Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

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

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I turn, if I may, to the amendments tabled by the Government, beginning with Amendment 2, tabled in my name. A number of noble Lords tabled amendments in Committee on the theme of passenger representation. Those amendments aimed to involve passengers in the ongoing monitoring and review of franchising and partnership schemes. In Committee, I expressed my sympathy with the aims of the amendments and promised to consider how best the Bill could be amended to help achieve those objectives. I am now tabling a number of amendments that aim to incorporate ongoing passenger consultation as a core component of franchising schemes and partnership plans and schemes.

The amendments require authorities to set out, as part of their plan or scheme, arrangements for consulting organisations that are representative of users of local services. As I said in my opening remarks on the previous amendment, one of the core principles of this Bill is local devolution, and it should be for individual authorities to determine exactly what form that consultation should take. It could be that one authority chooses to set up a dedicated board and consult with it regularly, while another may choose a more light-touch approach, more in line with the scale of the proposals they are considering. I trust noble Lords will agree that these amendments are useful and will help ensure that authorities implementing partnerships or franchising thoroughly consider how best to capture the views of passengers throughout the life of their scheme.

I turn now to Amendments 9, 30, 40 and 68 in this group. These amendments, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, would explicitly name bus users as statutory consultees when franchising or partnership schemes are proposed. I would certainly encourage authorities to consult bus passengers when major changes are proposed to the local bus network. However, creating a statutory obligation to consult bus users would, in my view, create practical difficulties for local authorities. It would be impossible for authorities to identify who falls within that category of people to ensure that they comply with any such obligation.

I appreciate the importance of engaging with bus users and propose to address the issue specifically in guidance. For this reason, the Government have included organisations appearing to the authority to represent bus users as statutory consultees when a franchising or partnership scheme is being made. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is reassured by my explanation and feels able not to press her amendments. I beg to move Amendment 2.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the amendments in my name in this group. I believe that the Bill is improved by the numerous amendments that the Government have put down. I want to make it clear that, on these Benches, we appreciate the fact that the Minister has responded to concerns on a range of issues. It is indeed a much better Bill than it was. It is no longer, as I described it at one point, the buses Bill that does not refer to passengers. We have gone beyond that point.

The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that bus users are consulted at every stage in a variety of ways, and to bring a more consistent approach in the Bill to consultation generally, because there were huge inconsistencies and variabilities between the way consultation was referred to on enhanced quality partnerships, for example, versus franchising. No matter what the arrangement on buses, bus users deserve to be consulted.

Amendment 68, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, refers to not just bus users but the organisations that represent them. I wanted to be clear that consultation should be routinely undertaken at both levels: organisations representing users, both large and small, local and national, and local consultation of individual users—the old-fashioned notices on the bus stop when the service will change.

I appreciate very much that the Minister has brought forward amendments that take on board amendments we put forward in Committee. We now have a much clearer view of the guidance and what it will contain. Because of that, I will not push these amendments to the vote, but I would like the Minister to give us some further information when he sums up. Passengers need to be at the heart of the whole thing. Therefore, the guidance needs to ensure that local publicity to passengers is good enough and comprehensive. It is no good advertising in some London-based newspaper; it has to be at an appropriate level.

I draw the noble Lord’s attention to the comments from Transport Focus. In its guise as the passengers’ council—that being its official, statutory name—it has emphasised that passengers need to be consulted in the design of the service, and that there needs to be a clear statement of promises for passengers and continuous assessment and feedback from passengers via, for example, research or feedback about cleanliness, punctuality and so on. It must be both qualitative and quantitative research. Transport Focus says that there is no substitute for asking passengers themselves. Those are very wise words. It also emphasises that changes to the service, whether it is timetables, fares or ticketing, and an effective complaints process are essential if you are to get proper consultation.

Please can the Minister reassure us that the guidance, when it is completed, will address those issues?

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is to be commended on having introduced these amendments. The points that have just been put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, are very important and should be considered seriously.

We still dare to talk about bus services as services. I do not understand how you can run an effective service if you are not making very specific arrangements for consulting the people for whom it is supposed to be a service on how they see and experience it, and on how it could be enhanced or changed as appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bradshaw]

It will not come as a surprise to any of your Lordships to know that the bus industry is in quite deep crisis. The number of passengers is falling, bus speeds are declining, and the quality of service that buses offer is getting worse. Considering that we want more people to use buses, the causes of the congestion afflicting the bus industry need to be addressed.

In a letter to me on 8 August, the Minister said that mayoral combined authorities will have the ability to seek additional functions or equivalent legislative provisions to enforce moving traffic offences if they wish. The enforcement of moving traffic offences is an extremely important power. Provisions were made in the Traffic Management Act 2004 for that power to be granted to local authorities but London and recently Cardiff—which is outside the scope of our discussions this afternoon—are the only two places to adopt this ability to tackle the points of traffic congestion that really hold up buses.

Oddly, the Minister’s letter makes no reference to authorities that seek not franchises but advanced quality partnerships. If the Government are willing to grant those powers to franchising authorities, they should be willing to grant them to authorities that decide instead to go for advanced quality partnerships. My amendment would give effect to this so that, if a local authority wanted, it might apply to the Secretary of State for permission to adopt the provisions in the Traffic Management Act.

This amendment is very important to the bus industry which, as I said, suffers severely from traffic congestion. That, among other things, is leading to services being withdrawn because they cannot be operated profitably. More buses are needed to maintain the service, the buses go slower and carry fewer people, and they become less profitable. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, there is a bit of a conundrum at the heart of the Government’s attitude to this. They offer franchising powers to local authorities and, according to the Minister’s letter to my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, they offer additional powers to ensure that such franchising works well. That is logical but surely the most effective and efficient way forward is to ensure that those local authorities that do not want to go for franchising—it will be difficult and complex anyway—are enabled to make their bus service as efficient as possible to avoid the necessity for franchising. If you take that situation together with the views of the Competition and Markets Authority that franchising should be gone for only in very extreme situations—we will return to that later today—there is a bit of a contradiction. I cannot see why the Government are so unwilling to use statutory powers that already exist to implement the provisions of the 2004 Act.

It is not as if we do not have evidence that those powers work. They work in London and I can give noble Lords an assurance that they are beginning to work well in Cardiff. Those powers were given to Cardiff because it was part of the devolution settlement that Cardiff could ask for them. I was actually the Minister in the Wales Office who took that through this House in order to ensure that Cardiff had those powers. Noble Lords will probably be aware that I live in Cardiff so I have personal experience of the way in which the system is working.

Clearly, these powers are having an impact. You can measure that impact in the number of people who are fined for contravening the local road traffic regulations. It is clear that motorists started off with a brazen disregard for bus lanes, yellow boxes, right turns that they should be not making and so on, but that they learned pretty quickly. We know that because the fines start off very high but fall off pretty quickly. By the way, the council also learned because it started moving the cameras round. When it moves the cameras, the amount taken in fines goes up; then, after a while, people have learned and it goes down again. We want a very low level of fines because we want people to obey the rules. This is having an impact. All we are asking is that the Government use existing legislation to give local authorities the tools to do the job, whether they are going for franchising or any other partnership arrangement.

The evidence right across the country, as my noble friend has said, is of increased traffic congestion slowing down bus travel. The impact on passengers and bus companies is considerable. I draw noble Lords’ attention to a discussion I had with an operator in Bristol which said that it had had to put on well over 30 additional buses to maintain existing timetables because of congestion, and that much of that congestion is avoidable—if people do not park in bus lanes or drive along them, and so on. Of course, the financial impact on bus companies of having to put on additional buses is passed on to the passengers. The combination of higher fares and slower journeys deters people from using the buses. To my mind, it is only sensible to use the powers that exist.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. Obviously, if we are to tempt people out of their motor cars and on to public transport, that public transport has to be reliable. Its reliability, it is readily acknowledged, is affected, particularly in our towns and cities, by traffic congestion and by careless and indiscriminate parking by private motorists.

