Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken in Committee today I draw the Committee’s attention to my being a member of a local authority and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am very supportive of Amendment 84A, moved by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, which seeks to put in the Bill a requirement that an enhanced partnership scheme,

“must state the minimum standards of service to be provided”.

It seems sensible that we should state clearly what the expected minimum standards are for a scheme. My noble friend laid out clearly the reasons why. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, will give a positive response.

I am supportive of the other amendments in the group as well. Amendment 84B, again in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, would toughen up the clause by replacing “may” with “must”. All of us want to see the Bill become law and improve the bus services provided to people outside London. Where we can, being much clearer and certain on what is to be done is helpful. In this respect, removing “may” and inserting “must” is helpful. Amendments 85 and 86 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, would place a requirement on enhanced partnership schemes to consider what are the other requirements or standards to be provided.

The final amendment in this group is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch. It seeks to add a further provision on the collection of qualitative performance measures, specifying that these could include matters of passenger satisfaction. The service that passengers receive in all respects should be measured and taken account of. If people are unhappy about the cleanliness of their bus or other matters when they travel, that should be taken account of by the authorities. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response to these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I very much support the inclusion of Clause 21 in the Bill, so I cannot support the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Baroness in seeking its removal.

Municipal bus companies—to be honest, there are only a few—served a very useful purpose prior to the deregulation of the market. Among those remaining in existence, there are indeed some great operators. Reading Buses and Nottingham City Transport, for example, consistently provide excellent services and win award after award. I hope that I am not doing others a disservice by not specifically mentioning their hard work and achievements. I agree with some of the compliments paid to these operators by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.

I know that the mood music surrounding this clause has caused some concerns about the future existence of the remaining local authority-owned companies. This is simply extremely unhelpful and unfortunate. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will state very firmly that those existing companies have nothing to fear and that he will be able to reassure them and the Committee that there is nothing in this Bill that threatens their existence.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked, “What is wrong?”. In the case of a local authority looking to go down the franchise route, the authority invites a bid for the contract. Its own company submits a bid—it would be rather odd if it did not. Preparing bids is an expensive and time-consuming business. So who has paid for the local authority-owned company to bid? Yes, the local authority that owns it. Would the local authority award the contract to the company it owns? You bet it would. Otherwise it would put its own company out of business. To me this all smells of state aid.

So again we are back to fairness and level playing fields. Allowing a franchise authority to create its own company, which would then bid and win that franchise, almost by the back door, is simply wrong. My counsel is that Clause 21 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I could not agree less with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, on this matter. The grounds that he has produced seem to relate to a potential conflict of interest where the local authority is a franchising authority. Clearly, there could be—but, of course, not all contracting will relate to franchises. A whole set of partnership arrangements will be possible. The noble Earl is asking the wrong question, if I may say so.

I remind the Committee of my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. Clause 21 is a very bad clause and I hope that the Minister understands that it will become a major issue on Report if the matter is not resolved. The clause is headed, “Bus companies: limitation of powers of authorities in England”. Of course, it does not apply in Wales, where local authorities would have the right to continue to create companies if they wished to. But that right to form a company exists now and it seems to have worked. So it is not clear why the Government have decided to include this clause in the Bill, which is otherwise, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, pointed out, by and large very good in many respects. Many of the amendments we have been discussing are matters of detail that would enhance what is already a good Bill.

I remind the Minister that five years ago this House passed the Localism Act 2011, which granted an extension of powers to local authorities with an associated general power of competence. That is not to say that local authorities then take on that power and start creating lots of companies, but it means that they have the power to do so should there be an occasion when it seems necessary and in the public interest so to do. It is therefore wrong in principle to remove the right of local councils to do that.

So I hope the Minister will understand the strength of feeling about this issue, and I hope that he will be able to explain to the House why the Government think it is necessary to strike out a power that local government currently has, which has served local government well and would potentially improve public transport networks rather than make them worse.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, my reading of this clause is that even those authorities that are running bus services now will not be able to do so in future. That is very serious. To respond to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, if a local authority wishes to run a bus service, it does not need a franchise itself: it can just run the service. Ditto, it does not have to have an enhanced partnership with itself: it can just run the service. So it seems to me that if the local authority wanted to run the service it could just do it if this clause was not there. It does not need to have a conflict of interest.

I support all noble Lords on this side of the House who have spoken. This is a really bad clause. It has many similarities with the railway industry, which we can go into. I very much hope that we will see the end of it quite soon.