New Clause 3
Concessionary Bus Travel Bill
4:45 pm
Paul Rowen (Shadow Minister, Transport; Rochdale, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Earlier, under clause 8, the Secretary of State gave herself powers to introduce the national scheme and clause 9 contains provisions on how the variation for reimbursement and administrative arrangements will operate under the current scheme. On Second Reading I think that the Secretary of State quoted a figure of around 215 local councils or transport authorities that will have responsibility for introducing and running the scheme. New clause 3 would provide a framework, rather than impose national arrangements, within which negotiations for the introduction of a local scheme could operate.
It is obvious to most hon. Members that within many authorities the five big bus companies probably run and operate a large number of the services provided. A considerable administrative and bureaucratic burden will be imposed on individual councils or passenger transport authorities entering into an arrangement on the operation of the scheme in their local authority. New clause 3 would provide a framework for the basic outline of the scheme to be agreed nationally. I know that the Secretary of State has asked a number of working parties to work on parts of the Bill and that they have sought to bring about agreement on how it might operate. The statutory framework via which such negotiations could take place would be provided by setting up a concessionary bus fares council. The bus council would include representatives from user groups, local authorities, the Department for Transport and anyone else that the Secretary of State considers appropriate, which would obviously include the operators. That would allow us to reach some agreement and would save an awful lot of duplication as a result of individual arrangements having to be negotiated.
On Second Reading many hon. Members referred to how schemes had operated in their locality and the ways in which operators who had not been happy with the agreed scheme in a particular authority had then successfully appealed to the Secretary of State. For example, in the case of Greater Manchester, that then imposed an additional cost of £3.5 million this financial year on the passenger transport authority. If we could agree to establish a concessionary bus fares council, an appeal and subsequently the imposition of an additional charge on council tax payers would be unnecessary because agreement would have been reached between the operators, the users and the councils responsible for operating the scheme on how the broad framework of services would operate.
As I have said, the new clause would not remove the right of individual local authorities to negotiate enhancements and departures, but it would provide an overall framework. Given the Minister has said that we will have an ITSO compliant scheme and a national database, a concessionary bus fares council would provide the framework within which those discussions could take place. That would not detract from the work of the Department; rather it would reflect the views of some of the user groups and working groups that are currently meeting to discuss the Bill and provide a statutory framework within which they could operate.
I hope that the Minister will agree to the new clause because it is genuinely an attempt to strengthen the Bill. There are no additional costs attached to the provision; indeed, it would probably save money because it would reduce the duplication that local authorities will have to engage in if they each have to negotiate a framework for their own scheme. I hope that she will agree to the new clause because it would place processes in the Bill that are already happening anyway. It would strengthen those processes and provide everyone with a framework within which to operate.