I worked for some years in the bus industry. The problem seems to be the lack of support from local newspapers for proper bus lane enforcement measures against motorists who transgress and park at bus stops or in bus lanes or drive in bus lanes. By and large, journalists do not travel on buses and the editorial policies of most local newspapers appear to be against bus priority measures as a whole. It is a sad fact that a Labour mayor in Liverpool has already taken out bus lanes in that city. A Labour-controlled council in Coventry is considering doing the same there as well.

When it comes to the bad publicity that bus lanes receive, all too often the local newspaper will pick a particular camera and say, “That camera has raised X millions of pounds in fines”, as though it has been deliberately placed in a bus lane to penalise motorists. It is placed there to try to ease congestion and to see that bus lanes are used for their proper purpose. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned that franchising is, quite rightly, seen as a last resort. If we are to avoid that last resort, proper enforcement of bus priority measures is essential. I hope that the Minister will give a sympathetic response to this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I shall now speak to Amendments 4 to 6, 15, 19, 21, 63, 64 and 66 in this group, which all deal with emissions from buses.

As I recognised during our debates in Committee, buses have a huge part to play in solving some of the country’s air quality problems and challenges and combating global warming. I share the desire of many noble Lords for low-emission buses to be adopted more widely, and I thank those noble Lords with whom I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue in more detail. I undertook in Committee to consider how the Bill could best achieve this outcome.

Amendments 4, 15 and 64 in my name make it explicit that emission standards can be specified as standards in partnership schemes or included in local service contracts in the context of franchising. Emission standards can be included in the schemes, thus giving local transport authorities flexibility to determine an approach that best suits their area.

I also wish to ensure—as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, urged me to do in Committee—that all local transport authorities that use the new powers properly consider the potential to achieve better environmental outcomes. The draft guidance, which was circulated last week, achieves this and provides important information about how the tools in the Bill link up with other government initiatives in this area.

I turn to the other amendments in the group. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, tabled Amendments 5, 21 and 63, which have a similar effect to my amendments. I therefore hope that, on reflecting on the government amendments, she will be minded not to press hers.

Amendments 6, 19 and 66, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would require all advanced quality partnership, franchising and enhanced partnership schemes to prescribe specifications previously used for the department’s low-emission bus scheme. These amendments sit somewhat uneasily with the devolutionary nature of the Bill. They would in part tie the hands of authorities looking to implement franchising, advanced quality partnerships or enhanced partnerships, requiring them to specify higher standards for vehicles than in other parts of the country—whether they have an air quality issue to address or not.

It is our view that this centralist approach would bring unnecessary additional costs that could make the difference between schemes being economically viable or not. The likely consequence is that many local transport authorities will simply not pursue the schemes at all.

I believe that this is an important issue—I know that that sentiment is shared across the House—but the Bill needs to strike the right balance between giving authorities the right tools for the job and not being overly prescriptive about how improvements are to be achieved. That is the objective of Amendments 4, 15 and 64, and I beg to move.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

7: Clause 1, page 4, line 26, at end insert—
“(10) Each advanced quality partnership must specify, as a standard of service, that a reduced fare concessionary scheme is put in place for young people ages 16 to 19.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 16, which is in my name.

The purpose behind these amendments is to right an unjust anomaly. The law now requires young people to stay in education or training until they are 18, but their entitlement to concessionary or free fares lasts only until they are 16. Of course, at the time this legislation was enacted the two dates matched, but we now expect very much more of young people. They are not getting a fair deal from this Government. The statistics show—and the Government know it—that they are getting a much less generous financial deal than older people are. The Government choose to ignore that situation at their peril. They may be confident that young people will not express their views in large numbers through the ballot box, but they need to think about them as they mature in the future.

Young people and their future prospects have already been very hard hit by the Brexit vote. I do not blame the Minister for that, but I think that the least the Government and we as a society can now do is to help those young people—whose future prospects are less rosy than they were three months ago—on the road to a better education and greater skills so that they are able to prosper in Britain in the future. In order to do that, they have to be able to get to school or college.

An NUS survey showed that many young people spend well over £20 a week on getting to a place of education or training, or indeed to part-time employment. Young people are hardest hit in rural areas because of the long journeys that many of them have to undertake. They may have to transfer from one bus company to another, each one having separate rules—where any rules exist—on concessionary fares, which are not transferrable from one company to another. Of course, it is true that many local authorities and some bus companies offer concessions, and I would say that it is the wise bus companies that do so because, quite rightly, they see young people as their customers of the future. However, there is no consistency and we need more of it.

The result is that we have young people in college sitting side by side on the same course but paying totally different amounts to get there because they happen to come from different areas. The distance they travel might be the same, but the bus companies that they use charge different amounts.

Free bus passes for older people have been hugely successful. They are an important social and health engine, and they have a huge impact on our society. However, when drafting our amendments, we did bear in mind that we have to be careful to refer to “concessionary” fares. For all sorts of legal reasons, it would be easier to implement a scheme of reduced fares rather than free fares. I understand that the Government would have huge reservations about free fares, but we believe that we have taken a wise and moderate approach by talking about concessionary fares. We have also tried not to be prescriptive. Although we would like a nationally consistent scheme, we are dealing with this issue in the way it is possible to in this Bill.

To those who say that it is not practical, let me give some information about the scheme that exists in Wales. The mytravelpass scheme offers a one-third discount on all journeys for young people aged 16, 17 and 18. It is a free pass that young people can get hold of easily, online or via the post.

It is important we send a message to young people in Britain that, wherever they live, they are valued and we want them to make the most of their education and training opportunities. This is one way of ensuring that they are able to do that, and with the greatest good will, so that they go into school or college not resenting it as something that is costing them money, is a nuisance and is unfair, but in a frame of mind to make the most of it. We on these Benches feel very strongly about these issues and will seek to test the view of the House.

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I support the comments made by my colleague and noble friend Lady Randerson. As she has said, young people between the ages of 16 and 19 are required to be in training or education, and there are a great deal of inequalities across the country around the provisions that they receive—in many cases none—to help with transport.

In deep rural areas, such as where I live, there is no transport at all. Therefore, unless young people have parents or friends to take them to their college or training provider, they are stuck. From my village to the FE college it is walk of five miles, down a road that is simply not safe for people to walk on because it goes through a sandstone cutting and there is no refuge. There needs to be provision of transport in rural areas and reduced concessionary fares for young people.

As my colleague already said, these huge inequalities result in people sitting next to each other on training and FE courses who, having travelled different routes, have been charged different rates. I cannot add anything to what my colleague said, except to say that many young people could choose not to further their education because of the cost of transport. That would be a great shame. Young people need to have every opportunity to advance their futures and this is a small way of helping them to do that.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for tabling the amendments. We return to an issue that I know we have discussed before. As the noble Baroness is fully aware, I have sympathy with the intention behind Amendments 7 and 16. I accept that affordable, accessible local transport is important for many young people’s lives—to ensure greater social integration, for education and for those young people embarking on careers.

As noble Lords will recognise, many local councils already have their own schemes and use their existing legal powers to provide discounted fares for those living in the area. Bus companies also know that helping young people to use bus services by offering concessions of their own may make them customers for years to come. I would certainly encourage councils and operators to continue to build upon the offers they have already put in place. Let me assure noble Lords—I am sure that all those who have participated thus far realise this—that the Bill provides exactly those new opportunities to do so, not least through the ability to standardise eligibility for concessions across operators through an enhanced partnership scheme.

However, the Government do not support a mandatory youth concession being a requirement relating to either advanced partnership schemes or franchising schemes, which is what these amendments seek to achieve. It may be that a local authority would seek to deliver a youth scheme through either a partnership or a franchising scheme. Such a concession would be costly to both the local authority and bus operators. Therefore it is right that any such decision to implement a youth concession for a particular area should be taken locally. That, after all, is what the Bill is about: enabling local authorities to work with bus operators to improve their bus services in ways that address local needs.

