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Local Transport Bill [Lords]

This covers all employees who have been working under quality contract schemes. Let me turn finally to issues of unfair dismissal, particularly whether it is automatically unfair if an employee is dismissed by an operator who fails to win a quality contract. We do not believe that that constitutes unfair dismissal. Because of the changes that we introduced in the mid-1980s, buses operate under a deregulated market, so bus operators, like suppliers in all sectors of the economy, are free to decide what services they wish to provide. The Employment Rights Act 1996 provides that the dismissal of employees who are redundant is not unfair dismissal. That is an important principle in employment legislation. The best we can do is, first, ensure that, wherever possible, employees in the area of quality contract schemes are protected by TUPE and, secondly, minimise as far as possible the likelihood of that situation arising where TUPE does not apply.