Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

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

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I have to say that I remain unconvinced by the arguments advanced by noble Lords in support of the amendments and, once again, I urge my noble friend the Minister to resist them.

As I said in Committee, combined authorities with elected mayors or any other local authority with an elected mayor are very different beasts from local authorities which have not gone down the route of an elected mayor. These authorities have thrashed out a devolution deal with the Government and are fully accountable to their citizens, so will be granted the powers to introduce local bus franchising. Even the mere suggestion that a local authority is thinking about franchising will cause uncertainty for industry. Of course that uncertainty could go on for years, indefinitely perhaps—a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Snape.

There are few things that serve to stifle innovation and investment more than uncertainty. All the while, bus operators would have no incentive to adapt their services to meet the needs of their passengers. Who would blame them, given that they could be out of business should the local authority actually make a decision and use the powers? Services would inevitably deteriorate and passengers would be the losers.

Local bus franchising, and indeed the whole concept of devolution, are not steps that can be taken lightly. There needs to be due process and proper scrutiny. Those areas with agreed devolution deals have taken that brave political step. It is absolutely right that there be a separate process for areas that have not secured a devolution agreement, and a process that will require the affirmative procedure giving Parliament the final say is, in my view, exactly what we need. I really cannot support these amendments and my noble friend will have my full support in resisting them should they be pressed to a Division.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, listening to my noble friend Lord Snape and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, makes me think that some of the reasons they are putting forward are really to do with the fact that they do not like the idea of franchises at all. I can accept that view. I think that franchises could be a very useful contribution to better bus services in many areas. However, I do not understand why a mayoral authority, but nobody else, is allowed to do this without the permission of the Secretary of State. Maybe the Minister can explain it. I mentioned Cornwall, which is one of the few authorities that, as far as I can gather, will be allowed to do it. If one thinks that all mayoral authorities are the epitome of perfection and all the other schemes in proposed new Sections 123B to 123F in the clause need a great deal of supervision from the Department for Transport, one could look at the “Rotten Boroughs” column in Private Eye every fortnight and count up which ones are mentioned most often for having allegations of sleaze, fiddle or something else. I fully support this amendment and I look forward to the Minister’s answers.

[Earl Attlee]

In response to the question posed by the noble Lord to me and the noble Lord, Lord Snape, I say that we oppose extending the right to franchising without the authority of the Secretary of State to provide certainty for the operators unless the local authority can get permission from the Secretary of State.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

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

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, we debated many of these issues in Committee and earlier. I mentioned in Committee the issue of Cornwall being allowed to do certain things, even though it does not have a mayor. I was rather shocked to hear the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government at a conference in Exeter on Friday, which was about making the south-west flourish and grow. Somebody raised the question of what a mayoralty can do which a local authority cannot. The Secretary of State responded, “If you want any money for the regions, including for transport, you had better get an elected mayor pretty quick”, and said that Somerset, Devon and Cornwall must have an elected mayor if they want any money. We can debate long and hard whether those three counties plus the cities of Plymouth and Torbay would ever agree on an elected mayor; that is a slightly different issue. He went on to say that the agreement that has been reached between Cornwall Council and the Government was of no interest because there was no money involved. They would not get any more money unless they elected a mayor. I imagine that this applies to any other rural part of the country.

Can the Minister say in this connection—because it is all to do with money at the end of the day—whether the Government have changed their policy on regional support for transport? The regions, and certainly Cornwall and the south-west, will lose a lot of money because of the Brexit situation, so if they want any money for extra services such as bus services, whether they are community services or something else, does that mean that they will have to become a mayoralty, and we will have a mayor of the south-west and a mayor of Cornwall? This is quite radical. The Secretary of State was absolutely adamant about this in response to several questions from the audience. Maybe the Minister has not had a chance to hear about this, but it will be interesting to hear whether the Government’s policy has changed.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. On that final point from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I am sure he will not be surprised to hear that I will look into those comments. However, the Government’s position has been made clear during the course of the Bill. Certainly, on the franchising issue and specifically on mayoral authorities, we believe that they are the preferred model because of their governance issues. On the other issues he raised, I have not seen those comments so it would be inappropriate for me to say any more at this juncture. However, I will read his contribution and come back to him.

The amendments before us concern the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. As we all agree, and as I have said repeatedly, we accept the principle that it encourages those who commission public services to talk to their local providers and communities to design better services. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, first raised this issue at Second Reading and it has been a constant theme throughout the passage of the Bill.

As I have said before, and as noble Lords have acknowledged previously, the 2012 Act already applies to certain procurements by local authorities. In addition, based on our discussions both at Second Reading and in Committee—I hope noble Lords have seen the draft guidance that my department issued recently—we have taken on board the comments and contributions made in the debates on the Bill to ensure that that is reflected appropriately in the guidance. As I am sure noble Lords have seen, it sets out that where the provisions of the Act do not apply because the procurement value falls below relevant thresholds, there is still a need for local authorities to apply the core principles of the Act when procuring services. So not only have we listened but we have acted to strengthen the guidance beyond the original provisions of the Act.

