HS2 Update

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier today in the House of Commons. We support HS2 and thus welcome this further announcement of phase 2B on more but not yet all of the route. We welcome the intention that HS2 outside London will have connections to the existing network. We do not welcome the fact that the Government appear determined to see HS2 run in the private rather than the public sector, bearing in mind the amount of taxpayers’ money that will be invested, the success of the public sector in running the east coast main line twice following the withdrawal of two different private sector operators, and the continuing success of the public sector in running the London Underground, with its heavy traffic flows.

We will need to look at the details of the proposed route just announced and the extent to which legitimate concerns have or have not been addressed, as well as the compensation and mitigation proposals, but perhaps the Minister can say now how the compensation compares with that for those affected by a new runway at Heathrow. For how long will the further consultation mentioned in the Statement last, and by when do the Government expect to announce their decisions in the light of that consultation? The Government have not yet given a timescale on that. Likewise, when next year do the Government expect to announce the rest of the route of HS2? The National Audit Office stated earlier this year that HS2 had an “unrealistic timetable” and faced major cost pressures. What is now the timetable for the completion of HS2 and what is the latest accurate projected total cost figure, bearing in mind what has happened time-wise and cost-wise to what is presumably the much simpler Great Western electrification?

The Statement says that HS2 links up the cities of the north of England and the east and west Midlands. When do the Government intend to make firm announcements about improved rail links between the cities of the north? The Statement says in the context of a rail network for Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Hull and Newcastle that the Government will, where necessary,

“include passive provision for these services in the Phase 2b hybrid Bill, subject to agreement of funding and the supporting business case”.

In this context what exactly does passive provision mean—as opposed, presumably, to non-passive provision?

The Statement also says that:

“HS2 will free up space on our existing railways for new commuter, regional and freight services”,

and,

“will provide new options for services to towns which currently do not have a direct connection to London”.

What new commuter, regional and freight services do the Government have in mind, and what towns do the Government consider would have the option of a direct connection to London—or is that statement one simply of hope and expectation rather than fact?

The Statement refers to tomorrow’s HS2, east and west coast main lines being able to have,

“48 trains per hour to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds”,

and that this would be up from 29 today. Perhaps the Minister could give me a breakdown of those two figures. On the face of it, they do not appear to include existing services from Marylebone to Birmingham; neither is it clear whether the existing services are only those to and from London or include those running between Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

The Statement also refers to phase 1, from Birmingham to London, and the award of some contracts. What percentage of those contracts, in number and value, are going to British firms? What percentage of any materials used will be imported from elsewhere and what percentage will come from within the United Kingdom? Reference has also been made to Euston station. To what extent has agreement been reached with the London Borough of Camden over the development of HS2 at Euston and its impact on the surrounding area?

Finally, I wish to raise two other points about phase 1 and need to declare an interest, as I have a home within a mile or so of the route of HS2 in the London Borough of Hillingdon. I make these two points in the context of what is stated on page 6 of the Statement:

“We have a general obligation to continue to seek further reductions to adverse impacts during the design, construction and operation of the scheme”.

Just prior to the London mayoral election the Government announced, following a meeting with the Secretary of State at which the Conservative candidate in that election was present, that they would ensure another look was taken at the case for extending the tunnelling of the route in the West Ruislip area. Can the Government tell us what the outcome of that further look is and the reason for any decision, now that the mayoral election is safely out of the way? Can the Government also say what has happened in respect of the relocation of the Hillingdon Outdoor Activities Centre, used by significant numbers of young people in particular? I have visited the site on two occasions in the company of two different Ministers—sympathetic noises were made, particularly on the second occasion. Has a suitable alternative site been found for the outdoor activities centre, since HS2 still appears to be going right across the existing site on a viaduct?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I started today in Marseille and travelled here by TGV, which is fast, efficient, very comfortable and has low emissions. I mention this not because I think that your Lordships will be interested in my holiday photos but because France is decades ahead of us in the provision of a network of fast, efficient rail services. On these Benches, we are firm supporters of HS2 and we welcome this announcement and the details provided today, as far as they go. We also welcome the jobs whose potential creation has been outlined but we have concerns, which I wish to raise here.

First, HS1 was opened in 2007 and it will be at least 20 years between its opening and that of the first phase of HS2. I know that the Minister has given us an indication of the timescale for the second phase of HS2 but I wish to push him on whether there is any scope for faster completion, because the great cities of the midlands and the north need this connectivity very much faster than what is outlined. While the Government make the very valid point in their Statement that HS2 will take pressure off existing lines, it is worth pointing out at this stage that those lines are already groaning under the pressure of the number of passengers and the frequency of services that have to be provided. Therefore, when one extrapolates into the future, one finds it very difficult to believe that the system will not have cracked apart by the time HS2 phase 2 is opened. My main concern is that HS2 phase 2 will drain resources, which are so badly needed, from the rest of the network. Investment is urgently required now. Last week, the Government announced that four electrification projects were being put on permanent hold. There is a shadow over some aspects of the Great Western electrification. The east coast main line is desperately in need of investment. The ORR’s statistics show how badly that line is suffering. Previous promises of investment on that line have been put on hold. I urge the Government to give us more detail about their plans for investment in existing services to reassure us that HS2 is not just a highly polished priority project being operated at the expense of the rest of the rail network. Stimulating investment in the Midlands and the north depends on very much more than HS2. It has to link into an efficient, integrated public transport service.

Finally, the mitigation measures and the detail on them are very welcome, but I ask for a more open and straightforward approach from HS2 Ltd in future. Residents and local councils report that they have often found it less than easy to deal with. I shall not repeat many of the detailed questions put to the Minister by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, but I emphasise that I am concerned to have more detailed information, particularly on what “provision” means and on the number of services that currently run and the future expansion of those services.

Aviation: International Trade

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Randerson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the importance of aviation to Britain’s international trade.

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

My Lords, aviation contributes to international trade by facilitating the movement of services and goods. In 2015, goods worth £155 billion were shipped by air between the UK and non-EU countries—that is over 40% of the UK’s extra-EU trade by value. This demonstrates how crucial Britain’s international trade is to aviation. Connectivity alone is insufficient to create trade, as other factors are important. However, without it, new trade opportunities would not materialise.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, as the Minister says, aviation makes a huge contribution to the economy. However, after the Brexit vote, this is under threat. Leaving the EU will affect rights to travel, not only between the EU and the UK, but also with the US. Priority must be given to reaching new agreements to maintain market access. Can the Minister give us details of the steps the Government have already taken to prioritise negotiations on continued membership of the European Aviation Safety Agency and of the open skies agreement? Since Heathrow will not be completed until the 2030s, will the Government introduce a strategy for the whole of UK aviation?

