, the regulations exercise powers conferred under the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024. The Act was a significant achievement of the previous Conservative Government, prohibiting the export for slaughter of certain livestock from Great Britain, and it received royal assent shortly before the general election. We should not forget that it was because the UK had left the European Union that we had the freedom to implement such a ban.
The Conservative party manifesto at the 2019 general election included the commitment to control the live export of livestock, and I am pleased that the Government are helping to deliver on that commitment. The regulations establish enforcement powers, offences and penalties relating to the prohibition on the export of relevant livestock for slaughter, including fattening for subsequent slaughter.
It is appropriate that the issue is being dealt with on a UK-wide basis to ensure that the regulations are introduced simultaneously across England, Scotland and Wales. As a farmer’s son, I am well aware that livestock transport journeys can start in and go through the different nations of the UK. If the devolved nations had created their own regulations, there would have been a divergence, creating complexity, inconsistencies and administrative burdens on the industry and on enforcement agencies.
I am happy to confirm that the Conservative party will provide its continued support for the Act and the regulations. I conclude by paying tribute to officials in the Department and to organisations outside the House that have worked hard to get the regulations before us today.
Daniel Zeichner
I thank the Opposition spokesperson for his generous words and for the work he did in government—the regulations clearly conclude the work done by the previous Government, and we are happy to introduce them.
The Government are committed to upholding the highest standards of animal welfare. That is why we are putting in place these provisions to ensure that the ban on live exports for slaughter is implemented and enforced effectively.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) (No. 3) Regulations 2024
(2 days, 3 hours ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Tulip Siddiq)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Pensions (Abolition of Lifetime Allowance Charge etc) (No. 3) Regulations 2024.
As always, Mrs Harris, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I will take the Committee briefly through the background and the purpose of the draft regulations, which relate to the abolition of the pensions lifetime allowance.
The lifetime allowance was introduced to limit tax-favoured pension savings in registered pension schemes: it was the maximum amount of tax-relievable pension savings from which an individual could benefit over the course of their lifetime. At spring Budget 2023, the then Government announced that they would abolish the lifetime allowance. The Finance (No. 2) Act 2023 removed the lifetime allowance charge; this was done to incentivise those considering retirement to remain in employment, and to encourage those who had already left the workplace to return.
The Finance Act 2024 removed the other elements of the lifetime allowance from the pensions tax regime, from 6 April 2024. This was an enormous task: the entire pensions tax regime was structured around the existence of a lifetime allowance. Many other aspects of the regime, such as allowable pension and lump sum benefits, were calculated by reference to the lifetime allowance. It took over 100 pages of primary legislation to remove the lifetime allowance and replace it with other rules to make the pensions tax regime operate correctly in its absence. That included the introduction of new allowances. Additional secondary legislation was then needed to provide further administrative and technical detail.
Since the Finance Act 2024 and the regulations that followed it, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has continued to work with industry representatives to ensure that the legislation operates correctly. In doing so, HMRC has identified some errors that need to be corrected.
The draft regulations will amend schedule 29 to the Finance Act 2004 to facilitate the correct calculation of crystallised pension rights for the purposes of the trivial commutation lump sum. They will amend schedule 36 to the 2004 Act so that the calculation of the pension credit factor is dependent on the standard lifetime allowance at the time the rights were acquired. They will correct the calculation of the additional lump sum amount in respect of scheme-specific lump sums and will modify the availability of a member’s overseas transfer allowance where a member has a pre-commencement pension in payment. They will also amend subordinate legislation to ensure that a lump sum paid in reliance on an erroneous transitional tax-free amount certificate remains an authorised payment, with any excess subject to marginal rate taxation.
The draft regulations are necessary to ensure that pension tax legislation can operate as intended. Without them, pension scheme administrators face uncertainty, and some taxpayers could receive an unintentionally more advantageous outcome than they would have if the lifetime allowance had remained in place. I hope you are with me, Mrs Harris!
These changes will put certain members in a less advantageous position. To mitigate the impact, HMRC has engaged with the pensions industry to suggest that affected payments be delayed until the regulations are in place. Most pension providers have followed that advice.
The majority of pension scheme members have been able to access the correct benefits since the lifetime allowance abolition legislation was completed earlier this year. A very small number of individuals, mainly those with large pension pots, have been inconvenienced; in some cases they have been unable to access their benefits because of some technical flaws in the legislation. The draft regulations will correct the tax position for those individuals and will allow the pensions tax regime to operate as intended. I commend them to the Committee.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. The Opposition support the draft regulations. I am happy that they address the technical changes needed to complete the work of abolishing the lifetime allowance.