I have already said that if you build a relationship with young people, as many local authorities and bus operators do through such concessionary schemes, they will become customers for the long term. However, we do not wish to tie the hands of local authorities when it comes to taking decisions about concessionary youth fares. There are good reasons for this. If we look across the country, only a handful of local authorities have no council co-operator youth concession schemes. If we were to impose a national scheme there would be winners, but there would be losers as well. The precise cost of such a scheme will vary. Depending on its nature, it could run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Therefore, while the noble Baroness knows that I sympathise and empathise with the need to encourage greater participation of young people using our buses, we feel—I believe it is the right way forward—that it is for councils and local bus operators to take that decision locally in the best interests of their communities.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I am disappointed that the Minister is not more enthusiastic about this. I argue that the Bill as amended by the Government gives some opportunities, but we feel that local authorities need to be nudged a lot more firmly in the right direction on this issue. We are respecting devolution with this because the amendment simply specifies reduced fares, not the level of reduction. It gives flexibility to local authorities, within an obligation, to deliver in the way they wish. It allows them a great deal of freedom in how they do this, but it would ensure that young people receive a message that they are welcome in our society and that they should be enthusiastic about their education and training. I therefore wish to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 9A, I will speak also to Amendments 10, 32 and 35. First, I apologise to the House and the Minister in particular that we have a manuscript amendment here. I thought I had submitted these amendments previously, and it was due to a mix-up between myself and the office. However, the wording is exactly the same as the wording later on which relates to franchising, and it concerns the consultation of employees’ representatives in both the advanced partnership and franchising contexts.

There are some very welcome government amendments relating to consultation with a range of bodies, some of which I spoke about in Committee, particularly representatives of passengers and consumers. Indeed, there is a reference to the Passengers’ Council, which is the proper name for Transport Focus. I welcome the general approach of the Minister in recognising that there were some omissions or a lack of clarity about who was to be consulted on both the advanced partnerships and franchising.

Indeed, in relation to franchising, the Minister has tabled Amendment 29, which, as far as it goes, is very positive. It refers to,

“such persons as appear to the authority or authorities to represent employees of persons falling within paragraph (a)”;

that is, the operators. The Minister has recognised, as he undertook to do in Committee, that there is a need to consult with the representatives of employees in this industry. I would say that that applies to not only franchising but the introduction of advanced partnership schemes, where the employees of existing operators and others affected also need to be taken into account, but, slightly strangely, the Minister has not tabled an amendment in that respect.

I hope to try to reach an accommodation with the Minister in this area but there is an additional issue. My amendments in Committee referred specifically to recognised trade unions. This is a highly unionised sector in many parts of the country. It has had relatively stable industrial relations for many years, and a relatively high proportion of employees in the industry are represented through recognised trade unions. However, there have been one or two instances where other organisations have attempted to represent the workers, legitimately or otherwise, and there have been one or two inter-union disputes over recognition. Therefore, when you refer to a consultation with representatives of employees, where there are recognised trade unions, you should say so. That stops any confusion, whether between unions or other methods of recognition.

Therefore, I have added in both the franchising and advanced partnership contexts an explanatory note which says “appropriate representatives” are either recognised trade unions or representatives who have been properly elected or appointed by the employees so affected. That seems to cover a pretty wide range of recognition, as well as possible alternatives to the trade unions. It is therefore not a direct attempt to enforce trade unionism on people who do not want it but a recognition that trade unions exist and operate very effectively, frequently in very close co-ordination with management and the authorities in these areas. Therefore, the list of consultees needs to include reference to representatives of employees. I am quite happy to accept the Minister’s wording, or something like it, in relation to franchising, but it then needs to go on to say that where there is a recognised trade union, that means a recognised trade union. I therefore have two detailed points of contention but not, I think, two points of dispute.

If the Minister is of a mind to discuss this further between now and the final stages of the Bill, or to accept my amendments, I am sure that we could reach an accommodation. However, it is important to recognise in both contexts within the Bill that it is likely to improve the chances of the new situation—the new schemes in franchising and the new advanced partnerships —operating smoothly and effectively, with the engagement and consent of the employees involved. That seems to me common sense. The Minister has conceded the principle with his own amendments but I would like him to be prepared to go a stage or two further. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I very much welcome the fact that the Minister has taken on board the need for consultation with employees as well as with the passengers we referred to earlier. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has just pointed out, the Bill is uneven from one part of it to another, and something taken for granted in one section is neglected in another. As I said in an earlier debate, it is as if the Bill had been written by several different people who had not got together to make sure that the same terminology was used from one part to another. We in our party—not a party run by the trade unions; far from it—believe in the trade unions. They are an important part of a stable industrial relations picture and it is important that they are referred to, where appropriate, in the Bill.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

This group contains some very helpful government amendments following our deliberations in Committee and we are grateful to the Minister for putting them before us today. The Government have clearly listened to noble Lords on many of the points they made. I am particularly pleased with Amendments 11 and 36, where the Government responded to the eloquent points on national parks made by my noble friend Lord Judd in Committee. However, I support my noble friend Lord Whitty when he carefully set out the importance of a proper consultation with representative employees and trade unions and I am pleased that he has tabled his amendment today.

I was also pleased to see that the Passengers’ Council is included in the amendments before us. There are other important amendments here but when the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, makes his contribution I would like him to explain how the government amendments cover the points made by my noble friend Lord Whitty in respect of his Amendment 35 and my Amendment 38 regarding consultation. I am, though, generally content with the thrust of the amendments that have come from the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for introducing his amendment. I find it quite interesting and I look forward to what counsel the Minister gives us. I understand why the noble Lord has put the tests in new subsections 5A(a) and (b), but I am worried that subsection 5A(a),

“unless … it has received complaints about the operation of the franchise”,

could be used as part of a spoiling process by an aggrieved third party. On subsection 5A(b),

“unless … there has consequently been a significant adverse effect on competition”—

admittedly, it talks about an adverse effect—the problem I have is that it is bound to have an effect on competition because it eliminates competition. So I have a lot of sympathy with the noble Lord’s amendment, subject to what the Minister says, but if we are going to go down that route the tests might need better drafting. It will be very interesting to see how the Minister advises the House.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, the noble Earl is raising a legitimate concern but, as much of the Bill is in a skeleton form with guidance to follow, I would have expected the spoiling process that he is warning about to be addressed in those guidance notes.

I remain seriously concerned about the tone and content of the CMA letter about the Bill to the Department for Transport, to which I drew noble Lords’ attention in Committee. It sets what I regard as an impossibly high bar: franchising should be allowed only if it is the only way to improve services. That is effectively impossible to prove. It is reasonable to ask local authorities to demonstrate that franchising is designed to improve services or that services need improvement. However, it is not possible for them to prove that there is nothing else they could possibly do, other than franchising, that would provide that improvement.

The Department for Transport has responded to the CMA, saying that it accepts the recommendations of the CMA letter in full. I am anxious to hear from the Minister in some detail about what impact accepting the recommendations will have on the Bill and its subsequent guidance. The CMA view seems to run counter to the thrust of the core aspects of the Bill, rendering it in practice likely to become yet another overcomplex piece of legislation on buses—sadly, along with the two attempts made by the previous Labour Governments—to reverse the impact of deregulation. We support the Government’s intentions with the Bill and we think they are working very strongly on the right lines, but we are concerned that inadvertently, as a result of the CMA’s response, their approach might be undermined.

Our concern, expressed in these amendments, is that the CMA could be seen to be overpowerful in this context. Given that it is clearly at odds with the thinking of the Department for Transport in some respects, it is important that the CMA is not allowed to become judge and jury in these cases. If it is consulted beforehand, it should not be allowed to come back after decisions are made unless there are genuine causes for concern as to how the franchise is working.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendments 12 and 13 bring back to your Lordships’ House an important issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised in Committee. I recall her bringing to the attention of the Committee a statement made by the CMA in July. Concern was expressed that, after being consulted, the CMA could come back again and again, which would deter a local authority from seeking arrangements, partnerships or franchises since it would view the arrangements as impossible hurdles to overcome.