Road Safety: Eye Tests

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

It is always useful to hear personal anecdotes. I actually had my eyes tested on Saturday, and I passed. Turning to my noble friend’s question, the UK has one of the greatest road safety records. People aged 70 are required to sit the test to renew their licence for another three years, and we provide other services through DVLA. Pilots are also being taken up, including with GP practices in Birmingham, to raise awareness of eye tests, particularly for those over 70.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I want to ask about people who have perfectly good eyesight but who choose to use it to look at their mobile phones while driving. In 2014, mobile phone use was a contributory factor in 492 accidents, 21 of which were fatal, and an RAC survey has shown a steep increase in mobile phone use at the wheel since then. Do the Government intend to increase the penalties for these drivers, and to provide funding to deal with the 27% drop in dedicated roads policing officers since 2010?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

As the noble Baroness may be aware, the Government have already taken action in this respect and increased the penalties for mobile phone use while driving. I am sure the whole House will be aware of the news today of the sentencing of the driver who caused the tragic death of a mother and three young children. Our thoughts are of course with the family. The noble Baroness raises an important point and the Government continue to look at how we can work across the board with all industry players to underline the importance of educating people. Yes, mobile phones have a role to play, but not while people are driving.

Airport Capacity

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier today in the Commons by the Secretary of State for Transport. It is a Statement made against a backdrop of previous Conservative promises that, “no ifs, no buts”, there would be no third runway at Heathrow, a pledge given by the last Prime Minister and enthusiastically supported previously by the present Prime Minister and, it seems, her constituency local authority. The image of politics in this country has not been enhanced by today’s announcement in light of previous emphatic “no ifs, no buts” pledges, whether or not one thinks the now Government’s supported option announced today is correct.

While we welcome the fact that a decision on the preferred location for an additional runaway has been made, I want to pursue the question of the status of that decision. Apparently there is to be an extended though undefined period of further discussion and consultation which could last for a year or more before a final decision is made by Parliament. Is that correct? Is this further consultation in line with the national policy statement process in respect of only the implementation of the preferred option of a third runway at Heathrow announced today, or could the outcome of the consultation lead to a further change of heart by the Government away from their now declared preferred option? I would like a specific answer on that point.

Put another way, can the Minister confirm that all three options in the Davies commission report for additional runway capacity in the south-east are no longer on the table, and instead only the preferred option just announced is still there, and that likewise doing nothing to provide additional runway capacity in the south-east is not an option unless Parliament fails to approve the preferred option in a vote? Are we now at the stage as far as the Government are concerned of, “no ifs, no buts, it is a third runway at Heathrow and we the Government will consider only representations made in respect of its development”? If that is not the case, then uncertainty apparently continues for a further year or more.

Do the provisions of the national policy statement lay down that the further consultation must be of the length of time now suggested in some quarters? If not, why do the Government believe that such a further period of apparently extended consultation is needed before a final decision is made by Parliament if the only issues to be considered relate to implementation?

We have already said that, having asked the Airports Commission to undertake its report, there would have to be overwhelming evidence that the report and its conclusions were fundamentally flawed for us to depart from it. We will now need to consider the Government’s preferred option and the evidence to support the reasons they are putting forward for reaching that decision. We will expect to see the conclusions—and the evidence behind the conclusions—of the further investigations and analysis the Government have undertaken over the past 15 months following the publication of the Davies commission report. Perhaps now, today, the Government can tell us what impact they have concluded the preferred option of a third runway at Heathrow will have on achieving our climate change objectives and why.

I reiterate the four tests we have previously set out that any proposal for airport expansion must meet: that robust and convincing evidence is produced that the commission’s recommendations would provide sufficient capacity; that the United Kingdom’s legal climate change obligations can still be met; that local noise and environmental impacts can be managed and minimised; and that the benefits of any expansion are not confined to London and the south-east. We have already backed the Airports Commission’s recommendation that a statutory independent noise authority should be created, although apparently the Government have not yet done so.

We recognise the need for additional runway capacity in London and the south-east. Heathrow has been full for a decade and Gatwick’s single runway is the busiest in the world. Yet even following the announcement today, an additional runway is a decade or more away. What do the Government intend to do to address the runway capacity challenges that exist at present and will continue to exist until that additional capacity is provided? Do the Government have plans to utilise existing capacity in the south-east—for example, at Stansted and Luton—or are there any intentions to change practices at Heathrow or Gatwick in the short term to increase capacity? Indeed, what plans do the Government have for improving our international gateway airports around the UK, not least improving surface access by road and rail? There is no mention of this in the Statement. Does that mean that there are unlikely to be further capacity increases at our other airports? What will the Government’s position be if Gatwick still seeks to pursue its second runway option?

The Airports Commission said:

“The additional income generated as a result of operating a third runway should be allocated in a new way, and the airport should be obliged to develop a better and more collaborative relationship with its local communities, as some overseas airports have done”.

It went on to recommend that,

“a number of measures should be taken forward, in parallel with the approval, construction and operation of any new capacity at Heathrow, to address its impacts on the local environment and communities”.

These measures related to a “noise envelope” and,

“a ban on all scheduled night flights”,

between specific hours. The commission also called for,

“periods of predictable respite to be more reliably maintained”,

and compensation for,

“those who would lose their homes at full market value plus an additional 25% and reasonable costs”.

The commission said that the airport operator should deliver on,

“its commitment to spend more than £1 billion on community compensation”,

which, together with,

“a new aviation noise charge or levy … would fund enhanced noise insulation and other schemes”,

including support for schools. The commission also recommended:

“A Community Engagement Board should be established under an independent Chair, with real influence over spending on compensation and community support and over the airport’s operations … An independent aviation noise authority should be established with a statutory right to be consulted on flight paths and other operating procedures”,

and called for:

“Training opportunities and apprenticeships for local people”,

and:

“A major shift in mode-share for those working at and arriving at the airport”.

Finally, the commission said:

“Additional operations at an expanded Heathrow must be contingent on acceptable performance on air quality”,

and:

“A fourth runway should be firmly ruled out”.

Should the final decision be an additional runway at Heathrow, we would expect those recommendations from the commission to be adopted and delivered. We will certainly insist that the Government set out very clearly and well in advance how they intend to ensure that those recommendations will be adhered to, what action will be taken to ensure that there is no backsliding and what action will be taken if there is. Will the Minister categorically assure the House that all of the commission’s recommendations, to which I have just referred, will be implemented?

