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Local Transport Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 19 to 43. Part 3 is aimed at enhancing the powers available at a local level to secure improvements in the standard of local bus services. Buses are a crucial part of our local transport system and over the past few years we have seen the first sustained increases in bus patronage across Great Britain for half a century. A number of places around the country where local authorities and bus operators work in partnership have delivered real improvements to services. As a result, more people are getting on buses. However, there are still too many places where passengers are not enjoying improvements and where patronage continues to fall. Where voluntary partnerships are working well, the Government applaud them. But it is also important that other options are available, particularly for those areas where partnerships are not delivering improvements. This Bill seeks to devolve decisions to those who understand the needs and requirements of their local areas and to ensure that the right tools—voluntary partnerships, quality partnership schemes and quality contracts schemes—are available at a local level. The Bill includes various provisions to make quality contracts schemes a more realistic option for local authorities, while also preserving appropriate safeguards for bus operators. This group of amendments covers four aspects of these provisions. The first effect of this group is to ensure that in England the elected local authority takes the final decision about whether a quality contracts scheme should be made in its area. The amendments replace the proposed approvals boards with QCS boards. Rather than making the final decision as to whether a scheme should go ahead, the role of a QCS board would be to provide an opinion and, where appropriate, to make recommendations to the local authority. It would be for the local authority to take the final decision, having considered the board’s opinion and any recommendations. The amendments also spell out more clearly the precise role of these boards. The boards will be expected to consider two things; namely, first, whether the local authority has fulfilled the statutory requirements to give notice of their proposed scheme and to consult on it and, secondly, whether the proposed scheme meets the ““public interest”” criteria set out in the Bill. The amendments retain a role for the Transport Tribunal in hearing appeals against a local authority’s decision to make a scheme. The scope of this appeal right would depend on whether the proposed scheme had received a clean bill of health from the QCS board. If it had received a clean bill of health in terms of meeting the five statutory public interest criteria and in terms of consultation, the appeal is restricted to points of law. The intention of this right of appeal to the Transport Tribunal is to provide a quicker, more accessible and less costly alternative to judicial review. Consistent with the preferences of the devolved Administration, the existing arrangements as regards schemes in Wales are left unchanged. The second issue dealt with in this group of amendments relates to employment protection. At earlier stages of the Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House, amendments were made to strengthen the protections available to bus workers in an area where a quality contracts scheme is being introduced. The principal effect of those amendments was to provide certainty that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 would apply where an operator is forced to stop running bus services because a quality contracts scheme is coming into force. Amendments Nos. 132 to 136 strengthen further the protections available. They define an additional situation where TUPE would apply. They also make provision about pension protection, placing a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations to ensure that workers involved in the provision of bus services in the scheme area before the scheme was made do not lose out in pension terms as a result of the scheme. The third issue, covered by Amendments Nos. 20, 70 and 122 relates to local authority powers to operate bus services in certain circumstances. This responds to questions raised during the Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House and the House of Commons. These amendments would provide a power for a local transport authority to operate local bus services in a very specific set of circumstances; namely, where an operator of services under a quality contract had ceased to provide those services before the contract was due to terminate—for example, if the contractor goes into liquidation. In such a situation, it may be in the interests of passengers for the local transport authority to be able to step in for a limited period while it takes action to make appropriate arrangements for the longer term. Because this is intended to be no more than a temporary, emergency power, the amendments include a clear time limit of nine months, after which the authority can no longer operate the services. The Government have listened to the concerns of local authorities that they could face a very difficult position if they had not quite concluded their negotiations with a ““replacement”” operator at the end of that nine-month period. The amendments therefore also include a provision whereby the nine-month period may be extended by up to a further three months by the local traffic commissioner. The Government consider that this allows more than ample time for a competent local authority to make the necessary arrangements for a new contractor to be appointed and builds in an appropriate degree of flexibility through the three-month extension. I beg to move. Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 19 to 43.—(Lord Adonis.)