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Local Transport Bill [Lords]

May I apologise for missing the start of the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker? I had another meeting to attend, which was tied in with my Front-Bench responsibilities. I join other hon. Members in welcoming the broad provisions in the Bill, particularly the end to deregulation. All who represent urban areas have seen the devastating effect that deregulation has had on our communities and on the bus services on which many of them rely so heavily. If one looks outside the urban areas and visits rural areas, one will see that the bus network has virtually disappeared; as hon. Members have said, buses are infrequent. Perhaps with one or two exceptions—places such as York, Cambridge and Brighton—deregulation has not worked, primarily because, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) said, we replaced what was largely a public monopoly—most bus companies were run by local councils—with a private monopoly; in most areas, it was replaced by five major bus companies operating in the conurbations. As he rightly said, the interests of those bus companies are about profit and maximising the amount of subsidy that they can get, rather than about providing a public service. I served on a passenger transport authority, where I saw what happens each year as it prepares its budget. I have seen how the bus companies juggle which services they will deregister to maximise the subsidy and how the PTA is then forced to make cuts in its regular subsidised service or to increase costs to students and, in the past, to pensioners. Such a system does not have a good effect in terms of enabling proper planning and ensuring that the bus service and bus network meets the needs of the local community. Deregulation has served those five major bus companies, especially when one compares the profits that those bus companies make with the return that they get in London, where there is a regulated network. In London, the return is 7, 8 or 9 per cent., but in Greater Manchester and Yorkshire, it is double that. In those urban areas, the private bus companies have profiteered at the expense of passengers and they are not providing the services that we want them to provide. I do not accept the claim by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) that the past was a golden age. I remember one of my first actions as a local councillor was trying to get GM Bus, as it was at the time, to change a bus route, which proved impossible. When deregulation was introduced, we were promised that it would enable that responsiveness to passenger demand. That has not happened, and instead we have seen the withdrawal of bus services. An area such as Rochdale is primarily served by one company—FirstGroup—which provides a poor quality of service that does not meet local needs. Meeting local needs is not the company's aim, because its aim is maximising profit. I welcome the proposals in the Bill to introduce regulation, whether through quality contracts or quality partnerships. We have talked a lot about the ills of the past 20 years this afternoon, but we must start to consider what will happen now. As the price of oil increases—I am shocked that the Department for Transport works on an oil price of only $50 a barrel, when the reality is that it is already double that and likely to increase—and people are increasingly unable to use their cars, they will want to rely on public transport, so we need to develop those services. They need to be integrated and, at the same time, we need to address the environmental issues. Some of the problems that affect urban areas outside London are that our buses are less environmentally friendly, much older and do not deliver a very good service. That is why they are not attractive to people and why light rail is so much more attractive. One of the disappointments of the Bill is the fact that the total bus subsidy that is paid to the operators as well as to the passenger transport authorities has not been put together. I am talking about the vehicle excise duty rebate, which at the moment is going straight back to the bus companies. I know that the Government are consulting on that point, but it would make much greater sense if, during the passage of the Bill, we could include the VED rebate as a part of the subsidy and forming part of the quality contract. If we want to encourage bus operators to run buses that are full, modern and environmentally efficient, we should grant the subsidy to those operators that can deliver those benefits. That would be a powerful incentive. Other hon. Members have talked about the hurdles that are in place for quality contracts. We have had two Transport Acts now, but only one quality partnership contract has been signed. The problem is not, as the Minister suggested earlier, stopping other bus operators muscling in, because that is a problem only in a limited number of areas. In fact, such contracts are missing because the bus operators do not want to play ball and allow their frequencies and their fares to be controlled. At the moment, the operators have the whip hand. We have seen two failed attempts at introducing quality partnerships and quality contracts, and the Government need seriously to consider the proposals that are being made. I have always taken it as a fundamental principle that the best people to decide on which services there should be in an area are directly elected local people, whether they are councillors, MPs or whatever. The problem with the quality contract legislation is that although there are two stages beyond the transport authority's making a decision, I know what will happen with the likes of FirstGroup, Stagecoach and so on. They will prevaricate, delay, hold out and make it impossible for local authorities and transport authorities to get contracts up and running. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) had the right idea— although the transport commissioners or the transport tribunal ought to be consulted, the decision ought ultimately to rest with the transport authority. That puts the responsibility where it should be, but it does not take away bus operators' ability to go to the High Court if they are not happy with the decision. Let us be clear that when we are talking about quality contracts or quality partnerships, the system is the same as that which operates so successfully with the railways. We are talking about a franchise that people bid for. There need to be safeguards for small operators. Two in my local authority, Bu-Val and Rossendale, provided a service when First Bus refused to do so. I hope that when the quality contract for Rochdale is decided, those two operators will be properly included. Let us make it clear: if we are setting a quality contract, we do not have to set every route and give every route to one operator. There needs to be a dialogue. The problem at the moment is that it all goes one way. If the bus operators cannot get their way, they walk away from the service. The Bill gives those powers to transport authorities, and I welcome that. I hope that in Committee Ministers will consider how we can simplify the process as well as speed it up and put the responsibility back where it belongs, with local authorities. Finally, I want to talk about road user pricing. I am disappointed that the Government have bottled out of introducing national road user pricing. I remember coming into the House when the Chancellor was Secretary of State for Transport; at that time the Government were talking about running a pricing pilot for freight and lorries. The idea was to make it cost-neutral for British lorries but to introduce a system that ensured that the foreign lorries that use our roads and pay nothing would have to contribute. Such systems operate in Austria and the Czech Republic. When a driver gets to the border, they have to buy a beacon. They register it and they are then charged for the miles that they use on that road. Such a scheme would have brought in an additional £250 million revenue for the Government that could have been used to improve transport. It would have involved no extra tax for anybody in this country, because we would want to make it cost-neutral for British lorries. It would have removed the unfair disadvantage that many of our hauliers face when foreign lorries come over the border from Ireland or wherever. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) spoke earlier about the traffic offences that such drivers commit. If they had a beacon, they would be registered and easy to chase up. The scheme would have given us extra resources, and the Government ought to go back to it. Opening the hard shoulder on our motorways at times of peak traffic is not a solution. As I said earlier, we do not merely need solutions for what has happened in the past 20 years; we need to talk about future problems and what needs to be done. A national road user pricing scheme needs to be introduced, and I think that launching it for lorries would have been non-controversial and allowed the Government to evaluate the pilot and put the scheme into operation. I support the power of local transport authorities to introduce their own schemes. I have supported Greater Manchester passenger transport authority in putting forward its scheme, but I have always made it clear that we must have investment up front. As I said earlier, we should be talking about dealing with the problems of the future, not those of the past. If we are to move people from cars to public transport and get that modal switch, public transport must be cheap, clean, efficient, environmentally friendly and readily available. In far too many of our conurbations, that is not currently the case and there is no choice. There must be an integrated transport system, with rail, light rail and buses working together. I am disappointed that the Government have not approved the Greater Manchester scheme yet, and I hope that they do. I hope that in Greater Manchester we can demonstrate that such schemes can deliver the sort of service that is not being delivered elsewhere. It is essential that we do so nationally, and I am disappointed that the Government have bottled out of any discussion of, or meaningful move towards, a national system of road user pricing. Notwithstanding that, the Bill is welcome and represents a vast improvement on the situation that we faced in the past. The bus has arrived late—11 years too late, in my view—but thank goodness that the Government have listened and that in future, we will perhaps have buses that are regulated and on time, and fares set by democratically elected politicians.