As I said in Committee, we do not believe that we need reference in the Bill to an existing piece of legislation that applies in its own right. However, we accept the principle, and that is why we have strengthened it in the guidance that will accompany the Bill. More broadly, I think that noble Lords are keen to ensure that authorities think about the social, economic and environmental benefits and impacts of schemes. I agree entirely but point out that the Bill already requires authorities to think about these benefits through the franchising and enhanced partnership provisions.

As noble Lords will no doubt recall, as part of their assessment of their proposed franchising schemes, authorities will need to consider value for money, which will include detailed analysis of the social, economic and environmental impacts. Likewise, for enhanced partnerships, the Bill specifies that a scheme can be introduced only where it brings benefits to people using buses or where it reduces congestion, noise or air pollution. Therefore, the Government have listened and, as can be seen from the way we have strengthened the guidance accompanying the Bill, as well as the provisions of the Act relating to the procurement of services, we have specifically considered the social, economic and environmental costs of schemes, and that is well embedded in the Bill.

I hope that noble Lords will be assured by the action we have taken to strengthen and enhance the guidance accompanying the Bill. The existing legislation will be brought to the attention of local authorities and will be referenced in that guidance. We feel that using the guidance is the appropriate way to address this important topic. Again, I thank noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, for raising this issue at an early stage in the Bill. I feel that we have made progress and I hope she will feel minded to withdraw the amendment.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

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

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, this amendment is about bus safety. I would like to think that it is so sensible that it will be accepted. Statistics released by the Department for Transport show that 5,381 collisions of buses and coaches were recorded last year, of which 64 resulted in fatalities and 638 in serious injuries. This amendment would help to address this worrying safety record by requiring all bus operators to subscribe to CIRAS, the Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System, and for bus operators and their contracting local authorities to collect and publish casualty data for public scrutiny every quarter.

CIRAS is standard across the rail industry and began in 1996, when a team from Strathclyde University was asked to introduce a confidential reporting system for UK rail company ScotRail. It allows employees to report any health, safety, security and environmental concerns they might have. All employee information is kept confidential. Introducing CIRAS to the bus network would give employees an extra way of reporting any concerns, complementing the proven methods that are already in place for reporting and investigating incidents. Under huge pressure from one campaigner who was a victim of a bus crash, Tom Kearney, and with a little help from Green Party elected people, Transport for London adopted this policy on 31 July last year and subsequently incorporated it into its bus safety plan, published on 1 February this year. Due to the bus safety reporting practices we won in London, the Department for Transport has confirmed to us that we know the names of the bus operators involved in only 14 of those 64 fatal bus collisions; that is 22%.

According to a report published by CIRAS in July, since going live in January 2016, safety reports from TfL bus employees constituted 25% of all safety reports during the first half of the year. Since TfL bus operators are fewer than 2% of CIRAS members nationwide, that is a key indicator of the desire for bus sector employees to be proactive in reporting their operational safety concerns. It also means that the DfT has no idea which operators were involved in well over 5,000 bus collisions and 50 deaths last year. TfL knows every single one in over 27,000.

Operators in London carry more than half the passenger journeys in England and, including their services outside London, account for more than 80% of the market. Those operators already subscribe to the CIRAS scheme and will not incur any further cost as a result of the amendment. The cost to other operators of subscribing will be negligible: between £300 and £25,000 per annum depending on turnover and representing no more than 0.03% of their turnover. The amendment would also require operators to collect bus casualty data and provide it to the applicable authority. It would require those authorities to publish quarterly casualty data on their websites.

I am sure noble Lords know this already, but a death on the roads comes to nearly £2 million when the entire cost to public services is taken into account. Money could be saved massively, not only for the NHS, but also for councils and others who have to provide social services to bereaved families. Since 2014, Transport for London has provided more transparency for the public on both the extent of the problems and the very varied safety records of different operators. There is also a slightly concerning fact that this amendment could represent the only language in the Bill that addresses the operational safety performance of the bus services covered by this landmark legislation.

As has already been proven in the air, maritime and rail industries, public reporting and scrutiny of operator safety performance and access to confidential and independent incident reporting can do much to catalyse the formation of a self-reinforcing safety culture within companies. I believe that the amendment represents a proportionate measure to improve bus safety, learning from the progress made in the rail industry and in the bus market in London. I hope that the Government will support the amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much support this amendment. My noble friend has set out very clearly why it is necessary. It is useful to reflect on the continuing difference in the way road and rail accidents and injuries are considered. I recall a few years ago when the Government were forming Highways England—I think that is the name of it now—several of us tabling an amendment which stated that the Office of Rail and Road, as it became, should be responsible for road safety. It was soundly rejected by the Government because it would have shown up just how unsafe the roads were, are and probably will be in the future.