The two amendments seek to set out some parameters for a CMA investigation in less than two years, and they arrive at a series of complaints or an adverse effect on competition. I think that is sensible, and I hope the Minister can address the issues raised by the amendments as it is important that we get the balance right here, rather than again making little progress, despite the Bill’s good intentions, due to other factors such as those highlighted in this short debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I was around in the 1970s, when he was a Transport Minister in a Labour Government. I do not remember him being quite as radical in those days, although he has been around the political spectrum quite a bit since. It is a change to hear him advocating greater participation for local authorities, which, as far as I remember, was not at the top of his list when he was a junior Transport Minister in the 1970s. That is a change, although I have to concede that I have changed myself. I have never been in favour of franchising and I have made it quite plain in the debates in your Lordships’ House. Because of the time factor I will not repeat anything that I have said before, but in some ways I must congratulate my noble friend on the Front Bench. If this amendment becomes law he will have, in effect, repealed the Transport Act 1985. I am not sure what the noble Lord opposite will feel about that. We moved from a regulated system to deregulation, and presumably through this amendment we will be moving back to a more regulated system.

When the Bill was first published, combined authorities with a mayor were the only ones with the right to apply for franchise. Since then, at least under this amendment, that has been widened enormously. To quote my noble friend, or misquoting him perhaps, it seems to me that every local authority that feels that franchising would be suitable is entitled to so apply. All God’s children, presumably, can have a franchise if that is what they want. All I can say to him is that if he talks to the industry at large, it will say that such a widening of the existing proposals would mean a drying-up of investment in the bus industry and certainly a massive recruitment campaign in local government.

A franchise operation cannot be run on the basis of one director. He or she will need a complete department. There will need to be bus and crew rosters. Obviously the existing ones are not satisfactory, otherwise the local authority would not be seeking a franchise in the first place. It is a great job-creation scheme but at the same time it will have the impact of drying up investment in buses. Again, without repeating anything I said earlier, it would be difficult to persuade a finance director of a private company—that is what we are talking about as far as buses are concerned—to invest millions of pounds in a bus fleet if some local authority or town hall throughout the country is going to say how much to charge and where to run those buses. Life is not like that.

I have yet to hear from either side of your Lordships’ House the passenger view on the future of the industry. When Passenger Focus carried out such a survey couple of years ago, more than 80% of bus passengers expressed their satisfaction with the system as it was at present. It is possibly apparent that I have been around a long time—as a Member of this House and the other place, and a bus company director and chairman—and I have yet to hear a passenger say, “This service is so bad I want the town hall to run it”. That has never happened in my experience, although perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench knows differently.

If this amendment is carried and becomes law, it will be bad for the industry and I do not see any great benefit for passengers. For that reason I am afraid that I cannot support it.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 25 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. We support Labour’s Amendment 14, which fits together with Amendment 25. Neither is complete on its own. To be consistent the two need to go together. If the Labour Party decides to press this to a vote and in the event that there might be a government defeat, accepting Amendment 25 might be considered as part of the package.

I should say briefly that arguing about mayoral authorities could seem irrelevant in a couple of months’ time because all the signs are that the Government are abandoning the idea. There is a lot of support across the House for abandoning that idea, as well as the preconditions for giving local authorities more power. If the Government do not go ahead with creating more mayoral authorities, the right to franchising is likely in effect to be restricted to a handful—three local authorities. Franchising will not be an easy step for local authorities to undertake. My view is that probably very few would wish to do so. There are lots of checks and balances already in the Bill ensuring that local authorities do it only in a thorough and highly professional manner. It will not be done in any sort of off-the-cuff way by any local authority. Therefore, what is the reason for trying to restrict it to mayoral authorities? I invite the Minister to give that consideration at this stage in the debate.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

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

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 22 I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group in my name. I do not intend to speak for long, partly because my voice is giving out and partly because all these amendments reflect one particular dimension of the effect on the workforce of franchising and enhanced partnerships.

Amendment 22 deals with the awarding of franchises. It asks that awards shall not be made to a company solely on the grounds that it intends to pay its future workforce less than the current workforce. Of course, those who are TUPE-ed over when there is a new franchise or enhanced partnership will be covered by TUPE and therefore it will not be possible for them to be paid a lower wage. But it also indicates that there has been the occasional problem in London—where by and large the franchising system has worked well—of a two-tier workforce developing. If the Government are not prepared to accept the wording of these amendments, I would like them to indicate that they recognise that there would be a concern if franchising in particular led to two-tier workforces and the consequent industrial relations and management problems. Amendment 22 deals with the issue upfront by saying that a franchise shall not be judged on the basis of the intention of the potential franchisee to pay a lower rate than to those who are transferred over.

The remaining amendments in the group deal with the situation once the franchise is awarded. Amendment 47 deals with a situation where a franchise is already in place or has just been awarded and those who are TUPE-ed over from the former operator are paid at the previous rate under the TUPE provisions, which are clearly set out in the Bill—I thank the Government for that—but subsequent employees could be paid at a lower rate. That is a recipe for very poor industrial relations and probably other tensions in the way in which the franchisee would operate. Again, it would be helpful if the Government could indicate, at least in guidance, that this is not a desirable outcome of the franchise process.

Amendments 48 and 87 deal with dismissals following the award of an enhanced partnership or a franchise. They provide that there should be no dismissals solely as a result of the award of that franchise, in order to protect individuals over and above the TUPE regulations from unfair dismissal as a direct result of the franchise award. Amendments 41, 42, 81 and 82 simply delete the phrase “at the same time” because some of these consequences may not be immediate. The principle that is already enunciated in the Bill should apply whether or not it happens at exactly the same time as the award of the franchise.

This is a potentially difficult problem which might not normally be dealt with in primary legislation but would be left to the franchising process, but it would be helpful if the Government could indicate that the kind of outcome that we have occasionally seen will not arise when we extend franchising in particular to other parts of the country outside London. I hope that the Minister can say a few warm words about the Government’s intention and reflect it in any guidance that the department gives to those tendering for franchises. With that intention in mind, and underlining that this can be and has been on occasion a difficult situation to deal with post the franchising operation, I beg to move Amendment 22.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, in my various discussions with bus operators, it has become clear to me that recruiting bus drivers is a complex and localised process. A standard tariff of wages across a large area can attract people in one part of it and be inadequate in another. Certainly, the experience of Transport for London has been along those lines: it is difficult to attract drivers in central London and easier in parts of outer London. That applies also to areas such as Bristol. Therefore, how one deals with the TUPE regulations and the transfer of staff from one company to another is essential to good relations between the workforce and the employer. We on these Benches support the intention of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, as this is my first contribution to Report today, I draw the attention of the House to my declaration of interests: I am a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The amendments in this group, all in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty, with the exception of Amendment 70, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, concern TUPE protections for employees, and have our full support. They are important amendments, as they seek to provide protections for employees and to ensure that, where new employees are taken on, their terms and conditions will not be any worse than those afforded to employees covered by the TUPE protections.

Amendment 70 would add trade unions and employee groups to the list of organisations that must be consulted. We do not accept that new Section 138F(6)(g), which refers to,

“such other persons as the authority or authorities think fit”,

fits the bill. The amendments have our full support.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

25: Clause 4, page 16, leave out lines 9 to 18

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I offer the support of these Benches for the amendment. It would be rather strange if we did not, because the social value Act 2012 was a Private Member’s Bill taken through this House by my noble friend Lord Newby. I raised the question of the use of this Act in Committee, so I am grateful to the Labour Benches for picking this up and transferring it into an amendment.

