Bus Services Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Huw Merriman Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting : House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

May I ask at the outset that any hon. Member wishing to speak will indicate that clearly by standing up, as they would in the Chamber? I want to include everyone.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I accept your invitation on that basis, Mr Nuttall. It would be incredibly remiss of me not to make at least a brief contribution, as I see a fellow member of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton, looking at me and no doubt remembering some of the things I said on this point in that Committee.

I live in a constituency where we do not even have civil parking enforcement. The hon. Member for Cambridge is correct that at the moment the police do not have the resources to deal with traffic offences. In my constituency they have even given up on dealing with people who park in a bay for two hours. As a result, many parts of the constituency are chock-a-block and no one is taking responsibility.

I am greatly concerned about the fact that there is no direction from above, conferring powers but also making sure that powers are used. I do not want to vote against the Government but I would ask the Minister to consider how they can ensure that councils take responsibility for powers that they can utilise, and how to improve council enforcement with respect to traffic movement.

The Transport Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry on urban congestion, and it is clear to us that difficult decisions must be taken. I would like local authorities to be granted more powers, and I would like us to ensure that they take them rather than arguing with the police about who does nothing.

[Andrew Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I think that councils, rather than arguing with the police about who does nothing, have significant powers, and we should encourage them to take action. I hope that we can move to much greater civil enforcement, and to people leading their councils with a view to shaping their local areas and making them better environments, in all respects, including traffic management. As for whether the Government trust councils—a point raised by the hon. Member for Cambridge—the Bill is an enabling one that gives councils powers. Clearly his underlying point is not correct.

The Government are unconvinced that, without further controls, the proposals would be anything other than the potential for revenue-raising by councils, rather than traffic management. That view is reinforced when I receive letters such as one that I had stating, “This is an opportunity for us to get some cash in.” However, I am not against the principle and will continue to talk with the Local Government Association. I discussed it only last Thursday with the LGA—Councillor Martin Tett, the leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, is leading on it—so there are live conversations.

I am happy to give the Committee my commitment that we shall continue with those discussions, but I want to make sure that we see the issue from the point of view of traffic management. If the LGA will do further work on that we can continue to talk. I do not think that the Bill is the right place to tackle moving traffic offences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

We were rather hoping that the Government would be minded to retain the parts in the Bill on employee consultation. It is disappointing that they feel the need to remove recognised representatives of affected employees from the list of statutory consultees when authorities are making advanced quality partnership and franchising schemes.

It seems a touch petty and perhaps an ideological dig at trade unions. I cannot imagine where in the Department that might have come from but I know the Minister is better than that, so I hope he might think again.

I do not understand why the Government think that local authorities should not hear from trade unions or other employee representatives when they are consulting on schemes that could have a profound impact on the local bus workforce. One thing that strikes me about the whole discussion about partnerships, which we all support, is how few people are actually aware of them in any area. Not many of my local councillors are aware of them. We have to dig deep to find that these wonderful partnerships already in place, so here is an opportunity to involve more people and to spread the word. The expertise of those frontline staff in providing the services is unique. I generally find that if I want to know what is going on, I talk to the people delivering the service on the ground. They often have a rather different take on what is happening, so if people want to know what is happening, go and talk to the drivers. Their expertise and their local knowledge is not, it seems, to be taken into account.

We are disappointed at the Government’s removal of what seemed to us to be harmless and sensible provisions. When this was discussed in the other place, the Minister, Lord Ahmad, said:

“I agree that it is important that employee groups are consulted appropriately on proposals to improve local bus services. I agree particularly that significant changes to local bus services could well impact local bus industry employees, so it is only fair that they are given the opportunity for input in such circumstances.”

He also said:

“I agree that employee groups and others affected by the proposals should always be consulted formally on franchising schemes”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 June 2016; Vol. 773, c. 1651.]

I appreciate we are extending this to the other forms of partnership, but the principle seems fairly clear.

Amendments 22, 27 and 28 are partly related to drafting issues. We think that amendment 22 corrects a minor technical error in the Bill and clears up what we think must have been a typo, because clauses 4 to 6 relate to franchising schemes but clause 4 refers to “advance quality partnership schemes”. Amendments 27 and 28 would, in our view, simply tidy it up the Bill and bring clauses 9 to 15 on enhanced partnerships in line with those on advanced quality partnerships and franchising. My amendment inserts into the section on enhanced partnership plans and schemes a requirement that a local authority or authorities must consult appropriate representatives of any affected employees.

[Huw Merriman]

Just so that I am clear on this: the hon. Member is expecting that local authorities would consult with the employees of an organisation where they are already employed by a non-local authority employer. This is not relating to municipals on that basis. If that is the case, surely that opens up a Pandora’s box: whenever a local authority wishes to change a contractor for refuse services, it has to talk to all of the employees of all of the refuse companies. Where does this end? Where does this link to the desire to make the process simpler for local authorities? If this amendment were to be accepted it would make the process incredibly cumbersome.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I would not disagree that the processes are complicated. Our point is that if you are looking to redesign local services, who better to talk to than those that are actually involved in delivering them? I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that it does raise other issues, and I would agree that talking to the people providing those services gives us a better chance of getting the end system better, whether it is the provision of refuse services or any other services,.

[Huw Merriman]

Is there not a danger that you spend a lot of time talking at great cost and actually delivering very little, which is exactly contrary to what we are trying to do with this Bus Services Bill?

[Daniel Zeichner]

When we are redesigning services that are going to have a major impact on people across a local area, it is certainly worth talking to people. Quite often, we are talking about representatives of people. It is a question of having one or two extra consultees, so I am not sure that it is a huge extra burden. My worry is that people who have the knowledge are being excluded from those discussions. My practical experience on the ground, as I already intimated, is that very few people know about these partnerships. The involvement of many more people would lead to a better outcome.

Amendment 27 refers to

“appropriate representatives of any affected employees”.

That means representatives of recognised trade unions or employee representatives who have been appointed or elected by the affected employees. The amendments effectively make trade union representatives statutory consultees when a local authority makes enhanced partnership schemes. That is already provided for elsewhere in the Bill—local authorities bringing in advanced quality partnership schemes or franchising schemes must consult with “appropriate representatives”. There is no reason why that should not also be the case for enhanced partnership schemes.