Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Randerson

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 12th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, we are pleased that the Minister has responded to our concerns and that the Bill now steers both local authorities and bus companies in the direction of less-polluting buses. That is very much to be welcomed, because we must bear in mind that technology is moving very swiftly. Electric buses are developing very fast. For example, I recently travelled on London’s first double-decker all-electric bus. There are biofuels—methane and so on. All sorts of opportunities are opening up very fast.

We must also bear in mind that this will become an Act that will probably last for decades—the previous one has lasted for more than 30 years—so we need to look to the future. It is essential that we make sure that new buses are non-polluting and encompass the best of technology at the time. Of course, as the noble Lord implies, there will be a cascading down of old buses but there are other ways in which local authorities and bus companies can manage to provide a less-polluting service. For local authorities, low-emission and ultra-low-emission zones must surely become more popular and common in the future.

I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord that, as a devolutionary party, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches are also an environmental party. Therefore, there are times when we have to balance one principle against another and say that for the sake of the environment, which I remind noble Lords means for the sake of the health of our children as well as the natural world, we have to go with the best possible option. I believe that the Labour amendment has more detail because it refers to a very specific scheme so it is seriously worth supporting. We will not push our amendments to the vote but we will support the Labour Party on this occasion.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 6, 19 and 66 in this group, which will require all new buses commissioned under franchising advanced partnerships or enhanced partnerships to meet the low-emission requirements set out by the government-sponsored Office for Low Emission Vehicles. As has been acknowledged, they go further than the amendments proposed by the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, whose amendments are permissive and simply allow local authorities to specify reduced emissions in their scheme rather than requiring them to do so.

Although we welcome those amendments as far as they go, with the greatest respect, we do not feel that they go far enough. We face huge challenges in tackling climate change and moving to a low-carbon economy. We need to play our part in contributing to the global strategy agreed at the Paris declaration. However, to be successful, government departments right across the board, including transport, have to be prepared to set clear, achievable objectives at national and local level. There is some urgency to this. The UK Committee on Climate Change in its recent report to Parliament raised concerns about the lack of progress in tackling carbon emissions in the transport sector—for example, with increased car use and the demand for travel offsetting improved vehicle efficiency.

There is so much more that the department could do to promote green technology in transport. As part of this approach, public transport has an important role to play. We need to encourage people out of private-use vehicles and into low-carbon trains and buses. We believe that low-carbon buses have a crucial role to play in meeting our 2% reduction in carbon as well as boosting public health and improving air quality in urban areas.

The low-emission bus scheme created by the Government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles provides a blueprint for a transition to low-carbon vehicles, so we feel that this is the right way forward. It has been working with manufacturers and there are already 3,500 low-carbon buses on our roads. As the Government’s draft guidance note acknowledges, these represent only 9% of buses in service in England. Of course we welcome the Government’s grant of £30 million to help local authorities and bus operators purchase more low and ultra-low emission buses, so at least we are on the same page on that.

However, we need to go further by making low-emission standards a requirement for all buses purchased by transport operators and local authorities in the future. This is why we propose that all new buses purchased after 1 April 2019 should meet these new environmental standards. That deadline gives people time to prepare and time for manufacturers to create low-emission buses as a standard offer. There is no reason why we should not do this; the technology already exists to make this a reality, and it presents a real opportunity for UK bus manufacturers to become market leaders in this sector.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Baroness Randerson

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

That is a separate issue. The issue here is enabling local authorities to make a reasonable judgment in order to produce a good franchising scheme. I accept that there are separate issues to be addressed in relation to competition.

I turn to Amendment 74, on the power to obtain information about local services and franchising, and the handling of that information. This is purely a probing amendment designed to investigate the unevenness within the Bill. I have referred to the uneven approach to the three types of schemes and simply wish to point out to the Minister that on page 58 of the Bill appear identical words to those in my amendment, which set out the circumstances in which information could be disclosed in the case of enhanced partnerships. However, in the case of franchising, on page 33 there are no such caveats or restrictions on the use of the information. I am interested to find out from the Minister the legal reason behind this—or is it just chance that there is a long list of things that one can and cannot do with that information in the case of enhanced partnerships, but which are not included in the list on franchising?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 70, which requires bus operators to publish data. A number of noble Lords have commented on this already. Data on the environmental impact of operators’ fleets, including the impact on air quality, the level of CO₂ emissions and their safety record, should be available to local authorities and passenger organisations alike. It would be our intention that this information could be independently verified. These amendments build on our earlier debates on the need for buses to play their part in making our towns and cities healthier places to live and work. We believe that the bus operators have an obligation to deliver higher environmental standards and meet the requirements of low-emission buses. To be held to account for these commitments, the data have to be available to those who can best judge operators’ performance. The same arguments apply to safety standards, so that all passengers can be assured that their provider is working towards zero tolerance on safety failures.

I, too, disagree with Amendments 71 and 72 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. Amendment 71 aims to restrict the information provided to a franchising authority. We accept that some information needs to be identified as commercially sensitive but we do not accept that most of the information listed falls into that category. We need to be clear what is commercially sensitive and what is not. However, in most other comparable public services, the sorts of information we are talking about would be made public and shared. It would go beyond just giving it on a private basis to the local authority, and would be made more public. That is what we would expect in this instance.

Meanwhile, Amendment 72 requires bus companies to be paid for providing that core service information which, of course, would be crucial to a franchising bid, such as journeys taken, passenger numbers and fares. The point has already been made that operators will already have this information, so there is no additional cost involved. We contend that local authorities should have the right to this information and it would be standard practice to provide this service information in other contract bids.

We also believe that there should be more open sharing of data so that passengers and communities can have a greater input into the types of services they would like, and can have that input on an informed basis. I therefore hope that noble Lords will support the principles of openness set out in our amendment and oppose those attempts to have a more closed and secretive regime.