During the pandemic, a significant number of workers aged 50 or over left the labour force. In response to that challenge, the previous Government introduced the ambitious Back to Work plan, supported by £2.5 billion in funding, alongside initiatives such as the midlife MOT and returnerships. We also abolished the lifetime allowance from April 2024. This reform is essential to ensuring that highly skilled professionals such as NHS clinicians are not disincentivised from remaining in the workforce. No one should be punished or pushed out of work for tax reasons.
We welcome the Government’s decision to continue with the previous Government’s plan for the lifetime allowance. It simplifies our tax system and incentivises experienced and productive workers to stay in the workforce for longer. I would, however, like to take a moment to reflect on the Government’s somewhat changing position on lifetime allowances. Some Members may recall that the day after the previous Government announced our plans to abolish the lifetime allowance, the then shadow Chancellor pledged:
“Labour will reverse the changes to tax-free pension allowances.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 1005.]
I am happy to see that there has been a roll-back of that decision and that we are going with the previous Government’s plans. The Opposition support that, of course, and are happy to wave it through.
Tulip Siddiq
I thank the Opposition spokesperson for supporting the draft regulations. The Government announced in August, through an HMRC pension schemes newsletter, that we would make the legislative changes needed to complete the abolition of the lifetime allowance. That is what we are doing in the draft regulations, which will come into force on 18 November and will have retrospective effect from 6 April 2024. We have no plans to reintroduce the lifetime allowance, but we keep all taxes under review as part of our process.
The draft regulations will conclude the work to abolish the lifetime allowance, addressing issues raised by the industry and providing certainty to pension schemes, administrators and pension savers. I hope that the Committee will join me in supporting them. I know that they are highly technical, so I thank the Committee for putting up with me talking for a long time.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024
(2 days, 3 hours ago)
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The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
As ever, Mr Dowd, it is a joy to see you in your seat and, as usual, in a very fine suit. The regulations we are discussing today were laid before the House on 12 September. In our manifesto, the Labour party stated that we would use every Government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence, in order to achieve our landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. I am sure the whole Committee would agree with that. Through this statutory instrument, we are broadening the responsibilities of online platforms and search services to tackle image abuse under the Online Safety Act 2023.
As I am sure all members of the Committee will know, the Online Safety Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. It places strong new duties on online user-to-user platforms and on search engines and search services to protect their users from harm. As part of that, the Act gives service providers new illegal content duties. Under these duties, online platforms need to assess the risk that their services will allow users to encounter illegal content or be used for the commission or facilitation of so-called priority offences. They then need to take steps to mitigate any identified risks. These will include implementing safety-by-design measures to reduce risks, and content moderation systems to remove illegal content where it does appear. The Online Safety Act sets out a list of priority offences for the purposes of providers’ illegal content duties. These offences reflect the most serious and prevalent online illegal content and activity. The priority offences are set out in schedule 7 to the Act. Platforms will need to take additional steps to tackle these kinds of illegal activity under their illegal content duties.
Sections 66B, 66C and 66D of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as amended by the Online Safety Act 2023, introduce a series of intimate image abuse offences. Today’s statutory instrument will add the offences to which I have just referred to the list of priority offences—the ones that the organisations must take action on. These offences include the sharing of manufactured or manipulated images, including deepfakes, and sharing images where the intent was to cause distress. This statutory instrument means that online platforms will be required to tackle more intimate image abuse. I hope that the Committee will support what we are doing here.
The new duties will come into force next spring, as the Act provides that Ofcom needs to be able to implement them within 18 months of Royal Assent. Ofcom will set out the specific steps that providers can take to fulfil their illegal content duties for intimate image abuse and other illegal content in codes of practice and guidance documentation. Ofcom is currently producing this documentation. The new duties will start to be enforced from spring next year, as soon as Ofcom has issued the codes of practice and they have come into force, because of the 18 months having passed. Providers will need to have done their risk assessment for illegal content by then. In other words, the work starts now.
We anticipate that Ofcom will recommend that providers should take action in a number of areas. These include content moderation, reporting and complaints procedures, and safety-by-design steps, such as testing their algorithm systems to see whether illegal content is being recommended to users. I am sure that all members of the Committee will be able to think of instances we have read about in the press that would be tackled by precisely this piece of legislation. I would say, because the shadow Minister will speak shortly, that we welcome the work of the previous Government on this. Where we can co-operate across the House to secure strong regulation that ensures that everybody is protected in this sphere, we will work together. I hope that is the tenor of the comments that the shadow Minister will make in a few moments.
