---

Local Transport Bill [HL] Bill

Perhaps while my noble friend is considering her answer I could help her a little. On the question of performance, when is a late bus a cancelled bus? I was in Cornwall a couple of years ago and waited an hour for a bus that did not come and got the next bus. The same thing happened on the way back. I wrote to the bus company chairman and said that his bus had not come either way. I asked whether, given that he received a six-figure subsidy from the county council to operate the service, he should not make his buses run. The answer was, ““Well, the driver didn’t turn up””. If that was the case with a train, there would be questions here if it happened too often. The driver did not turn up so what do you do about it? Oh, dear—you wait an hour. This is the difference. I accept my noble friend’s argument that this is probably the wrong place to put an amendment, but somehow we have to get this into a traffic commissioner’s remit that it actually matters if a bus does not turn up just because a driver did not turn up. What about a spare driver?