Clause 32 - Compulsory police services agreement
Railways and Transport Safety Bill
9:45 am
Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)
Taken as a piece, clauses 31, 32 and 33 demonstrate the Government's thinking about how the British Transport police will be funded. When we debated clause 31, we discussed the British Transport police authority entering into agreements with various train operators and other industry bodies. Clause 32 states that the
''Secretary of State may by order''
require various categories of person to enter into such agreements. Why is the word ''may'' used? I am aware that that word is part of parliamentary language, but can the Minister confirm that even if it is correct in the context, ''may'' should be interpreted as ''will'' because everyone will be required to enter into such agreements? The various rail industry bodies might extend the details of their agreements and pay the British Transport police more for a gold-plated service, but they will in any case be required to offer the basic service, so ''may'' is a strange word to use.
The hon. Member for Vale of York shares my concerns about the unnecessary complexity of these
arrangements and has rightly asked why an offence has to be created in the way that is described. I wish to suggest an alternative way forward that would avoid that problem, and to ask the Minister why the Government have not followed that route. Would it not be possible to impose as a franchise requirement on, for example, a train operating body the requirement that it has a police services agreement? That would remove criminalisation.
When we start to think about it, the whole scheme seems to be nonsense. When we come to address clause 33, we will probably discuss the arrangements for arbitration by the Secretary of State in relation to disputes that may occur: through nobody's fault—simply because there is a need for arbitration to resolve a disagreement—there will be periods when a police services agreement is not in place, yet during that period I assume and hope that the British Transport police will still operate in the premises and vicinity of the train operating company that still has to finalise an agreement. The reality is that the British Transport police will continue to operate even on occasions when the PSA is not in place. Will the Minister confirm that that is the case?