I think my noble friend said that were 64 fatal bus collisions; I cannot remember whether it was last year or in a year. That compares with none on the railways, or maybe one in some years. Yet nobody even seems to think the subject worth collecting statistics on. She mentioned £2 million for every fatality, which is a figure that has long been used in the transport industry, be it in rail or road. It usually means that if the cause of the fatality can be identified and avoided from happening again for less than £2 million, you would spend the money on it, and if it was more than that you might not. If the value is the same, one’s only conclusion can be that the Government think that the value of a bus passenger’s life is less than the value of a rail passenger’s life when they die in a bus accident. This is a very dangerous situation to get into. We are not going to have an Office of Rail and Road looking after road safety tonight, but this amendment is a very good start to a debate that will probably go on for many years. I fully support it.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, this is a new issue raised at a late stage in the process, but nevertheless it is extremely important. This is a critical point for confidential reporting. It is no good just very thoroughly investigating serious, fatal accidents but not looking at the near misses, because there are many more data to be extracted from near misses. Today’s near miss is tomorrow’s very serious accident. Sometimes when things go horribly wrong, there are little things leading up to it; it is not just an out-of-the-blue serious incident.

On the previous amendment, the best argument of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, was the need for localism. While the Minister should take on the principle and the need for confidential reporting and strongly encourage it, under the principle of localism he would be better to leave local authorities to decide whether they need to put this into their franchise agreement or not.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

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

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot recall what position I took on the noble Baroness’s amendment in Committee, but I am not sure that it is one that we should accept. The reason is simply that air crashes and rail crashes are extremely complex events and it is not always clear what has caused an accident. The accidents that the noble Baroness refers to are road traffic accidents where, generally speaking, it is obvious what caused the accident. This is not an amendment that I would support.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I do support this amendment; my noble friend has set out the need for this confidential safety reporting very clearly. I do not accept the comment from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that rail and air accidents are complex and therefore need confidential safety reporting but that road is quite simple—you have an accident and it is quite clear who caused it.

There is also a marine confidential reporting system, which noble Lords may know about. You could argue that you hit something or you hit another ship and it is clear what the cause was, but I think that it is a slightly simplistic argument. We are talking about a confidential reporting system that may include something that is wrong with the equipment—whether ship or aeroplane—that a person is operating. There may be something he or she feels that their employer should have done something about and has not. One likes to think that, with confidential reporting, that could be put right without employees’ putting their jobs at risk. That does not always happen but in other sectors such a provision is an incentive to report issues. I think the systems are exactly the same as between air, road, rail and marine. As my noble friend said, it is interesting to note that confidential reporting has worked well with the railways. Indeed, she has changed the amendment to reflect the situation that operates on the railways.

A few years ago, both the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I tried to get the Office of Rail and Road, as it is now called, to take responsibility for road safety on the trunk road network and the motorways in the same way as it does for the rail network. We argued that the conditions on the respective networks were much the same. That office had the expertise not just to say, when investigating an accident, that things could be done better, but to go into all the information, statistics and safety rules and bring in one consistent policy, at least for road and rail. I argue that air and marine are slightly different areas but road and rail are very similar land surface forms of transport.

I consider that the confidential reporting mechanism gives comfort to drivers and other staff employed on buses. They are mostly operated by one person, the driver, so we are talking about just drivers. I think that it would also give comfort to passengers. It is evident that most London bus services are extremely good. However, I think that other bus operators sometimes put their drivers under pressure to bend the rules, whether on drivers’ hours, speeding or not looking after their passengers properly. If confidential reporting were in place, people would have the ability to make complaints if they wished to do so. It would also give operators an incentive not to abuse the system and to improve the quality of journeys generally, which is what this whole Bill is about.

My noble friend said that bus operators in London have introduced confidential reporting. That is wonderful but there is no reason why London bus passengers or employees should be treated any differently from those in the rest of the country. Another reason for introducing this Bill is to bring the quality of services in other parts of the country in line with that of the service in London.

This is a good amendment which we have discussed several times at various stages. Frankly, if the Minister rejects it now, I would have to ask him whether the Government consider that bus accidents, bad driving by bus drivers or bad quality of bus services—buses are a form of public transport, as are rail, ferries or air transport—and the necessity of having good-quality, safe bus services are less important for buses than for other forms of transport, perhaps because not so many Members of your Lordships’ House travel by bus as by other forms of transport. I hope that is not the case. However, if the amendment were rejected, that would be my perception. As I say, this is a good amendment and I support it.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, having heard the exchanges on both sides, I wish to raise a couple of points with the noble Baroness who moved this amendment. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, made a relevant point when he talked about the difference between accidents involving buses and those involving trains and aeroplanes. The Croydon tragedy has just been mentioned. All I will say about that is that three separate inquiries into that tragedy are taking place at present. If a similar number of passengers had been killed by a bus overturning on a bend, there would not be three separate inquiries but an inquest into the deaths. That might go some way to underline my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s point but it also supports the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that we have different procedures. Just because we have different procedures does not mean that we are any less concerned about bus safety.