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Transport (Wales) Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the Transport (Wales) Bill is to provide powers to enable the National Assembly for Wales to deliver a first-class integrated transport system for Wales. Along with existing powers and those that the Assembly is acquiring under the Railways Act, the Transport (Wales) Bill will provide the Assembly with a comprehensive and coherent set of transport powers for the first time. At present the Assembly has to rely on a patchwork of legislative provisions relating to transport that date back to the Ministry of Transport Act 1919. The Bill will ensure that the Assembly has the powers it needs to deliver a properly integrated transport system for the whole of Wales. I shall explain briefly how the Bill has been carefully developed over a number of years. As far back as 1997, the Welsh Transport Advisory Group, chaired by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales—who was then Transport Minister in the Welsh Office—started examining the transport legacy which the Assembly would inherit. That work was further developed in the policy review of public transport conducted by the Assembly’s former Environment, Planning and Transport Committee in 2001. When the Assembly Government responded to the review in July the following year, it indicated that it would seek transport planning and implementation powers along the lines of those available to the Mayor of London under the Greater London Authority Act 1999; a power to enable the Assembly to establish a joint transport authority and to allow for that possibility in any part of Wales; and to seek power to direct the Strategic Rail Authority. There was a wide degree of cross-party support for those proposals in the Assembly itself. Noble Lords will be aware that this Bill was originally published as a draft on 27 May 2004. It was then subject to scrutiny jointly by the Welsh Affairs Committee of the other place and the Assembly’s Economic Development and Transport Committee. That represented a small but significant piece of constitutional history, as it was the first time that a Select Committee from the other place had formally met with a committee of a devolved administration. Those meetings demonstrated an innovative and progressive approach to pre-legislative scrutiny and, again, they demonstrated a high level of cross-party support for the measures in the Bill. There was also a major public consultation involving all key interested parties. In total, 14 recommendations made as part of the public consultation were accepted and changes were made to the draft Bill; 11 of those recommendations mirrored those within the Welsh Affairs and the Economic Development and Transport Committees’ reports on the Bill. For example, it was recommended that a clause should be included in the Bill to provide the Assembly with the power necessary to establish a public transport users’ committee for Wales. That recommendation was accepted and the power is now covered in Clauses 8 to 10 of the Bill. I should make it absolutely clear at this stage that the rail provisions, which were included in the draft Bill, have now been removed. Equivalent powers now form part of the Railways Act 2005. That means that while rail services will form a central part of the Wales Transport Strategy, most of the relevant rail provisions are now contained in that Act. I have hosted two meetings in the House of Lords attended by the relevant Ministers—one in July 2004 and the other on 19th of last month—to provide further information on the Bill to Members of this House who wished to attend. We are not planning to table any government amendments, as the sheer amount of pre-legislative scrutiny has refined the Bill in such a way that we are all very happy with it. However, I should be grateful to noble Lords if they could let us know whether there are any ways in which the Bill could be further improved and I undertake to give the most careful consideration to any such suggestions. I turn briefly to the provisions of the Bill. The Transport (Wales) Bill will make the development of transport in Wales a core task of the Assembly. First, the Bill will place a new statutory duty on the Assembly to develop and implement policies for the promotion of safe, integrated, sustainable, efficient and economic transport facilities and services. The Assembly would also be required to prepare and publish a Wales Transport Strategy setting out the Assembly’s vision for a transport system which strikes a balance between our economic, social and environmental objectives, as well as focusing on how that vision is to be delivered. The Assembly intends to consult widely with all interested parties in drawing up the strategy. The Bill contains a statutory requirement on the Assembly to consult Welsh local authorities and those in England that border Wales. English authorities will be involved in the development of the Wales Transport Strategy and the Welsh Assembly Government will work to enhance transport services and infrastructure—so the strategy will work for people on both sides of the border. Secondly, while local authorities are already required to prepare local transport plans, the Bill will now provide a formal mechanism to ensure that their transport plans are consistent with the Assembly’s overall vision for transport in Wales. In other words, local authorities will be required to produce new local transport plans in line with the Wales Transport Strategy. In order to ensure that local transport plans are consistent with the Wales Transport Strategy, they will need to be submitted to the Assembly for approval. Refusing approval will be possible only with the approval of the Assembly in plenary session. The Assembly and local authorities will work closely on these plans and I anticipate that any refusal to approve a plan would be wholly exceptional. Another important element of the Bill is the provision to facilitate greater joint working by local authorities to produce transport plans, which is essential to make real improvements in key transport corridors. The particular geography of Wales means that transport issues often cross local authority boundaries, and consequently need to be tackled on a regional basis. The most telling example of this is, of course, south east Wales, which covers 10 local authority areas and around half the population of Wales. Here, there is an existing pattern of travel-to-work movements from the valleys into Cardiff and Newport, which is superimposed on more strategic east-west movement along the M4 corridor and, to a lesser extent, the A465 heads of the valleys road. A regional approach is the only realistic way to tackle transport planning in these circumstances. It would address both public transport and road traffic management, as well as dealing effectively with the strategic trunk road network. The Bill also contains a power to establish a joint transport authority, which would consist of two or more local authorities working together jointly to tackle transport issues in a given region. Powers granted to a joint authority might, for example, include the co-ordination of bus timetables, a standardised approach towards bus lanes and bus stops and improved services across local authority boundaries. This is an enabling provision, and the Assembly Government have made it clear that they would invoke that power only if they felt that the current voluntary arrangements were not making sufficient progress in delivering integrated transport solutions in any part of Wales. The next main provision of the Bill will enable the Assembly to provide funding for transport services direct to transport operators, in order to ensure that unfulfilled transport needs in Wales are met. The new power might be used to support services which cross a number of local authority boundaries; for example, to implement the Assembly’s long-distance bus and coach strategy. The Bill will also give the Assembly the power to provide revenue payments to airline operators or capital funding to provide new airport facilities, subject, of course, to the constraints of EC competition law. This will allow the Assembly to implement its policies on intra-Wales scheduled air services, for example. Additionally, the Bill would enable the Assembly to establish a public transport users’ committee for Wales. As I said earlier, this is a new provision added in response to views expressed during pre-legislative scrutiny. The committee will cover all public transport modes—that is, ferries, air services and taxis, as well as buses and trains—ensuring that the voice of the passenger is heard. I should point out that funding for all aspects of the Transport (Wales) Bill—for example, the establishment of the public transport users’ committee—will be met by the Assembly and there will be no new money from Westminster. I greatly look forward to listening to noble Lords’ views on the Bill. If it is enacted, the Assembly will have a new statutory duty to develop and implement policies for the promotion of safe, integrated, sustainable, efficient and economic transport facilities and services. It is an aspiration that we can all share. If noble Lords have questions about any aspects of the Bill, the policy that underlies it or the detail of how we envisage the arrangements working, I would be more than happy to discuss these with them, or to provide a written reply as the groundwork for further discussion in Committee. This is an important Bill which has received widespread support from interested parties in Wales and other places. I hope that in this House we can achieve a similar degree of consensus on the principles of what is a significant Bill for developing an integrated transport system in Wales. I commend the Bill to the House. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)