The Government’s Statement, although it represents progress towards a decision, does not represent a final decision, since a final decision will not be taken for at least another year. Today, the House was hoping for a decision that represented certainty; it is unfortunate that the Statement falls short of that.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I predict that the decision made today will solve nothing because it will be locked in legal challenge for years to come. It is a decision that answers the questions of decades ago, not today’s questions. It is bad for the environment and it is bad for the UK as a whole because still more investment will be poured into the south-east, ignoring the potential of regional airports such as Birmingham and Manchester. It is bad for passengers because they will pick up the tab in the end. The eye-watering cost of this project, which the BA chief executive has called “outrageous”, will, in the end, fall on passengers. The interesting thing is that the Statement hardly had a pound sign in it, and the figures that were quoted were largely speculative about possible benefits to the economy.

What estimates have the Government made of the cost to the public purse of this whole development? How much of the massive cost of infrastructure improvements, which are essential if the Government are to meet their promises on air quality, will the Government pay? We know that Heathrow is expecting airlines to contribute up front and that BA is refusing to do so, so are the Government confident that Heathrow can finance its portion of the costs?

This will inevitably lead to additional charges for airlines. What work has been done to ensure that airlines are prepared to accept those additional costs and will not simply move elsewhere? Are the Government convinced—because I am not—that passengers are willing to pay more to fly from Heathrow, because airlines will pass the cost on to them? Heathrow promises six more domestic routes by 2030 and in the Statement the Government promise to hold it to account. How do they plan to do that?

This will be seen as a decision for the south-east, but faced with the huge challenges of Brexit, we need to engage the whole of the UK, so what additional investment will the Government now allocate to the Midlands and the north to allow regional airports to develop and grow?

On air quality, the Statement makes bold claims, but there is not one tiny detail on how this pollution revolution is to be achieved. Can the Minister give us more information? I note that the Statement is much more downbeat on noise; it simply accepts the concept that it will be a noisy procedure.

Finally, I want to address an issue that was not covered in the Statement: the ownership of Heathrow, which is only 10% British-owned. Although the consortium that owns it has distributed £2 billion in dividends to shareholders in the past four years, it has paid only £24 million in corporation tax in the last 10 years. Will the Minister assure us that this airport, which will be favoured with so much public investment, will at least pay its dues in taxation?

Obscene amounts of money have been spent on persuading us and the Government that Heathrow is the right decision. We know the Conservatives are hopelessly split on this issue and have broken their promises on it and that the Labour leadership has flip-flopped backwards and forwards on it, but we on these Benches have remained steadfast for two decades.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I will come to that final point at the end. Bearing in mind that the decision that has been taken is one that has been put off for generations, I was expecting a slightly more positive response from both the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats, but I will take those questions on.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about the 2009 proposal. I have said repeatedly from this Dispatch Box that this proposal is markedly different. I highlighted in the Statement I made earlier that a major part of that is the mitigation measures, both in addressing issues of noise pollution and in the compensation package that has now been presented. Some £2.6 billion has been put forward as the overall compensation package, while £700 million has been allocated for specific issues relating to noise. Ensuring ventilation and specifically double glazing for schools and residences is a practical measure that is reflective of the concerns that local communities were raising.

The noble Lord raised the issues on the process of consultation. Again, as I alluded to in the Statement, the Planning Act 2008, in terms of the NPS process that was created from it, was set up to deal with precisely this kind of infrastructure project to ensure that there are no further delays. The process that the Government are now following and are committed to is reflective of the provisions of that Act. What will happen hereafter, again in response to the noble Lord’s questions, is to ensure that there is an effective airing, an opportunity for concerns to be raised and, yes, scrutiny of the decision.

The noble Lord asked about other options on the table. As I said a week or so ago to my noble friend Lord Spicer—perhaps it was a tad longer—the Government are focused on ensuring that, as the Davies commission concluded, an additional runway should be delivered by 2030 in the south-east. That is where the focus is. Based on that, the Government have decided, after careful consideration of three viable options, that the new runway, the north-west runway at Heathrow Airport, is the Government’s preferred option, and the NPS will be based on that option.

The period of time involved is very much part and parcel of the legislative process. One thing concerned me about the noble Lord’s contribution: he himself acknowledged that Her Majesty’s Opposition had declared that they accepted the Davies commission findings. So do we; I have said so repeatedly from the Dispatch Box. However, the important issue was on additional environmental mitigation measures. He asked about that, and I am pleased to tell him that if he goes on to the website he should find those additional reports and conclusions within the reports that we have now also made available through the GOV.UK website. If he has additional questions, I ask him to take them up with me in writing, or we can have a discussion. However, these discussions are being answered.

I believe that Labour’s four tests that he articulated are met. He mentioned the statutory noise authority; I assure him that we will consult on that as part of this process. He mentioned the importance of regional connectivity; again, I stated in the Statement that regional connectivity is a key consideration, with six additional routes from Scotland to Northern Ireland and to the south-west. New routes will be created, and we will ensure that provisions are sustained to ensure local slots from the additional capacity that is created. Those are all parts of the Government’s growing commitment to ensure that this is a decision that benefits not just the south-east but the whole country.

With regard to other airports, HS2 as a practical example will make the travel time from London Euston to Birmingham International circa 30 minutes. That is about increasing connectivity. Crossrail provides an additional level of connectivity across London through the Heathrow hub to ensure that through those extra slots our other regions are also better connected. Scotland has today welcomed the decision by the Government. The proposal for London Gatwick was very reasonable, practical, sensible, and, as I said, viable. Naturally, it is disappointed, but Gatwick remains part of the UK plc offering within the aviation sector.

There will be a specific six and a half hour ban on night flights which will be part of the planning process as we move forward. In terms of apprenticeships and local jobs, 77,000 jobs will be created as a result of the new runway. Over 5,000 apprenticeships will be created. These are much, if not all of what the noble Lord raised. It is not just a question of what is in this Statement, but the information that I have provided.

The contribution of the noble Baroness very briefly confused me. She said that it was bad for the UK. We are increasing capacity. If we do not increase capacity in the south-east for the benefit of the whole country, we are standing to lose a minimum of £21 billion. What is the Lib Dem solution? This is privately financed. Heathrow Airport has already committed to ensuring that those transport surface requirements are fulfilled as part of its equation. There is not a cost to the public purse.

I have already covered regional airports. I have already stated quite specifically that pollution targets will be met under the national air quality plan. In terms of British ownership, there are companies in the private sector that are owned differently. It is not for me to respond, but Heathrow airport has demonstrably shown its commitment to ensuring that south-east capacity—in this case, London—based on regional connectivity will be of benefit not just to the south-east, not just to London, but to the whole of the United Kingdom.

