Draft South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (Transfer of Functions) Order 2023

Debate between Richard Holden and Greg Knight

Thursday 19th January 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Richard Holden)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Draft South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (Transfer of Functions) Order 2023.

The draft order was laid before Parliament on 8 November and agreed to in the House of Lords on 19 December. It is solely concerned with the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive and the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. Henceforth, I shall refer to passenger transport executives as PTEs and mayoral combined authorities as MCAs.

The draft order was laid at the original request of the former Mayor of South Yorkshire, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), with the full support of the current Mayor of South Yorkshire. The order is being made under section 85 of the Passenger Transport Act 1985, which allows the Secretary of State for Transport to make provision for the dissolution of PTEs and to transfer their functions, property, rights and liabilities to an integrated transport authority for the area. The order will dissolve the South Yorkshire PTE and transfer its functions, property, rights and liabilities to the South Yorkshire MCA.

PTEs are delivery bodies responsible for implementing the strategic transport plans in their area and for securing the provision of local public transport across the area as they consider appropriate. That includes commissioning socially necessary bus services and administering travel concessionary schemes. PTEs have existed in many of our larger city regions, predating the combined authorities, which are now largely responsible for transport planning in those areas.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

The explanatory memorandum that the Minister’s Department has produced, at paragraph 12.2, under “Impact”, states:

“The impact on the public sector is beneficial, as this consolidates two local public bodies into a single organisation, which should lead to operational efficiencies.”

Will there be any departmental review, say in 12 months’ time, to see whether that is indeed the case?

[Mr Holden]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. We are not planning any reviews at the moment. The main issue is that the mayoral combined authority has responsibility in this space. The passenger transport executive operates in the same building, as I understand it, but has to publish its own independent set of accounts, so although they work closely together, the dual administrative set-up continues. Merging them into one means little need to look at what extra can be done, as we are mainly removing the extra administrative burdens that exist currently for the PTE body, but which will now be automatically covered by the MCA. I hope that reassures him. In fact, my first decision as a Minister was to pass this draft statutory instrument, so I have spent an inordinate quantity of time looking at it in depth.

The South Yorkshire PTE was established by the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Area Order 1973. It has variously been accountable to the metropolitan county council, the passenger transport authority and the integrated transport authority.