Where companies are not removing and proactively stopping that vile material from appearing on their platforms, Ofcom has robust powers to take enforcement action against them, including the possibility of imposing fines of up to £18 million, or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue—whichever is highest. Although this statutory instrument looks short, it is significant. We are broadening providers’ duties for intimate image abuse content. Service providers will need to take proactive steps to search for, remove and limit people’s exposure to that harmful illegal content, including where it has been manufactured or manipulated and is in effect a deepfake. I therefore commend these regulations to the Committee.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am happy to confirm that the Opposition will support these regulations, not least because, as the Minister has said, they complement the previous Government’s work on the Online Safety Act, and I was the Minister responsible for implementing the Act from when it received Royal Assent until the general election.
I take great pride in having served in the Government that introduced and passed the Online Safety Act. It places significant new responsibilities and duties on social media companies, platforms and services to increase safety online. However, most importantly, this vital piece of legislation ensures that children are better protected online. Having just attended a roundtable where we listened to victims of online abuse, I know that that is more important than ever. The Minister will share my thoughts on that. I share his sentiment—the Opposition will work with the Government to make sure that victims of online abuse receive justice and are supported and protected.
It is worrying and sad that almost three quarters of teenagers between 13 and 17 have encountered one or more potential harms online, and that three in five secondary school-aged children have been contacted online in a way that potentially made them feel uncomfortable. It is for those reasons that we ensured that the strongest measures in the Online Safety Act protect children. For example, platforms are required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and to provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they arise. Furthermore, the Act requires all in-scope services that allow pornography to use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing it, including services that host user-generated content and services that publish pornography. Ofcom has robust enforcement powers available against companies that fail to fulfil their duties.
The Online Safety Act also includes provisions to protect adult users, as it ensures that major platforms are more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow. It gives users more control over the types of content they want to see. I note that Ofcom expects the illegal harm safety duties to become enforceable around March 2025, following Ofcom’s publication of its illegal harm statement in December 2024. Does the Minister agree that platforms do not need to wait for those milestones, as I often said, and should already be taking action to improve safety on their sites? Can he confirm that he is encouraging platforms to take proactive action in advance of any deadlines?
Separately from the Online Safety Act, the last Government also launched the pornography review, which explores the effectiveness of regulation, legislation and the law enforcement response to pornography. Can the Minister provide a reassurance that the review’s final report is on schedule and will be published before the end of the year? Can he also clarify whether the review will consider the impact of violent and harmful pornography on women and girls? I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on those points and for his co-operation throughout his tenure. I am happy to add our support to these regulations, and to see that the previous Government’s pivotal piece of legislation is making the UK the safest place in the world for a child to be online.
Chris Bryant
As I said, I welcome the hon. Gentleman. I hope he stays in his place—I do not mean that I hope he stays in the room for the rest of the day, though. It is good when people actually know something about the subject they are talking about in debates in the House, so it is good to have him still in his place. [Interruption.] I hope that is not a note from the Leader of the Opposition saying that he is no longer responsible for this area.
My speaking brief says: “I thank the members of the Committee for their valuable contributions to this debate”, but—well, anyway. The hon. Member made an important point about the protection of children. That is not precisely what this statutory instrument is about; it is about the requirements on platforms and search services to deal with intimate image abuse. That is the very specific thing we are tackling this afternoon. The pornography review is not what we are debating this afternoon either, but I am happy to write to him about that and hope to provide him with the assurances he seeks.
The hon. Member makes the most important point of all when he says that platforms do not have to wait until next March to take action in this field. I am sure that any parent or anybody else watching this part of society with even the slightest interest will know about the significant damage done to our whole social sphere in this area over the last few years. Platforms need to take their responsibilities seriously. They do not need to wait for Ofcom to tell them how to do it; they should be taking action now. They certainly need to make an assessment now, before next March or April, of where any risks are, because otherwise there is a danger that Ofcom will immediately take action against them, because it will say, “Sorry, you haven’t even done the basic minimum that you need to be able to make people safe.”
Everybody wants the online world to be as safe as the world that we all inhabit. The only way to do that is by making sure that the legislation is constantly updated. There are Members who often ask whether we want to update the Online Safety Act, because there are perhaps things that we might need to take further action on in future. We are very focused in the Department on trying to ensure that it is fully implemented in the shape that it is in now, before looking at new versions of the legislation in this field. But where, as in this case, we can take small, sensible measures that will make a significant difference, we are prepared to do that. That is the attitude that we are trying to adopt.