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.

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[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.

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[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

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.

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[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.

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[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.

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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.”

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

Southern Rail

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Randerson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the granting of additional funds, what further steps they will take to ensure a better service for all customers of Southern Rail.

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

My Lords, Network Rail has committed £20 million for improvements to the Southern network. This fund will be focused on track and infrastructure works and additional staff to ensure that performance improves. The Secretary of State for Transport has also announced the appointment of Chris Gibb to head up a project board, whose remit is to deliver service improvements and closer working relationships between Govia Thameslink Railway and Network Rail.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the £20 million extra funding to assist Southern, despite its 27% increase in profits announced last week, surely gives the Government a stronger hand to insist that long-suffering passengers get a better deal. Can the Minister explain to us why Southern has been allowed to reject applications for compensation for train delays, which have been made using a special app, and when will the Government introduce the entitlement to compensation for delays of 15 minutes, which was promised last year by David Cameron?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

On the noble Baroness’s second point, I know that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is looking at the whole issue of compensation, including making it available for delays of 15 minutes; noble Lords will know that it is currently available for delays of 30 minutes. On the specific app, GTR has specific processes for delay and compensation, and an online form is available. One thing it does not entertain is third-party applications. If there are specific examples of compensation applications being directly made via the online application that have then not been paid out, I would be happy if she wrote to me with the detail so that I can take it up directly.

Airports: London

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord is right in that over the summer there have been a few changes in the Government and in the position of the United Kingdom. A new Government, Prime Minister and Secretary of State are in place, but I assure the noble Lord—indeed, all noble Lords—that the Government are giving this decision a high priority. It is paramount in our mind. The other element to bear in mind is that it will be in line with the Davies commission to ensure that we have this extra capacity operational by 2030.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this decision concentrates on the south-east. It will have an adverse impact on airports elsewhere, not least because if we have more flights in the south-east we will have to have fewer in the rest of the UK to reach our carbon reduction targets. Will the Minister seek to persuade the new Prime Minister that she needs to make this decision with the interests of every part of the UK in mind?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I assure the noble Baroness that, knowing the new Prime Minister well, the right honourable lady will make all decisions, whether on airport expansion or on the economy and our position on the international stage, focusing on what is of benefit to the United Kingdom as a whole. The noble Baroness raises an important issue about regional airport capacity and regional connectivity. I assure her and the whole House again that the decision taken on expansion of south-east capacity will reflect the importance of the aviation industry and airport connectivity, in particular to our international positioning.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, these are helpful and constructive amendments but, as with all amendments of this kind, they raise new issues. I am one of those who believes that you cannot get these issues right simply by rules and regulations; you have to win the battle of public commitment. It will not be easy for the driver to be as effective as he should be with the authority at his disposal unless the majority of people on the bus have a supportive attitude to what he does. If enough people are hostile, it could make it difficult for him on his own. Similarly, the bus operators need to take seriously the information displays in the bus about what the rules are. For example, in London there are arrangements for preference for disabled, elderly and frail people, but they are of course voluntary. It often strikes me that those notices are in very small print and not obvious to everyone who is travelling, particularly when the travellers may be an international group of people with language issues and so on. When the Minister responds, it will be important that he says what part the Government intend to play in ensuring the promotion of a public culture of understanding and support for those who have the front-line responsibility of making the practical arrangements work.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Campbell, and will speak to my own Amendment 126, which is about audio-visual display. I disagree fundamentally with the noble Lord, Lord Snape. I was on a train yesterday and, between stations, my travelling companion cast doubt on whether we were really going to the destination to which we thought we were. When you are sitting and watching the display, it cannot come round soon enough. It may seem like an overprovision at some points. I understand that having the announcement again and again might seem repetitive to people on the bus for 20 stops, but the person on the bus for one stop has only one opportunity. It is often difficult to grasp that opportunity because of the noise on a crowded bus.

As someone with severe hearing loss, my interest is in the need for the announcements to be both visual and audio. I recently took a number of buses to new destinations in London on a weekend of childminding, which made me reflect on how important the visual display is—and not just for people who cannot hear the audio announcements. It is important for everyone who sits in the front third of the bus because, in London, the visual display is about a third of the way down the bus. If you are in the front seats, you cannot see that visual display so you rely on the audio announcement. That is important for everyone.

It is also worth noting that London buses are often very full, as they are in other parts of the country, and you cannot see the display for the people standing. Therefore, the system that we praise in London has proved the need for it to be spread throughout the country. Only 19% of buses in England have audio-visual displays, and 97% of that 19% are in London. That means very few buses anywhere outside London have displays and announcements. There is absolutely no reason why they should not be spread everywhere. This is not cutting-edge technology; it is not trying to develop the best and newest way of providing, let us say, electric buses; this is tried and tested. Asking the driver or other passengers is difficult, sometimes counterproductive and can be unreliable.

There seems to be a comfortable view in the industry that only regular passengers ever travel. That is so wrong. In the modern world, people travel to new parts of the country where they do not have a clue what places they are travelling through. Research shows time and again that uncertainty about the route and where to alight is one of the major factors deterring new passengers. I return to the principle behind the Bill: we should be attracting new people to the buses in order to have a flourishing industry.

I briefly refer to another issue raised in previous debate on the Bill: driver training. My noble friend Lady Brinton talked about the importance of training drivers so that they understand the nature of the disabilities they are dealing with and are empowered by their training. The Minister suggested in the kindest terms that I might be incorrect in saying that drivers do not have to achieve specific standards. I have had clarification of that now.

The periodic training to keep drivers’ qualifications up to date is the problem. All CQC periodic training providers have to register with the Joint Approvals Unit for Periodic Training, which was set up in 2007. It offers a quality mark to employers and driver training courses to maintain their licence. The advice for those running periodic training courses specifically states that you cannot have formal exams or tests within periodic training, and as a trainer you cannot issue a pass or fail for the evaluation session. Not only does government guidance not require the testing of trainees, it specifically excludes it.

As I have said before, being a bus driver is a very difficult job. I have huge admiration for bus drivers. They deal with passengers and very difficult traffic conditions and need to be empowered by the highest quality training. I urge the Minister to look again at the regulations so that we treat drivers fairly by ensuring that they are given the best quality training.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that measures to benefit disabled people will never be fully effective until there is full public commitment to them, but I put it to him—and I am sure that he would agree—that getting the law right is all-important in getting the framework in which public opinion is shaped.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 84A I shall speak also to Amendment 84B, which is also in my name. Amendment 84A is a small amendment, but it is designed to ensure that when two or more enhanced partnerships meet and work together, the minimum standards that we will be discussing elsewhere and have already discussed are provided in both or all the schemes. Amendment 84B provides—on page 38, line 37—that an enhanced partnership scheme “must” specify the,

“requirements about the frequency or timing of particular local services or local services of particular descriptions”.

