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Public Transport

As my hon. Friend knows, there are some areas where it is clear that bus operators and local authorities are working closely together and are producing a good service for passengers. However, it is also true that does not happen in other areas, which is why we are making some of the changes in the Local Transport Bill and which, as I pointed out, the main Opposition party does not support. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby asked about cross-border travel. There is nothing I can add to what I have said previously in the House, which is that we want the scheme to settle down within England before we look at what could be an immense financial commitment in extending it to Scotland and Wales. If the hon. Gentleman is committing his party to that, I suggest that he costs it very carefully and looks at some of the technical issues that surround it. However, that does not prevent individual local authorities on the border coming to agreements with authorities on the other side. The hon. Gentleman also talked about funding. The Government are certain that a generous settlement was made; the increase in his local authority was 58 per cent. on what was spent previously on concessionary travel. He also asked whether the £4.50 grant would be repeated. We felt that it was right to pay local authorities for the initial issue of smartcards to make the changes. We covered the full cost of that issue but it is not unreasonable to ask local authorities to cover the cost of renewal. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) is not in his place so I will not answer his points. The hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) talked about putting smartcard readers on all buses. He raises an important point. We felt that it was important, given the change in terms of the national concessionary scheme, to say, ““Let us have a system that can be interoperable.”” That is why we designed the ITSO smartcard approach. Readers are not yet available on all buses, but there are different ways of looking at that issue and it is important that we do so. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are looking at BSOG, the bus service operators grant, to see where there are incentives. Quality contracts and quality partnerships could well be ways to make it easier to introduce smartcards. He raises an important point, but if we had not got a system that could be smartcard-compliant everywhere, it would have been a missed opportunity. He also raised the issue of penalty fare appeals. In the response to the Select Committee, we said that we would look at the penalty fares rules of 2002. I think that I have addressed most of the points made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, particularly in terms of the increase in funds available. I am glad that he is campaigning for the pedestrian crossing that he has now decided is the answer to the problems. I am very glad that he is not asking me to install it.