Clause 13
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
1:00 pm
John Leech (Shadow Minister, Transport; Manchester, Withington, Liberal Democrat)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but, given what was said by Conservative Front Benchers on Second Reading, I feel that perhaps there may be a little more to the amendment than he has put forward in his speech. It appears that in reality the Tories in Parliament are showing their true Thatcherite colours regarding the provision of bus services. They do not seem to want any changes that would be to the benefit of passengers if it would in any way affect the profits of the operators.
The amendment would mean that an authority must be satisfied that both the provision of facilities and local services of the standard specified by the statutory quality partnership would improve the quality of local services, rather than simply bringing benefit to the people using local services, which is what the Government propose in the Bill. The Government’s wording is slightly more relaxed and will make it much easier to introduce a statutory quality partnership, which will obviously have benefits for local transport authorities and bus operators.
The Conservatives are clearly hopelessly divided on the issue of statutory quality partnerships. They support the idea of statutory quality partnerships in local government, but in this and subsequent amendments they appear to be trying to wreck any opportunity to introduce them. If the interests of the public are paramount—as indeed they should be—the phrase
“bring benefits to persons using local services”
should be sufficient to permit the implementation of statutory quality partnerships.