As a general comment on the further amendments in the group which propose changing the word “may” to “must”, I would be much happier if the word “must” appeared in the text because “may” can also mean “may not”. Is this going to be covered in further documentation and regulations? For something like this it would be much better to have a bit more definition. I am sure that it is the Government’s intention that these enhanced partnerships should specify the frequency and timing of local services as well as the different types of service, and indeed we have talked about these issues during the course of many amendments during the previous two days in Committee. I hope that the Minister will accept that the word “must” would be a beneficial improvement to the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I shall address Amendments 85 and 86 tabled in my name. Once again these amendments are an attempt to firm up the Bill by ensuring that enhanced partnerships take into account the list of factors specified on page 39, which at the moment suggests that they “may specify” those factors. The list includes such fundamental things as tickets and entitlement to travel. We believe that enhanced partnerships have to take these into account. We are saying not that problems have to be solved in a particular way but that enhanced partnerships must take account of this. We are not prescribing the solutions.

Amendment 86 specifies that emission levels must be included in the factors that vehicles must meet and that disabled access arrangements must be taken into account. We have raised these issues before. Once again, this is a very basic reference to simple principles that really need to be taken into account in a Bill that will become an Act in 2016 and will probably suit the industry for the next 20 or 30 years, as the previous Act did. If we want to look ahead, we have to look at the society we are serving to ensure that the factors that are so important, such as emission levels, are considered in every circumstance, not just by the best operators and the most thoughtful local authorities.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Randerson. It may appear to be an issue of semantics on the term “may specify” in new Section 138C, to which the amendment relates. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, wishes to amend the words to “must specify” and my noble friend Lady Randerson prefers the words “must consider”. I think the term “must consider” is better. “Must” is stronger than “may” and “consider” does not require a specification. I am not sure it is necessary to require an enhanced partnership to define or specify what a ticket looks like.

There are two issues in the long list of possible requirements in new Section 138C. Some have a national standard. They may relate to issues such as emissions, which my noble friend Lady Randerson has talked about, and they should apply across the country. Others are simply best left to the local arrangements and definitions of what seems appropriate. I hope that when we come to understand a little better what the list of requirements in new subsections (3) and (4) amounts to, we can get some closer definitions.

I understand that it is not necessary for this to be in the Bill, but the issue will arise in the context of statutory guidance. In that context, having read the list of requirements, it is helpful to consider what the appearance of a vehicle being used to provide local services should be. I do not fully understand whether the appearance refers to, say, the colour of a vehicle. In London, buses are red; in other places, buses in the same transport authority can be different colours. It is important that those matters are considered. Of course, appearance could relate to the number of times a bus is washed. On the appearance of a bus, if it gets dirty in winter, we prefer to have windows that people can see out of. I understand that this is a very small example, but we need to be a bit clearer about what the list of requirements actually is and, if they are requirements, whether they must or may be specified, and whether they must be considered. Having read all this very carefully, I have come to the conclusion that the words “must consider” are a better way of explaining what should be done.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response so we can understand a little better what this means by the time we reach Report.

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[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment would add an additional subsection to the list of requirements for an enhanced partnership scheme. The ability of commercial bus operators to set their own fares is a key feature of the deregulated market. Of course, fare structures are set competitively in the same way as any commercial enterprise looks at its cost base and what its competitors are charging and then structures its charges accordingly. The competition authorities have important safeguards in place to ensure that bus companies do not collude to stitch up the market and set fares at levels that disadvantage passengers, so there are already checks and balances. As an aside, I have heard people say that bus operators are charging people off their services by setting fares so high that they deter passengers. What nonsense. Why would a bus operator want to charge so much that no one uses their services?

Clause 9 inserts new Section 138C into the Transport Act 2000, setting out the requirements for an advanced partnership scheme. There are many useful things in here and I very much support the concept of enhanced partnerships where quality partnerships or even advanced quality partnerships have not been possible, for whatever reason. It would be an important addition to this new section if fare structures can be specified in an enhanced partnership only where all the bus operators in the partnership agree. Bus operators have the expertise to make these sorts of decisions and have been doing so for decades. It really should be their call, within the usual constraints of what is reasonable, on what the market will tolerate and so on. I do not think that local authorities have this expertise. Therefore, fare structures within an enhanced partnership should be for the bus operators to determine collectively. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

Before I speak to the amendments in my name, I will contribute to the debate on the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, which puzzles me. I cannot understand how a bus operator would be about to enter into an enhanced partnership if it did not agree with something as fundamental as the fare structure. The enhanced partnership would not be taking place. This is not something that local authorities are forcing bus companies to do; it is an agreement that is entered into by both sides. Therefore, if they could not agree on the fare structure, it would not be going ahead. I find the amendment puzzling.

Amendments 96 to 99 seek to find out more about how the Government envisage the system will work for enhanced partnerships. Once again we are trying to tackle the potential power of a bus operator to block an agreement or a partnership in an unreasonable manner. New Section 138F(11) refers to what the regulations may cover. But, to be honest—and I have read this a dozen times—it is pretty meaningless without seeing the draft of the regulations. So Amendments 97 and 99 require that the regulations be approved by Parliament—they cannot be slipped through by negative resolution. The important thing is that both Houses get the chance to debate the practicality and robustness of the regulations.

I remind noble Lords of what I said the last time we debated these issues. First, the Bill is a skeleton Bill. It stands or falls on the quality of the regulations. Basically, in this part of the Bill, we are being asked to approve a blank sheet of paper because we have no concept of what the regulations will look like. I remind the Minister that there are no guarantees of success for the Bill. The fact that there is a great deal of cross-party agreement with the principles of it does not mean that it will actually work in practice, because two previous attempts failed. The 2000 and 2008 Acts have not been practical. The practicality of the Bill lies in the regulations.

Secondly, I am not confident that even the Minister and his officials have a clear view yet of how some of this will work. I say this not out of any kind of inspired thought process but because the Explanatory Memorandum actually says at one point that the policy has not yet been finalised on an issue. You think to yourself, “If the Explanatory Memorandum confesses that the Government have not got round to the policy yet, clearly the regulations have not been prepared and the practicality and difficulties of them have not been assessed”.