As we have heard, the social value Act allows public bodies to take a much broader range of issues into account than conventional procurement practices do, so they can think about the environment, community well-being and the local economy. It actually goes one stage further, because the Act makes people think about the considerable financial power of public procurement in an area and is a way of local authorities and local health authorities harnessing their own commissioning power for the benefit of their communities.

As we have heard, the evaluation last year by the noble Lord, Lord Young, was that, while there had been some real success stories, the social value Act was not being used enough and was not sufficiently understood. I have a lot of sympathy with an amendment which puts this on the face of the Bill because it forces commissioning authorities to really think about whether they have given sufficient consideration to this. Overall, it is a way of ensuring that compliance improves.

I was very taken with the conversations I had on this matter with HCT, formerly Hackney Community Transport, which is a social enterprise that provides bus services in a range of areas as diverse as London boroughs and Jersey. It feels very strongly—and made the point to me—that current procurement practices often freeze out smaller businesses. That is a great pity because some of the best bus operators in the country are the small, local ones. It is important to find ways to strengthen this aspect of the Bill and really help local authorities, in their various forms, to make the most of this considerable new power.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I am very pleased indeed that this duo of amendments has been put down. They link well with Amendment 97, which provides a mechanism for expressing and recognising community value.

I simply add to what has been said already that it is essential that the Government recognise that bus services fulfil a vital social service, especially in rural areas. The knock-on effect of social isolation is far more costly than any subsidy put into bus services. That is why concessionary fares for older people have been so effective. I know that the Government recognise that effectiveness. We should add to that social impact the huge potential contribution of bus services in reducing air pollution, particularly in urban areas. Therefore, it is important that the Minister uses every opportunity in the Bill to emphasise the importance of the social value of bus services in general.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned the whole question of rural areas, as I support this amendment from a purely rural perspective. I apologise to the House that this is the first time I have spoken on this very important Bill. Unfortunately, on previous occasions, I have been unavoidably committed elsewhere, prior to the Bill’s scheduling by the Whips. I thank noble Lords for their support for rural areas during the passage of the Bill, which I have followed. I am also grateful to the Minister for understanding and championing the rural cause in his draft guidance and policy statement which came out earlier this month.

This amendment spells out the importance of the wider social and economic benefits to rural areas provided by public transport services. I will not make a Second Reading speech, but it is very obvious—I know this point has been made before—that if you live in the country and cannot drive for reasons of poverty, disability, youth, old age, et cetera, the lifeline supplied by a good rural bus or community transport service is crucial to your quality of life and your ability to access the services of modern life. In these austere times, all services in rural areas are being cut back across the board, such as health centres, primary schools, jobcentres, post offices, banks—to dip into the private sector—magistrates’ courts and police stations. All our local rural services are disappearing one by one. This inconsiderate—as might be said—wave of closures is exacerbated by the simultaneous withdrawal and diminishing availability of public transport services. On a personal note, that includes the Wheels to Work schemes for youngsters, which are particularly dear to my heart.

The amendments we are discussing undoubtedly infer that the local transport authorities should consult with the providers of services—some of which I have just outlined—and ask them what assessments or assumptions they have made vis-à-vis public transport for the delivery of those services in rural areas. Actually, I would like to see the amendment read: “The scheme must specify whether consideration has been given now and in the future to the wider social, economic and environmental benefits of the scheme”.

I shall give noble Lords one good example. I have been involved in rural proofing for some years. Some government departments are improving their rural proofing, but not all. They are not always very knowledgeable in this regard, but the situation is improving. For example, the justice department assures me that when it closes a magistrates’ court, it does so following a careful assessment of local public transport and the distances involved in order fully to understand the new difficulties and costs to witnesses, police and even the accused and their families, of getting to their soon-to-be-not-so-local court. Therefore, one can only assume that these assessments and cost-benefit studies—it would be nice to think that the justice department is not the only one doing them—must be based on the existing public transport systems.

That is why LTAs need to consider the wider effects, as spelt out in these amendments, of any changes being brought about by the introduction of a franchise agreement or an enhanced partnership plan, and why I would like to see these considerations being an ongoing process. We do not want to see our rural communities totally stripped of public services because the right hand, the service deliverer, does not know what the left hand, the transport provider, is doing or proposing to do. It is important that they work together.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

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

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment is designed to ensure that when a franchise or an enhanced quality partnership is in place, it will not be undermined by an operator—probably operating across the borders of the franchise but maybe even within it—using vehicles that do not comply with the franchising agreement. Most of us know areas of the country where some of the buses that are in competition with the main operator fall well below the standards—the vehicles are noisy, dirty and probably do not conform to up-to-date emissions regulations. I am moving this amendment to ensure that a traffic commissioner’s powers will enable him to enforce the standards laid down by either the statutory partnership or the enhanced quality partnership. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment reflects the importance that we on these Benches believe lies in the role of traffic commissioners and the enforcement that they have the power to undertake. If you look at their annual report, you will see that the traffic commissioners themselves complain of being overstretched. It is important, therefore, that we give them an express requirement to enforce regulations at a time when we are likely to see bus companies with a lower quality of service possibly impinging on the better bus companies that provide the very best service. I simply wanted to briefly underline the importance that we see in this simple amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Lab)]

My Lords, being a traffic commissioner, I had forgotten that we had very little training. I wonder whether, as part of this process, we need to train traffic commissioners much more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, we are back at Clause 21, which without doubt is the most contentious clause in the Bill. It is totally unnecessary; it is pure political dogma from the Government and despite the opposition expressed to it by noble Lords both at Second Reading and in Committee, it is still here. It is a clause that does not belong in this Bill. It does nothing whatever to improve bus services for people. That is a great disappointment. As I have said many times from this Dispatch Box, this is generally a very good Bill which we have been happy to support. The Minister has listened carefully to all sides of the House, to good points well made, and he has responded positively, which is much to his credit.

Then we get to Clause 21 which runs against all that. As I said earlier, it is merely a piece of political dogma. Local authorities have powers under the Localism Act 2011 and associated powers under the general power of competence provisions. What is wrong with allowing a company to be formed and for it to compete on the open market and win contracts if it can demonstrate better value for money and a better service? Perhaps the noble Lord will tell us when he responds to the debate. We have heard that the present municipal bus companies often run some of the most competitive and best bus services in the UK. Nottingham City Transport has one of the highest number of passenger journeys per head outside London. It has been praised for its innovation, praised for its service delivery, and was awarded Bus Operator of the Year in 2012 and 2014. For many years I lived in Nottingham and the company runs a really good bus service. My reaction to that is “Well done. How can we learn from you because we want to be as good as you?”. Reading Buses, which won Bus Operator of the Year in 2015, has been praised for its,

“combination of innovation, strong operational performance and award-winning marketing initiatives”.

It goes on. UK Bus Awards gave Nottingham and Lothian gold awards in 2015 and 2013 respectively, silver awards to Nottingham in 2014 and Reading in 2012 and 2013, along with Reading again getting a bronze award in 2015. So what do the Government do; what is their response? It is this: “We had better put a stop to any more springing up then; we can’t have the public sector doing a good job, being recognised as delivering some of the best services in the country, winning awards and leading the way”. I hope that when the noble Lord responds to this debate he will pay tribute to the municipal bus companies for their innovation and service delivery.

This clause goes too far and it does not belong here. I would like to meet the person who thought it up and understand their reasoning. For me it is certainly not about a sensible, improved service delivery or business case reason. If we want to improve passenger services and increase passenger numbers, all the options should be on the table at the very least. I hope that the noble Lord will agree to accept the amendment and remove this clause tonight. If he does not, I will divide the House and hope that noble Lords do it for him. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, many of the amendments to the Bill have dealt with issues of detail and degree, but not so with this amendment, which is appropriately numbered 111. It involves a fundamental principle. I am bewildered why the Government are clinging to this nasty and mean-spirited clause which is totally at odds with the purpose of the Bill as a whole. Indeed, earlier today the Minister reaffirmed to us that this is a devolutionary Bill.

