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Transport (Wales) Bill

Clause 8 allows the Assembly to set up a Public Transport Users’ Committee for Wales by order made in plenary session. Amendment No. 16 would place a requirement in the Bill for a sub-committee with specific responsibility for transport provision for the elderly, the disabled and those described so movingly by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno. All matters of practical detail relating to the committee have not been specified in the Bill, but will be delegated to the Assembly to be dealt with by secondary legislation. This will allow the Assembly to conduct an extensive public consultation with interested parties, not least transport users themselves, on such issues before making the order establishing the committee. I am sure that the Assembly wants to give careful consideration to how best to ensure that disabled and elderly transport users are represented on the committee following the outcome of the consultation. However, there is an important matter of principle here. The operation of the committee is a matter for the Assembly and we do not feel it is appropriate to specify such matters in the Bill. In relation to Amendment No. 17, Clause 8 provides that a Public Transport Users’ Committee created by the Assembly by order would be a body corporate. Clause 9(9) gives statutory force to the common law rule that a corporation may do not only those things for which there is an express or implied authority, but also whatever is reasonably incidental to the doing of those things. It is a well-established supplemental power based on the power contained in Section 1(11) of the Local Government Act 1972 and Section 40 of the Government of Wales Act 1998. The exercise of the power conferred by Clause 9(9) must be ancillary to the function of the Public Transport Users’ Committee for Wales. Those functions will be set out in the order creating the committee. The subsection does not, of itself, authorise the performance of any activity—it only confers a subsidiary power which will assist the committee in the discharge of its functions. I hope that the noble Lord finds this rather legalistic answer satisfactory, and I invite him to withdraw the amendment.