I hope the Committee agrees with me on the importance of updating the priority offences in the Online Safety Act as swiftly as possible, and I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Franchising Schemes (Franchising Authorities) (England) Regulations 2024
(2 days, 3 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Simon Lightwood)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Franchising Schemes (Franchising Authorities) (England) Regulations 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, to discuss the draft regulations, which were laid before the House on 9 September. I congratulate the hon. Member for Orpington on his appointment to the shadow Front Bench.
Buses are the most popular form of public transport, with 3.4 billion passenger journeys made on local buses in England in the year ending March 2023. They are an essential part of our national transport system in both urban and rural areas. Many people rely on buses to get them where they need to go, whether that is work, school, the hospital or the shops. Modernising transport infrastructure and delivering better buses is at the heart of the Government’s plan to kick-start economic growth in every part of the country and to get it moving. However, numbers of passengers and bus services have declined, with 2 billion fewer annual bus journeys in 2023 than in 1985, and almost 300 million fewer miles driven by buses in 2023 than in 2010. Enough is enough.
The Department for Transport is embarking on a reform programme to deliver its commitment to empower local leaders to take control of their bus services, and to support more integrated and effective bus networks. The better buses Bill, announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, is a major part of that plan, but the Department is taking more immediate action to support local leaders to deliver better buses.
The first step was taken on 9 September 2024, when the Department announced a package of bus franchising measures, comprising two elements, to support the plan. The first is the publication of a consultation to gather views on the proposed updates to streamline bus franchising, which will speed up and lower the cost of pursuing franchising for local transport authorities. The Department is considering the views it has received and will publish its response shortly. Secondly, this statutory instrument was laid to open up bus franchising to all local transport authorities.
Both measures support the Government’s aim of ensuring that local authorities have the tools they need to plan and deliver services in a way that suits their needs. Bus franchising is one of those tools. Under this model for providing bus services, local authorities grant private companies the exclusive right to operate in a specific area or on a specific route. The authorities retain control over key aspects of the service, such as routes, timetables and fares. Where bus franchising is in place—in London and now in Greater Manchester—buses have thrived. Greater Manchester has already improved reliability and significantly grown passenger numbers, less than a year after moving to franchising.
Bus franchising powers were created for local transport authorities in England outside London in the Bus Services Act 2017. The powers to begin a franchising assessment—essentially a business case—were automatically provided to mayoral combined authorities and mayoral combined county authorities. Currently, all other types of local transport authority wishing to prepare a franchising scheme assessment face a two-stage pre-assessment process. First, regulations must be made to switch on access to franchising powers. Secondly, the Secretary of State must give her consent to any individual authority to prepare an assessment of its proposed franchising scheme. This statutory instrument implements the initial stage of that process for all local transport authorities, ensuring that they will need only to obtain the Secretary of State’s consent to prepare a franchising scheme assessment. That will reduce the barriers facing those local transport authorities in pursuing bus franchising.
This statutory instrument, and the updated bus franchising guidance, is focused on what can be achieved quickly to bring much-needed reform to bus services. The Government are not mandating changes within this statutory instrument. Bus franchising remains optional, and local transport authorities are best placed to decide which approach is right for their areas. Our plan is about ensuring that local leaders have as many tools and options at their disposal as possible to deliver better services for passengers.
The Department will also provide dedicated support to local authorities interested in pursuing bus franchising. The next stage of our reform will be the introduction of the buses Bill, which will seek to make bus franchising even quicker and easier to deliver, to devolve funding and to improve accessible travel. It will also improve bus services for councils who choose not to franchise. The transformative work the Government are doing will turn the tide by giving communities the opportunity to control local bus services and have a real say in building the local transport networks that form part of their communities. I commend this statutory instrument to the Committee.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I thank the Minister for his warm words of welcome at the outset.
We recognise that the expansion of bus franchising was a Labour party manifesto commitment, and we are not going to oppose that mandate. In fact, in principle, we support the idea of local areas having more say over the services they can offer local people. But there are some question marks over these plans—questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) raised back in September in relation to the Minister’s statement to the House, and which, I am afraid, we are not yet fully satisfied we have heard answered. Will the Minister therefore answer them today?
First, how much has been budgeted for the increased cost of this plan to the Department for Transport, to support local authorities to prepare these assessments and then to measure them against the criteria, and also to help local authorities plan their franchises when they do not have the experience to do so, which I believe the Minister has said is part of the plan?