I turn to Amendment 98. The concept is introduced elsewhere in the Bill that unreasonable objections should not be allowed. I am puzzled about why there is no mention of the concept at this point in the Bill. In this case, the provision allows objections on a purely numerical basis, rather than introducing again—consistently, I would argue—the concept that an objection might be unreasonable. This amendment attempts to introduce the concept of unreasonable objections to enhanced partnerships and address how they should be dealt with and tested. We suggest that, in the case of unreasonable objections, local authorities should have an appeal mechanism to a traffic commissioner. I hope the Minister will take on board the spirit of these amendments in an attempt to find out more details and practicalities of how this will actually work.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, the first amendment in this group was moved by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. It is not an amendment that I can support as it is not a pro-passenger amendment. It goes against the intention of the Bill, which is to improve bus services outside London and increase the number of passengers and journeys. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson: I find the noble Earl’s amendment a bit puzzling. I was not persuaded by his remarks in moving it and if it would take potential benefits away from passengers, I cannot support it.

The remaining amendments in this group are all in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. In effect, Amendments 96, 98 and 109 provide that regulations may specify what constitutes unreasonable objections to a scheme and, where authorities believe that objections are unreasonable, for an appeals mechanism to the traffic commissioner. It is very important that any proposed scheme cannot be wrecked through objections intended simply to stop the scheme coming into effect. These amendments offer some protection to avoid such situations arising. Amendments 97, 99 and 110 provide that regulations may not be made unless a draft is laid before both Houses of Parliament, which is good practice. I am always strongly in favour of allowing Parliament to consider regulations which give the Secretary of State power to take action. The amendments would also provide a useful level of protection for the Secretary of State, and the Government would be wise to take that protection. The additional level of parliamentary scrutiny is always very welcome.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, Amendment 91 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. It seeks to put into the Bill a new paragraph stating that passenger groups and other stakeholders must be consulted. We have discussed the issue before and I am sure that we will again. I am clear that the Bill is about improving the bus services that passengers receive. The voice of passengers needs to be heard loud and clear. To ensure that, our amendment puts it into the Bill. It is not good enough to rely on new paragraph (g), which states that other persons can be consulted as thought fit. This is too important to leave to chance like that.

Amendment 95, also in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch, seeks to ensure that any consultation should be of reasonable timescale and in a format that would allow interested parties to respond. Noble Lords might say that that is all very obvious and would happen anyway, but allowing a specific period and thinking about how the consultation should be undertaken will make it more meaningful. Of course, this is only a probing amendment, and the matter may in the end be more suited to guidance, but it is important to have some clarity; I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, can give us that.

Amendments 108 and 111 are in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. They seek to ensure that, when making a variation to an enhanced partnership scheme, notice must be given to bus users. That is important, as the risk is that they will otherwise be forgotten about. It could be done by notifying passenger representatives and groups. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, Amendment 93, which is in my name, states:

“Once consulted, the Competition and Markets Authority may not overturn an enhanced partnership plan and scheme”.

We tabled it because we are seriously concerned about the retrospective role of the CMA that we have seen operating in the rail industry, for example. A retrospective power to impose competition, red in tooth and claw, at all costs is at odds with the principles behind the Bill.

We have a deregulated bus market. Through the Bill, the Government are trying to bring in an element of regulation to improve quality and standards. We support that, but the potential role of the CMA could undermine or, at the very least, seriously disrupt the purpose of the Bill. It is important that we get the role of the CMA clear at this stage and that, once consulted, it will not be able to say retrospectively—after an agreement has been made or a partnership or franchise established—that it is not possible, and to disrupt it and prevent it going ahead.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to the statement put out by the CMA on 5 July. Among other things, it states:

“We recognise that the introduction of franchising may be appropriate in specific circumstances. But we continue to believe that on-road competition should only be abandoned in favour of competition for the market where it’s clear that this is the only way to secure better outcomes for the travelling public”.

I emphasise the word “only”. It is impossible to prove that something is the only way. You can prove the reverse, but it is often impossible to prove that something is the only way. That sets an impossible hurdle for local authorities trying to set up either enhanced partnerships or franchising.

The CMA states that local authorities should have to,

“demonstrate that any distortion to competition created by the proposed arrangements”—

this applies to partnerships as well as franchises—

“would be justified by the contribution to achieving other policy aims”.

That is another complex and potentially impossible step. It states that local authorities should,

“ensure that partnership schemes don’t harm competition unless it’s strictly necessary to achieve their objectives. We want that principle to be hardwired into every stage of the process”.

It recommends that,

“LTAs should be obliged to take the following steps”,

and one of them is to,

“demonstrate that any distortion to competition created by the proposed arrangements would be justified by the contribution to achieving other policy aims”.

That is setting an impossible hurdle for local authorities to achieve. It is also in danger of making even partnerships so complex to achieve that local authorities simply do not bother. If that is so, the Bill will fail.

Amendments 108 and 111 both simply specify bus users as among those who must be consulted on enhanced partnerships. This is very much in line with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, just emphasised. It is truly astonishing that the Bill, which purports to have at its heart the desire to increase the number of people using buses, specifies as people to be consulted the operators, the CMA and,

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

It is perfectly reasonable to include the operators and the CMA, but I am unsure why it is not acceptable to use the phrase “bus users” or “bus user groups”. The poor old passenger is worthy of a specific mention. I know that the Minister will say, “Of course bus users will be consulted”, but I think that they are worthy of a mention. There is no philosophical or legal objection to mentioning bus users, because the Bill mentions them at one point—but it does not mention them consistently.

I urge the Minister to take our points on board. The bus user point is not new, but the role of the CMA needs to be clarified if it is not to make it very difficult for the Bill to work as intended.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I would like to discuss Amendment 93. The noble Baroness has done the Committee a service by reading out a letter from the CMA. My first reaction was that the amendment was not a good idea, because it put a constraint on what the CMA would normally do. On page 42 of the Bill the CMA is listed as one of the organisations to be consulted, and that seemed all right to me. However, the CMA’s letter causes me some concern. Presumably, the Government consulted the CMA before drafting this text. The idea that, having been consulted once, the CMA would go against the principles of the Bill and come back for a few more bites of the cherry is going to put off a large number of authorities that might want to take forward these changes. That is worrying, because it might put off a lot of local authorities from doing it at all.

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[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 125 in my name, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has just explained, changes “may” to “must”. We strongly welcome the move to open data. For far too long, we have all accepted, possibly with some grumbling, a situation where there is a plethora of information on train services but very little information—outside London—on bus services.

I note the comments of the Delegated Powers Committee on the lack of clarity about what will happen to this information. Although the Explanatory Notes tell us that the powers given to the Secretary of State in this clause would,

“enable a single repository of information to be created”,

and that,

“The information … would be open to the public and could be used by software developers”,

in fact none of that is clear from Clause 17. Clause 17 is in effect an orphan clause, with no apparent reason or purpose. The amendment would ensure that the regulations “must” make the purpose of all this information clear and therefore that it “must” be free to users and passengers.

