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Local Transport Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 71C: 71C: Clause 67, page 57, line 41, leave out ““and efficiency”” and insert ““, efficiency, integration and sustainability”” The noble Lord said: Recommendation number 34 of the Transport Select Committee makes a good deal of sense. The criteria for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of transport in an area must be more clearly explained for authorities seeking to set up ITAs or review their existing arrangements. With this amendment, I probe the Government’s thinking as to what will be regarded as economic and efficient. The recently published outline guidance on governance reviews does not provide a great deal of information. In Clause 8, the Government propose that when local transport plans are produced they, so the Government say, "““take into account any policies announced by Her Majesty’s government with respect to the protection or improvement of the environment””." There should be a similar test, perhaps when establishing the criteria upon which integrated transport authorities are created. It would be logical to ensure that the areas being established as ITAs would improve the environmental sustainability of transport within the area, rather than simply meeting an arbitrary level of efficiency determined by the Secretary of State. Our concern is that applicant ITAs could form and that their main transport interest will be to create major road schemes to connect large towns, to the detriment of rural communities between those towns and the general state of the environment. An applicant ITA should be assessed on the potential environmental and social impact of any scheme it intends to bring forward, through scrutiny of any outline local transport strategies for the proposed area. The amendment is therefore designed to test the Government's definitions of effectiveness and efficiency and ensure that they are intending to scrutinise more than this narrow governance issue when determining where ITAs may or may not be established. I beg to move.