Secondly, how much has been budgeted for the increase in costs to local authorities, both in terms of the additional resources they will require to plan and run bus services, and in a business sense? In many rural areas, and even in Greater London, bus services lose money and often require subsidies. Where will that money come from? And, while we are at it, where will the money to buy the buses come from? The Minister suggested that the coming buses Bill would contain regulations about devolving funding—I would like to hear a bit more about that. If the answer is that we have not budgeted for it, or that it is coming from existing budgets, that can only mean council taxes going up, or cuts to local services such as social care or universal services such as waste collection. There would appear to be no third option.
At the end of the day, passengers do not care who is running their bus; they care about the price, performance and reliability of services. We are yet to hear a convincing case for how these reforms will actually make a difference to passengers’ journeys. Are buses more likely to run on time and, if so, by how much more? Will these reforms help to restore the number of rural services? Will they make journeys cheaper for passengers? That seems unlikely, given the 50% hike in fares.
I do not doubt that bus franchising can, does and will work for some areas, but the insinuation of today’s statutory instrument is that it should be happening everywhere. We have yet to hear anything that convinces us that that will be the case, and that is not to mention the fact that the proposal currently appears to be unfunded. I would be grateful if the Minister could assuage our concerns this afternoon.
Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as an MP who has been on picket lines of bus drivers over the years and who is supported by trade unions.
I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Minister for bringing this measure before us, to welcome the proposals and to say, on behalf of my constituents in Liverpool, that we have often felt like the poor relation to London, with buses that are more expensive, work far less well and are far less reliable. Local leaders have been crying out for the opportunity to take back control of buses and to deliver what our local communities really need, so we are hopeful that this proposal will bring about some real change. I just wanted to take the opportunity today to put my support on the record.
Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)
I also want to take the opportunity to tell the Minister that we really appreciate these proposals in Greater Manchester. As a former bus driver, I know about the need for them and about the difficulties with cross-community connections. Great work has been done with the Bee Network in Greater Manchester, and the sooner these proposals can be rolled out, the better for all our constituents.
Simon Lightwood
I thank Members for their consideration of the regulations, and I will try to respond to the points they have raised.
On funding, the Government have committed to delivering better buses, and the investment confirmed in the Budget is the next stop in our journey towards improving services. We have confirmed investment of over £1 billion in 2025-26 to support improved bus services and to keep fares affordable. That funding includes £151 million to introduce the £3 national bus fare cap on single fares from 1 January until 31 December 2025; £640 million for local transport authorities to support and improve bus services in their bus service improvement plans; and £285 million for the bus service operators grant, to protect and continue the running of existing services.
Of course, officials now need to run a detailed business planning exercise to work out the exact allocation of those amounts. Local transport authorities and bus operators will see further information on that as soon as possible when the process is concluded. That investment sits alongside measures we have already undertaken to reform the bus system, including through the buses Bill, which will be introduced later in this Session, as we seek to ensure that local leaders have the powers they need to deliver better buses in their areas.
Let me turn now to how we will support local transport authorities to deliver franchising. The changes provide additional options to enable franchising, so that local transport authorities have the ability to choose the model that works for them. There is no one-size-fits-all approach; it could be franchising, municipal bus companies or enhanced partnerships. The Department for Transport is building its capacity to provide tangible, on-the-ground support for local authorities that wish to take back control of their bus services.
The buses Bill aims to make franchising easier and cheaper to deliver, to further reduce the barriers to bus franchising. The Department for Transport is working with stakeholders to determine how local transport authorities can best make use of the new toolkit the Bill will provide and deliver bus services suited to the needs of their local communities.
On rural communities, I would argue that local transport authorities are actually best placed to manage their local networks. By devolving powers to their areas and allowing them to take back control and have a greater say over the funding, we are leaving them much better placed to make decisions on rural bus routes than someone sitting in Whitehall or indeed Westminster.
This statutory instrument represents an important first step towards delivering the Government’s aim of ensuring that local authorities have the tools they need to plan and deliver services in a way that suits their communities, and the upcoming buses Bill will build on that progress. Through this statutory instrument and the Bill, the Government will deliver on their plan to improve bus networks and end the postcode lottery of bus services. That plan is centred on putting control of local bus services back into the hands of the local communities that use them, and will give local leaders more control and flexibility over bus funding, as well as the freedom to take decisions that deliver their local transport priorities.
This statutory instrument reduces the barriers that may prevent local transport authorities from pursuing franchising, and is a crucial first step in the process I have outlined. I commend it to the Committee.
Question put and agreed.