I support Amendments 124 and 124A in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I also support Amendment 124B because it is obviously logical to extend the information so that it includes numbers of complaints and performance statistics. However, I have some sympathy with bus operators: I have some concern about information on lack of punctuality, because in the bus industry that is largely the result of traffic congestion, which is not the fault of the bus operator. I fear that, if lack of punctuality were reported baldly, general traffic situations could adversely affect judgment on the efficiency of operators. I am interested to hear the Minister’s comments on the use to which the Government plan to put open data.

[Lord Snape]

I support my noble friend on Amendment 124. I asked the Minister previously to come to Birmingham to see what is being done under the partnership in that city—not that I am qualified to send these invitations, but still. I send the same invitation to my colleagues on the Front Bench because the Bus Alliance recently published a pamphlet about the work that it is doing in the West Midlands, particularly on environmental matters, which would be of interest to my noble friend who moved the amendment.

I do not know whether the West Midlands Bus Alliance pamphlet has been widely circulated—I did suggest that it should go to noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber who have been participating in the Committee stage. Under the chapter entitled “Air Quality”, the alliance states:

“All buses operating in the West Midlands will be Euro V, Euro VI or better by 2020”.

It lists operator investment under the Bus Alliance Partnership in the West Midlands as comprising 49 diesel electric hybrids to be delivered by Diamond, a company based in the West Midlands, and National Express West Midlands through the Government’s Green Bus Fund. Further, there are 21 Travel de Courcey buses—a company based in Coventry—which have been,

“converted from Euro II and III to Euro VI”,

again with help from the Clean Bus Technology Fund. In addition,

“A further successful bid to the Clean Bus Technology Fund will see National Express convert 150 buses from Euro III to Euro VI”,

standards prior to 2020.

That is what can be done and it ought to be done countrywide. If anything, I suggest that the amendment could be toughened up to ensure that what is being done in the West Midlands under the Bus Alliance is done around the country if we are serious about improving air quality—particularly, but not solely, in our major towns and cities.

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This clause goes too far. As I said, it is political dogma and does not belong here. If we want to improve passenger services and passenger numbers, all options should be on the table at the very least. I hope that the Minister will agree to take away this dreadful clause and reflect on the debate this evening. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, my name is attached to this amendment and I strongly support the purpose behind it. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has made quite clear, there are more than a dozen council-owned bus services in Britain. Many of them are at the very top of their game; they are some of the very best bus services in Britain.

This is a nasty, mean-minded little clause. It is totally at odds, as the noble Lord has just said, with the rest of the Bill, which is supposed to be devolving power to local authorities. It is supposed to be seeking the best possible arrangements for running bus services. For the last 30 years, since competition came to bus services, local authorities have been allowed to keep the power to set up bus companies. Why is it thought necessary to take that power away now, when they have had it in parallel with deregulation for all these years? In practice, in the last 30 years, local authorities have not rushed to set up bus companies—rather the reverse. Judging by past experience, we in this House are probably setting bus policy for the next 30 years, so the Bill needs to be robust and to have the imagination to cater for circumstances that might arise in decades to come.

It is true that in the current financial circumstances, local authorities could not afford to set up bus companies. But it is not beyond credibility that, in order to save rural services at some point in the future, when local authority finances are less tight, a local authority may decide that it needs to lease a small fleet of minibuses to provide a rural service. That is a perfectly credible scenario. This clause would prevent it doing so, even in partnership with a local operator.

What about the operator who is about to go out of business and could be saved by the local authority buying a stake in the business or buying it, and therefore saving the bus service that is so valuable to the community? Clause 21 is not devolution; it is reverse devolution. It is perverse and plainly a ridiculous limitation on local authority powers. It seems to me to be totally unprovoked as I can think of no example of a local authority in recent years attempting irresponsibly to set up a bus company. So I urge the Minister: please listen to the strength of feeling here today. It is not worth the trouble to keep this in the Bill. The Government should just allow local authorities the discretion they deserve to be able to provide a decent bus service.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, most has already been said by my colleagues on the Front Bench. This clause sticks out like a sore thumb and goes against the rest of the Bill and any commitment to localism. It undermines the rest of the Bill, which essentially gives local authorities a range of options in how to optimise the bus services in their area—urban and rural. There are many circumstances in which the provision, in partnership or directly, of a municipally owned bus fleet could play a part. If that is closed off by keeping this clause in the Bill, we will be undermining the consensus behind most of its provisions. The Minister ought to take this back to his colleagues because it will be an issue of contention in the Bill’s later stages, and is already an area of extreme contention with many local authorities and bus operators around the country. It would be wise to listen to the Committee—to speakers on this side, at any rate—and withdraw the clause, preferably before Report.

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[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, it was all going so well. I am of course deeply hurt that the noble Baroness suggested that this was nasty and vindictive. I am sure the noble Baroness was referring to the—

[Baroness Randerson]

I am sure the Minister accepts that I applied those adjectives to the clause, not to him.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Of course—I was only teasing. I understand and appreciate that. During the course of Committee thus far—I hope and am sure that noble Lords will recognise this—it has always been my intention to listen very carefully to contributions by all noble Lords regarding all elements of the Bill.

I will briefly outline where the Government stand on Clause 21. Again, I am sure we agree that private sector innovation has achieved a great deal for the bus sector. Across the country, operators are introducing smart cards, installing wi-fi and co-ordinating timetables, and some 89% of buses now comply with accessibility standards. But, as we have said previously, there is a requirement to ensure 100% compliance. All this progress is down to operators taking decisions that benefit passengers. Again, that sentiment is shared by all noble Lords. It shows that deregulation of the industry has achieved a great deal for passengers.

I am sure that many recognise that private bus companies, with some exceptions, which I acknowledge and which the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, pointed out, such as Reading Buses and Nottingham City Transport to name but a few existing municipal bus companies, have continued to deliver local bus services for more than 30 years. We want to see them continue to thrive.

The Bill introduces a number of new tools that will enable local authorities to take more control over the bus services that are provided in their area. I assure noble Lords that we want to get the balance right between the local authority influence and the role that the private sector bus operators can play, and ensure both are incentivised to deliver the best services for passengers.

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Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

127A: After Clause 21, insert the following new Clause—
“Authorities in England: funding and obligations
(1) The Bus Service Operators Grant shall be terminated from the end of the financial year which follows the passing of this Act, and the monies therefrom shall be directed to relevant authorities.(2) Where there is established demand for bus services, relevant authorities must consider joint funding of services with specialist and community operators, when otherwise no bus services would be provided.”