We on these Benches strongly support the principles behind the Bill. They will give local authorities more control over local bus services after three decades of decline since the deregulation of bus services in the 1980s. We have been fully supportive of the Government’s attempts to strengthen the role of local authorities in setting up both partnerships and franchise agreements. We believe that the structure being created through the Bill should raise the game of bus operators and at the same time should encourage local authorities to be much more proactive in recognising and supporting the role of bus services in their communities—local authorities will thus be able to raise their game as well to ensure that they are all as proactive as the best now are. We will have more Readings and fewer Oxfordshires, for example. So it is truly amazing and counterintuitive for the Minister to cling to this clause which takes away powers from local authorities in a Bill that is designed overall to give them more powers.

I am not convinced by the Minister’s arguments so far on why the clause needs to be in the Bill. I have listened carefully to him and read Hansard to analyse the thinking behind the clause. As the noble Lord has just pointed out, municipal bus services actually do rather well. I say to the Minister: go with the evidence. Municipal bus services, of which there are approximately a dozen, consistently feature in among the 10 best-performing bus companies in Britain—I give him just two examples: Nottingham and Reading. There are also very good examples of municipal bus services which work in partnership with commercial operators, bestriding the divide between local authorities and commercial operators. Such municipal operators are the remnants of the system that existed prior to deregulation. I remind noble Lords that, despite still having the power to set up bus companies, local authorities have not rushed out in the past 30 years to set them up. Rarely has there been anything other than a gradual dwindling in the number of such companies. Why are the Government determined to intervene now?

We have to bear in mind that bus services might need the intervention of local authorities in the future. Local authorities might want to set up new bus companies. For example, a rural authority, faced with the collapse of its local bus company, might want to run its own limited service, integrating specialist transport for schools and social services with regular bus services.

What part of Conservative dogma does this clause serve? There is no doubt that we are legislating here for decades ahead—the previous Act was 30 years ago. The Government need to be flexible and far-sighted. On these Benches, we are certainly not in favour of large-scale renationalisation of bus services, but we are a devolutionary party which believes that local authorities should have ultimate responsibility for ensuring that local bus services are provided where they are needed. For that, they need all the powers in their armoury, so I ask the Minister to let them retain them by deleting Clause 21.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, despite the passion shown by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, I am afraid that I am still not convinced by the renewed arguments for removing this clause. No one denies that existing locally owned bus companies are by and large a success story—I said as much in Committee. They have a great track record of securing awards and a very high satisfaction rate among their passengers. I can see nothing in this Bill that would change that and I wish those municipal bus companies every success as they continue to deliver for their customers.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked: “What is wrong?” The only reason why a local authority would wish to set up its own bus company now would be to put it in prime position to win a franchise contract, a contract that its parent company, the local authority, was awarding. That would make something of a mockery of that franchise competition. Why would another bus operator go to all the expense, in both time and monetary terms, of submitting a bid for the franchise knowing that it was up against another company that was owned by the awarding authority? It would be a done deal from the start, so other operators in that area might as well shut up shop straightaway. I therefore disagree with the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that Clause 21 is not consistent with the objectives of the Bill. It is necessary to make the Bill work properly. Of course, a local authority company would also have to invest resources in submitting a bid, but those resources would come from the local authority, so the body awarding the franchise would have paid for its own company to bid. That does not seem right.

I have a final point which I believe is very important: there is nothing new in this clause. All it does is extend the bar on establishing a bus company to types of local authority that did not exist when the Transport Act 1985 was passed; for example, unitary authorities. The UK bus market has coped very well for the past 30 years without district councils being able to set up their own bus companies, so why the outcry now? I think that I have answered my own question: a combined authority or unitary authority, having secured the necessary powers, would want to establish its own bus company now only to gain a foothold in the franchise process and wipe out the competition. That is not an acceptable way of proceeding. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will vigorously resist the amendment and support Clause 21.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bradshaw]

I return to the subject which we have spoken about throughout the Bill: how deep rural bus services might be saved from the way they are being reduced in present circumstances—and, with the various threats to local government funding, are likely to be further reduced in future. I do not intend to press my amendment to a Division, but I would like to have the Minister’s views on it.

The concessionary fare money that the Government dispense, which is a large sum of money—we are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds—is divided up among transport authorities in such a way that it generally comes down to a sum of money spent on concessionary fares in each area. This means that many busy rural routes, profitable routes, attract concessionary fare revenue; whereas deep rural routes, which are mostly used by concessionary fare holders, pass holders, receive the same sum as the authority gives to its urban routes. Of course, a lot more people use urban routes, and I suggest a small top-slicing of the concessionary fare revenue granted to urban routes, so that a little bit is instead devoted to the rural routes. Because far more people travel on urban than rural buses, a small top-slicing of the money for urban buses would amount to a huge increase in concessionary fare revenue earned by operators of rural services.

I am mindful that there are a number of EU rules about state aid. We have to be careful that we do not leave anybody with a profit as a result, but many of the rural routes are not the sorts of routes from which anybody makes very much money. My object in moving the amendment is to ask the Minister—he and I will meet fairly soon—whether this might not be a way of supporting the rural routes in this country. The Government would not have to find more money; they would simply have to redistribute the money that they are already spending. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, my noble friend has devised a very neat way of assisting bus services in rural areas. The problem that rural bus operators face is the demography of those areas, as they almost always have a very much older profile of bus passenger, which means that those routes rarely carry large numbers of fare-paying passengers. The concessionary recompense given to bus operators is cumbersome and inadequate, and that makes it very difficult for rural operators to make a profit. There is a long record of rural operators going out of business. We are suggesting a weighting towards rural areas that would hardly be felt by operators in urban areas because the actual number of rural passengers is very low as a percentage of the total. For rural operators this scheme could be the difference between survival and going out of business. I urge the Minister to respond positively to the efforts made by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw to suggest a mechanism to support bus services in rural areas.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thank noble Lords for their brief contributions to this short debate. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has tabled an amendment on rural bus services and concessionary travel. As I have said before during the progress of this Bill, rural bus services play a vital role in helping people to get to work and school and in ensuring that they can access a wide range of services and leisure opportunities. Indeed, this issue has been raised in the House before. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Scott—who is not in her place at the moment—raised it on Second Reading.

I think we all accept that the loss of a local bus service, particularly in rural areas, can leave people isolated or dependent on friends and family to help them travel. However, commercial services in rural areas can be the most difficult to provide because of the need to achieve the critical mass of passengers required for a regular service. As I have said before, we are confident that the Bill provides significant opportunities for rural areas, and I again draw the noble Lord’s attention to the specific guidance which the Government have now published in which those opportunities are set out.

I turn specifically to the amendment. It would perhaps be useful to remind noble Lords that reimbursement by local authorities to operators is made on a no-better, no-worse-off basis. That means that operators are already fairly compensated for the cost of providing concessionary travel in both urban and rural areas. I believe that the reimbursement mechanism that is now in place is fit for purpose, as evidenced by the large decrease in reimbursement appeals that we have seen over the last few years since the new reimbursement guidance came into force.

If the noble Lord is seeking greater reimbursement for operators for their rural as opposed to urban services, we would be concerned that the amendment would lead to a distortion in the concessionary travel scheme because it is reimbursed on the principle of “no better, no worse off” to which I alluded a few moments ago. It is for that reason that we cannot support this amendment.

I finish by saying that the Government provide, as I indicated previously, significant funding for local bus services. We have talked before about BSOG and the £300 million to local authorities. The Department for Communities and Local Government intends to increase support for more sparsely populated rural areas by more than quadrupling the rural services delivery grant from £15.5 million to £65 million by 2019-20. That again underlines the importance of rural services—a sentiment which I know we all share. On the basis of my explanation, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Horam (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness who proposed the amendment has the gift of coming up with interesting and appealing ideas, and this is one of them. I think that obviously we are all sympathetic to the issue of safety on buses; some instances recently, even in London, have been a matter of concern. I think also of the cycling situation in London, which is a problem. However, on this occasion I have to agree—they might be surprised to hear this—with the noble Lord, Lord Snape, and my noble friend Lord Attlee. There are problems in this area which are not solved by this rather heavy-handed approach, and there is a difference between the sort of situation you find yourself in with buses on the one hand and with rail on the other. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Snape, made the point that his own party is in favour of franchising when it comes to buses but against it when it comes to railways, so there are clearly differences in the way we approach these two important industries.

