Clause 2
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Norman Baker (Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Transport; Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
The thread of our amendments to clause 2 relates to the need for the increased accountability of the traffic commissioner. Amendment No. 149, which I shall explain in a moment, refers particularly to that. It is important to recognise that the Bill generally gives extra powers to traffic commissioners in significant ways. I am already concerned that few people know who the traffic commissioners are out there in the big wide world, and certainly my engagement with traffic commissioners in my constituency—limited though it has been—has not been such as to give me confidence that they have sufficient resources and local accountability to deliver what is asked of them already, let alone what will be asked of them in increasing areas of public importance as the Bill unwinds. As the Minister knows, the Bill will give them powers over bus services that are not currently in force. The issue of accountability is important.
One of the ways in which accountability can be achieved is by the assumption that there will be a specified traffic commissioner for a particular area—a point made by the hon. Member for Wimbledon. The Minister’s colleague in the House of Lords, Lord Bassam of Brighton, gave an assurance that, for practical purposes, individual commissioners will still be allocated on an administrative basis to individual traffic areas. We would welcome the right hon. Lady repeating that assurance today.
I understand the need for flexibility, so I would not wish the Minister to be hidebound in too constricted a way as to where the areas might be. As a general principle, a traffic commissioner for each specified area must be right. The clause 1 stand part debate is relevant to the point that there may be a case for a rejigging of the areas. Given the reasons stated by the right hon. Lady, there might be a better fit in terms of allocation per region and so on. It makes sense and, indeed, I would encourage her to look down those lines, because if there is an area of responsibility that is coterminous with some other public sector area, that too will increase accountability.
Our amendment No. 149 seeks to ensure that there is no reduction in the number of traffic commissioners, which is also a matter of accountability, because our regional government framework is imperfect in many ways. Much of it is unelected, as indeed are the traffic commissioners, but at least there is some coherence to a regional structure, which people are beginning to understand. That coherence will be lost if there were to be any reduction in the number of traffic commissioners, who would represent even wider areas than at present. The opportunity, therefore, for people to understand the local relationship with a traffic commissioner would be weakened. There is thus a strong case for ensuring that the number of traffic commissioners at least stays where it is, or increases—as in my judgment it should—along the lines stated by the Minister, to take account of the regional variations.