[Baroness Randerson]

Amendment 127A in my name would insert a new clause after Clause 21 that would cover essentially two things. First, it would phase out the bus service operators grant, with the money instead going to local transport authorities. Secondly, where there would otherwise be no bus service, yet there is a demand for such a service, it places an obligation on local transport authorities to work with specialist and community operators in partnership.

On the bus service operators grant, in a recent reply to me the Minister stated that this grant is worth £250 million a year to bus operators and local authorities, and that it has helped to extend the rural bus network by 13%. But that is only part of the picture. Basically, the bus service operators grant is going directly to operators. It is a poor incentive, particularly to greater energy efficiency. It represents the largest proportion of direct funding for the bus industry outside concessionary travel, which, of course, is not a subsidy. I believe that BSOG is currently paid to operators at a rate of 34.57p per litre of fuel used for running eligible bus services. Because it is directly linked to fuel consumption, a bus operator receives more subsidy if it increases its fuel consumption. It is therefore poorly linked to environmental objectives. BSOG artificially lowers the price of fuel and therefore reduces commercial incentives to bus operators to invest in more expensive low-carbon buses which deliver longer-term fuel and carbon savings.

At the moment, the grant subsidises bus journeys regardless of value or profitability of the service. Therefore, my amendment suggests that this grant should be phased out and that the money should go directly to local authorities. I suggest that it needs to be ring-fenced. These are, after all, tough times for local authorities and we need to ensure that the money is retained for the subsidy of bus services. Local authorities are well placed to decide local needs and priorities and to use the money to help them meet the objectives they set in their local transport plans; for example, the greening of their bus fleets. It is reasonable for the Government to decide what type of schemes can be covered by the grant but to leave it up to local authorities to choose local priorities. Crucially, the grant could be used to offer tenders to bus companies when otherwise local services would be withdrawn. I remind noble Lords that small operators, in particular, work to very small profit margins in some areas, particularly rural areas. Life as an operator in such areas is very tough and often on the margins. This grant could be used to assist them. We need to give local authorities the tools to encourage operators to keep running rural services.

Finally on this issue, as I understand it, the Government have already said that the bus service operators grant will be devolved to local authorities where franchising exists, so clearly there is no objection in principle to that. I urge the Minister to apply that approach everywhere.

The second part of the amendment is designed to ensure that local authorities work with other organisations which have a responsibility to provide local transport services, such as education, health and social services. In practice, this often means one local authority department being asked to co-operate with another local authority department, or it could mean co-operation with a neighbouring authority or with the Post Office or the health service. It seems to me simple common sense to require local authorities to work with others to get what is in effect best value for money. This is already done by some local authorities so there is no reason why it should not be done by many more. This amendment encourages them to do this. It does not force them to do it; it simply encourages them. I urge the Minister to give that serious consideration. I beg to move.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I have always had concerns about the fuel efficiency argument that the noble Baroness so skilfully articulated. I do not oppose her vision but do not quite understand why the proposed new grant to local authorities would not get swallowed up in their general budget and not result in any additional services. If the noble Baroness would touch on that point, it would be helpful.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, as a Minister, one gets used to looking in front of one and not behind. I apologise to my noble friend for not realising that he wished to speak and for attempting to speak before he did. I thank the noble Baroness for her contribution. Her proposed new clause seeks to devolve the bus service operators grant, or BSOG as it is known, to local authorities, and would require authorities to consider joint funding of subsidised local bus services in partnership with specialist and community operators.

I know that the issue of funding for bus services was raised by many noble Lords during earlier debates on the Bill, and I agree that it is a key issue that we need to tackle. BSOG is a payment made to bus operators by my department to help support local bus services outside London. Since 2013-14, some £40 million a year of BSOG has been devolved to local authorities outside London, rather than paid to the bus operators. This money is for the services that local authorities subsidise themselves through the tendering system. However, the remaining BSOG funding is paid to bus operators for commercial rather than tendered services, reflecting the fact that in the current model of bus-service delivery bus operators are responsible for providing our local bus services and deciding which services to run.

I agree that where an authority takes on the financial risk associated with providing bus services through establishing a system of franchising they should have access to the BSOG funding that would have been paid to bus companies in the area. So BSOG funding will be devolved to local authorities where franchising is established. However, it is important to remember that where franchising is not established the deregulated market remains, with bus operators responsible for devising and running local bus services.

For many bus operators, BSOG can be the difference that ensures a local bus service is viable, and this can be especially true in rural areas—a concern expressed by several noble Lords. Such commercial services, which operate with no contractual relationship with local authorities, often run across local government boundaries. So decisions taken by one local authority, if BSOG funding was devolved to it, could very easily have a significant adverse impact on services in another area. Devolving BSOG to all authorities as a matter of course could therefore have significant implications. I should explain that we are already reviewing the BSOG system with the aim of ensuring that funding is targeted where it is most needed. I envisage that we will launch a consultation later this year on how the system could be reformed.

The noble Baroness made a couple of points about BSOG being a poor incentive for fuel efficiency. A number of existing top-ups to BSOG incentivise particular improvements, including environmental improvements. I agree that a fuel-based system sends unhelpful signals. That is an issue we will be looking at in our review and the consultation to which I referred.

I hope this reassures the noble Baroness that we are thinking about the BSOG system with the aim of ensuring that we get the best out of the funding available. However, I would not want to pre-empt that exercise by setting out changes on the face of the Bill. However, I agree that resources can be used more effectively where services are planned together, and where specialist and community operators are involved. This is something we are exploring through our total transport pilots as we want to ensure we make the funding available go as far as possible.

I reassure the noble Baroness that we will continue to look further at the extent to which this policy can be pursued and championed, and whether it is something that can be considered further in the Bill. Given that reassurance and explanation, I hope that she is minded to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Randerson]

I thank the Minister for his comments. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that I acknowledge that the bus service operators grant would be at risk in the light of very tight financial circumstances in local authorities, which is why I suggested that it should be ring-fenced. However, it was not appropriate to include that measure in the amendment because it related to local government funding rather than the issue of transport. I agree with the noble Earl about the danger there but I do not think that is reason not to do it; you have to structure it right.

I welcome and look forward to the consultation this autumn that the Minister referred to, but the bus service operators grant is out of date. It needs to be modernised to reflect modern criteria and priorities, especially environmental issues and the particular needs of rural areas, which suffer badly despite the grant. I welcome the Minister’s words on the total transport pilot. I hope it is successful. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 127A withdrawn.