As someone who takes an interest in the Bill, I am also concerned that we get it off the ground. People who have followed the bus industry know that previous attempts to get franchising going in the rest of the country failed because of the complexity of the legislation. For example, Newcastle upon Tyne made a big effort to get franchising going but failed after many years of trying because of the complexity of the legislative procedures. I do not want this admirable Bill, which I fully support, to fall foul of the same problems. Let us please keep it as simple as possible. We have made amendments in this House which on the whole have been wise, and which I hope the Government will keep, as they have not been adverse to the spirit of the Bill. This may be music to the ears of my colleagues on the Front Bench: I hope that they do not mess around too much with it in another place. We should keep it where it is. It is a very good Bill. As my wife said the other day, I am a bit of a bus junkie. People are asked whether they travel on buses; I travel on buses all the time in London because they are so good. I want something similar to be available to residents in other parts of the country and I trust that this Bill will achieve that. I strongly support it and I do not want any further amendments to be made to it.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the recent tram tragedy should make us all think again about safety in general, and that should apply not just to franchised services but to partnerships and any kind of regular service run with some element of public money and with public support. I very much hope that the Minister will accept the principle of the amendment and acknowledge that there is an issue to be considered. I want to make it clear that I believe the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is incorrect in trying to distinguish between different types of accidents—the causes of bus accidents can be just as complex. Speculation since the tram accident has shown us all that perhaps there was a long-term issue that could have been addressed by having a system akin to the one suggested here.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, would it be better not to agree this amendment because of the reasons adduced by my noble friend? At the same time, taking up what the noble Baroness said, there is a growing understanding in society that we have to provide people with the opportunity to report things that worry them in a way that does not endanger their position as, for example, drivers. I do not think that this issue is about buses; it is about the society in which we live. We need to enable people in a complex society to issue warnings so as to increase levels of safety. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will refuse to accept the amendment, which I think would be otiose and rather heavy-handed in this excellent Bill.

I also hope that he will take on board the principle that we should offer people the opportunity to issue warnings whenever we can. If we do not do that, all sorts of things that could be avoided are not avoided. It is becoming less easy to draw a distinction between buses and trains. What do we do with guided bus routes, for example? Are the vehicles classified as trains or buses? We have talked about trams, but the noble Baroness could not tell us whether the same rules operate on trams as operate on buses. We have to recognise that this issue is more complicated than we think, but it is most important that we give people the opportunity to warn in a way that does not imperil their jobs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for suggesting in a letter today that I should make a momentary intervention on the accessibility of bus services. Noble Lords will remember that I moved an amendment on Report to make bus companies, as a condition of their licence, produce and publish policies to assist disabled people in using their services. The intention of the amendment was to bring buses completely into line with trains. I also offered the Minister an alternative if he rejected my amendment, which was to follow his own model on AVs and introduce a regulation-making power under the Equality Act to require bus companies to make accessibility policies, again enforceable as a condition of their licence. The Minister kindly said that he would reflect on my offer, and true to his word, a week later we had an extremely helpful and constructive meeting to discuss my proposal in more depth. He said that he would revert to me in around a week.

Unfortunately, he was not able to do so until this morning when I received a letter telling me that while he cannot make a firm commitment today, the dialogue will continue. The Minister emphasises in his letter the need for strong guidance as a back-stop that should be developed with the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee to make bus services more accessible for disabled people. Of course I welcome that, although the Minister knows my views on the deep limitations of guidance incredibly well by now.

I want to express my appreciation to the Minister for his openness and willingness to discuss this issue in depth—and I really mean that. Transport is a lifeline for disabled people as it underpins their inclusion in society. An amendment is not on the table today, although I had hoped it would be, but I am grateful for the offer to work with Andrew Jones MP, the Bill Minister in the other place. I am happy to take up that offer and I thank the Minister for his collaborative approach, which reflects my preferred way of working. As I say, I will definitely take him up on his offer and I have already garnered support from MPs, organisations representing disabled people and disabled people themselves for taking this forward. I hope further discussions in the other place will result in an amendment to enable disabled people to use buses with confidence and with the assistance they need to live independently. At the moment that is not the case, but I believe it can be.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for his courtesy in giving us his time in meetings, and I thank his officials for their work. We are grateful for the care with which he has considered our amendments and has responded to them, even when he was rejecting them.

We on these Benches support the principles behind the Bill and we are pleased that the Government are attempting to improve bus services. For some 30 years, since the Thatcher Government introduced deregulation, bus services outside London have been a story of decline. In contrast, buses have thrived in London within a much more regulated system. Although franchising may not be the whole answer—indeed, may not be the answer used in much of the country—we believe that partnerships have a much more active role to play for local authorities as well as for bus companies. They mark an important way forward.

Good bus services are an important part of a thriving economy. They are the most frequently used form of public transport and are essential to the mobility of older people, young people and, in particular, those who are less well-off. They are essential to the sustainability of rural communities and for a healthy environment. Air quality is a major issue of public concern, as the Government are painfully aware at this time, so frequent, reliable and reasonably priced bus services are key to discouraging car use. We hope the Bill will improve bus services and I hope our contributions on the issues of emissions, disabled access, youth fares and so on have helped to focus the Minister’s mind and those of his colleagues on ways the Bill needed to be improved and on ways in which a more ambitious approach might future-proof the Bill and make it more robust for the years ahead. I hope our work here in this House has done enough to make it strong enough to succeed in its aims.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, as is customary at this stage in the passage of a Bill, I shall be brief. Obviously the amendment moved by my noble friend the Minister is a good one. As he has said on several occasions, the overall aim of the Bill is to make bus services even better, and I agree with everything just said by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the importance of bus services. There is much to support in the Bill, not least because it will pave the way for even greater partnership working between bus operators and local authorities. I was especially delighted to see the Government amend the Bill to ensure that passengers will have greater access to bus service information. This will make travelling on buses easier and perhaps a less daunting experience not only for those with disabilities, but for everyone.

However, not all the changes we have made were, I believe, so welcome. Giving any and all local authorities access to franchising powers is, in my view, a mistake. It will just serve to introduce uncertainty into the bus market and bus companies will have no incentive to invest. There will be no incentive to buy new vehicles, to keep passengers happy or to react to their needs, which runs counter to the overall aim of the Bill. This House prides itself on being a revising Chamber and it has certainly revised the Bill, so let us see what becomes of it when it reaches the other place. I hope that the next time we see it, the Bill will do what it says on the tin and enable local bus services to flourish and deliver for passengers.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, it will also be convenient at this time to speak to Amendments 2 to 4, Amendment 6, Amendments 12 and 13, Amendments 15 to 19 and Amendments 21 to 23. These amendments cover a range of issues demonstrating the variety of important topics debated during the passage of this Bill through both Houses. I know that all noble Lords will agree that bus passengers should be at the heart of this Bill. Its provisions will enable improvements to bus services where they are needed, and help grow passenger numbers. By working together, local authorities and operators can tackle key transport issues such as pollution and congestion. They can support local businesses and help drive the local economy.

I recognise that congestion in particular can have a major impact on local bus services. This brings me on to Amendment 1, which relates to powers to enforce moving traffic offences. The other place debated the changes made to the Bill by this House, which confer powers to enforce moving traffic offences such as those in yellow box junctions on authorities that have established an advance quality partnership scheme. However, it was recognised that Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004 already provides the Secretary of State with the ability to confer powers to enforce moving traffic offences on authorities. It was also further acknowledged that local authorities already had the ability to address issues of congestion, be that through using new infrastructure measures or technological solutions or by enforcing moving traffic offences in bus lanes. Additionally, through franchising and partnership schemes local authorities and bus operators will be able to further work together to address local congestion in a more targeted way.

