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Local Transport Bill [HL]

I do not accept my noble friend’s premise. Nor do I accept his premise that a quality contract would necessarily go to the lowest bidder, because this is not just about finding the lowest bidder for a particular service in those circumstances. As we have already discussed quality contracts, the scope for their development is constrained and, as we found with the operation of the Transport Act 2000, this has not yet been a route that people have particularly wanted to explore. I therefore do not see this as the big threat that my noble friend may see it as. I am not saying that he sees it as a big threat, but we want to explore this particular small issue. We shall take it away and see whether we might need to have recourse to it at some point. As I said, I do not give an absolute commitment to bring something back. There may well be circumstances in which it would be a useful provision to have, but I suspect they would be very rare.