Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Monday 24th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Why not run them more efficiently in the first place? Public ownership can be very cost effective and much more so because it caters to the needs of the people that it represents. People are saying to councils, “This is what we want”, and private bus companies often do not give it to them.

Limiting the power of local authorities to help their communities, as the noble Earl suggests, is a very undemocratic thing to do—perhaps that is not surprising in an undemocratic House. Clause 21 spoils what is a laudable and well-intentioned Bill. I beg the Minister to ignore what he has heard from behind him and to listen to this side of the House. It is a case of representing people and giving them fuller lives, which private bus companies, because they are in it entirely for profit, just do not see. I beg the Minister to accept the amendment.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with those who have spoken in support of the removal of Clause 21 from the Bill. The Bill is 83 pages long and the relevant paragraph is two lines long. It says simply, in a clause headed “Bus companies: limitation of powers of authorities in England”:

“A relevant authority may not, in exercise of any of its powers, form a company for the purpose of providing a local service”.

The Minister needs to explain to the House—I agree with my noble friend Lady Randerson that he did not do so satisfactorily in Committee—why this clause needs to be in the Bill, what its purpose is and what problem it seeks to solve or prevent. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, gave us one reason. He forecast wholesale competition through the franchising route from local authorities; I remind the House of my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. He was good enough to say that local authorities run bus services extremely well in the limited number of cases where that occurs.

I hope the Minister might explain what the problem actually is that the Government are trying to solve, because five years ago, the Localism Act 2011 increased the powers given to councils alongside their general power of competence, and they have a right to undertake new duties and introduce new policies that are not excluded by existing legislation. Of course, that explains why these two lines are in the Bill; otherwise, councils would have the power to form those companies to provide a local service.