A key concern remains that such powers could be misused to generate revenue for local authorities rather than for traffic management purposes. Instead, we shall be encouraging local authorities and bus operators to use the powers in the Bill to develop local solutions to local congestion pinch points.

Amendments 2, 6 and 15 respond to what I know were well-intentioned moves by this House to seek the greater use of low-emission buses. We are all in agreement that we should encourage these sorts of behaviours. Following early discussions in this House, the Government set it out explicitly in the Bill that emissions standards may be included as part of both franchising and partnership schemes. However, I believe that the Bill needs to strike the right balance between giving authorities the right tools for the job and being overly prescriptive about how improvements are to be achieved. There is a real danger that requiring all new buses used to deliver services as part of a partnership or franchising scheme that come into service after 1 April 2019 to be low emission would simply mean that bus schemes could become prohibitively expensive, with the real risk of authorities being unlikely to pursue these schemes at all. This could lead to less bus use and, with that, worse environmental outcomes than would have been achieved without these provisions. I hope that my further explanation as to why we have taken the approach that we have to these subjects will mean that noble Lords can support the current Motion.

I turn now to Amendments 16 to 18 on the open data provisions. There has been a positive welcome to Clause 18, which will facilitate the provision to passengers of information about timetables, fares, routes and tickets, and live information. Since the Bill was last in this place, my officials have held workshops to develop further the practical delivery of these provisions. Stakeholders have stressed the importance of two existing datasets that are currently maintained by local authorities which accurately and uniquely describe and locate all bus stops in a common format. These datasets are vital to the production of meaningful journey-planning information for passengers. However, they are currently maintained by local authorities on a voluntary basis. These amendments simply ensure that if it becomes necessary, regulations could be made that require local transport authorities to provide information other than in the context of franchising, and information about stopping places to be provided by local transport authorities or operators.

I turn now to those who work for local bus companies. In this House we quite rightly had a great deal of debate about the importance of consultation in relation to bus partnership and franchising schemes and who must be consulted. The Government accepted and were happy to include Transport Focus and the national park authorities as statutory consultees. Special thanks must go to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, who is not in his place this afternoon, for his passionate advocacy of the latter’s importance.

We also introduced amendments to require authorities to consult employee representatives about proposed franchising schemes. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, provided helpful input to our thinking on this matter. I completely understand the need for employee representatives to be consulted on franchising schemes, as those proposals could have a direct impact on bus industry employees in such an area. Following a debate in the other place, it was agreed that some of the potential duplications in the Bill relating to the consultation of employee representatives and trade unions on franchising schemes should be clarified. This is reflected in Amendments 12 and 13. It was also felt that authorities should have greater freedom on who to consult in relation to the advanced quality partnership schemes than had been provided for in the Lords text. This is reflected in Amendments 3 and 4. The Bill, therefore, now provides for an authority to be required to consult employee representatives on franchising schemes, and it may choose to do so for partnership schemes should it consider that appropriate.

Finally, this group contains Amendments 19 and 21 to 23, which address housekeeping matters and remove the privilege amendment. The latter is a procedural technicality. I hope noble Lords feel that I have given the variety of topics justice here and will agree to support the Motion to approve these Commons amendments.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, throughout its passage, the Liberal Democrats have supported the principles behind the Bill and we believe that it is a long overdue response to a fairly chaotic situation with bus services in many parts of the country outside London. Indeed, while we have been debating the Bill, the number of bus services and miles covered by those services throughout England outside London has reduced significantly as the number of local authorities’ subsidised routes has reduced and some bus companies have ceased to function. There is a desperate need to do something and we agree with the general tenor of the Bill.

We would have wished to make the Bill more radical, as I have made clear on a number of occasions. We would have wanted more devolution and powers to local authorities, more action to assist disabled passengers, more measures to protect the environment and the health of our citizens and more consultation. Indeed, some of our amendments were accepted and have remained in the Bill throughout the Commons process, but not all of them. I am disappointed that so many were removed.

However, we are grateful that in this group there are government amendments to clarify the role and independence of auditors. The first amendment in the group was put forward by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw in relation to giving local authorities powers over moving traffic offences. The Minister said just now that the Government feared that local authorities would use that power simply to make money. That is a fairly flimsy excuse for rejecting the idea because it would be so easy for the Government to produce an amendment that restricted local authorities’ ability to do that. That could have been dealt with within the regulations that will flow from the Bill or within the Bill itself.

In relation to the Minister’s comments on emissions and the speed with which we can replace bus fleets, London is of course well under way with the process, as are several other local authorities and cities. The technology is there. The alternative fuels are there. It is the Government’s role to at least push businesses into operating in the most environmentally friendly way. On bus emissions, of course there is the pressing issue of the health of our citizens. The Government are only too aware, despite their failure yesterday to produce a plan to address this issue, of the need for urgent action on this. Not only am I disappointed that the Government failed to meet the legal timetable for producing a response on air quality in general, I am disappointed that they have taken the view on this particular Bill that there does not need to be a stronger government steer on the issue of emissions from bus services.

I support the Government’s changes on the provision of data. That is very important. Evidence shows that many people are deterred from becoming bus passengers because of a lack of knowledge and information about where the bus stops and how they pay for a ticket. How one pays for a ticket can vary from one local authority area to another. That kind of information can be so easily supplied and the Government have rightly emphasised that in the Bill. We support that.

Having said all that, we are grateful for the hearing the Minister gave us and for the way many organisations involved in bus services across Britain engaged in the process of the Bill so we could use and harness their knowledge and expertise, which has helped. My final point is that we shall not seek to oppose the changes made in the Commons, but we accept them with some sadness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, Amendments 14 and 20 reinstate the original provisions of the Bill which prohibit local authorities establishing companies for the purpose of operating local bus services. The role of municipal bus companies has received a good deal of debate in your Lordships’ House and the other place. There are a few fundamental points worth making. First, we all agree that there are some very good municipal bus companies, such as Reading Buses and Nottingham City Transport. They deliver a high standard of service, and I expect they will continue to do so. Let me assure noble Lords that their ability to operate will not be affected by this provision.

However, very few municipal bus companies remain, with many having been sold to some of our more successful private bus companies—for example, in February, Thamesdown Transport in Swindon was bought by the Go-Ahead Group after many years of making a loss—so I do not think this amendment is likely to impact on the plans of many, if any, local authorities. The Bill is all about improving services for passengers, and authorities should now start thinking about utilising the knowledge and skills of existing bus companies to get the best results. This amendment ensures that we get the balance right between local authority influence and private sector delivery in order to ensure both are incentivised to deliver the best services for the benefit of passengers.

I hope that noble Lords will understand that, because of the importance of this balance to the overall Bill, our view remains that passengers will see most benefit where the commissioning and provision of bus services are kept separate, and we do not think that authorities should be able to set up new bus companies. I hope that noble Lords will agree these amendments will enable the important business of the implementation of the measures contained in this Bill, which we all acknowledge to be important, to begin so benefits to bus services and, more importantly, bus passengers can start to be delivered on the ground. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, although it is not the subject of the Bill, as it operates in Wales, I shall say a word about Cardiff Bus. It is a municipal bus company with a good record. I still do not understand how it is so important to the Government to remove this power, which has been in the local authority armoury for decades. As the Minister has just pointed out, it has not been used as a general issue at all.

I am also confused as to why these examples of really good bus companies run by local authorities at arm’s length are not a template for possible future development. It is blindingly clear at the moment that local authority finances in Britain are so poor that authorities are not going to be using this power in the near future in some kind of aggrandisement. There is not going to be a mass use of this power by local authorities wanting to build up vast transport empires. It is simply not on the cards.