Clause 19

Part of Local Transport Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 11:00 am on 29 April 2008.

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Photo of Norman Baker Norman Baker Shadow Secretary of State for Transport 11:00, 29 April 2008

I am not sure that that justifies the philosophical difference, but let me leave it there. The Conservatives can make their own bed and lie in it in due course.

Across the country, we have seen a significant decline in bus usage over the last 30 to 40 years. Some of that is social, as people have gained access to private transport, but some of it is not. It is down to very poor bus services, which have driven people to use cars when they would not otherwise have done so.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe referred to the situation on Sundays, when people might be forced to use cars because of the lack of a bus service. I have referred previously to a constituent of mine who lives in the village of Ditchling and wanted to work in the nearby town of Burgess Hill. There was a bus service, which operated early in the morning and enabled that person to take a job offer. Shortly after taking the job, 42 days’ notice was given and the bus service was simply withdrawn. That person was left high and dry, with no way of getting to work, and had to leave the job.

We cannot treat people’s lives like that. We cannot say to people that the whim of the bus company means that you are out of work, which is what happened on that occasion. We need a better system than that. I think that the system laid down in the Bill is the right one, as I made clear on Second Reading. Is it going to work? That is the matter I want to take up with the Minister, rather than the philosophical difference with the Conservative party. I am not sure that it is; there are just too many hurdles.

I have had a conversation with the Minister, who made her position clear on Second Reading. I think she is well intentioned—if I did not, I would say so—and that she is genuinely trying to build in some protection for local councils and local authorities to ensure that there is not a successful challenge to the whole scheme. I understand that, but the difficulty is that the number of protections built in acts as a discouragement to local authorities taking the necessary action to improve local bus services. There is no guarantee that the existence of a number of protections will prevent a judicial review from the bus companies, if they wish to go down that road.

The bus companies will not ask, “Will we win at judicial review?” They may ask, “How much is it going to cost us to do this, how long can we string it out for and is the cost of the judicial review less than the sum of money we will make in the short term from thwarting the plans of the local transport executive or the ITA?” That is the financial calculation they will make.

I do not think that the Minister’s well-intentioned efforts to stop judicial review will work for that reason,  although I understand her point. That is not to say that we need a complete free-for-all with no legal recourse for bus companies. That would leave ITAs open to legal action, which would probably succeed. Therefore, the balance has to be struck.

I think that to have an external approvals board, which is unelected and which can effectively trump ITAs, and then a transport tribunal, and then a judicial review, is to have one level of approval too many. I do not think that to have those three levels is necessary for the Minister to meet her objectives in providing a robust scheme, which is proof against legal action.

Lady Winterton, there is a slight difficulty here because, as you will appreciate, some of the alternatives are referred to in subsequent groups of amendments, so it is perhaps rather difficult for us to structure this debate in a sensible way. For example, amendment No. 194 in the fourth group on the selection list is consequential, leading on to a very large group in clause 23, beginning with amendment No. 157, which covers many of the alternatives. I am not clear whether you think it sensible for us to go into the alternatives at some length now, thereby curtailing the debate on clause 23, or whether in fact the purpose of this group is to draw attention to the deficiencies of what is proposed in the Bill, thereby allowing the alternatives to be set out in the later parts of the debate. It would be helpful to have your view on that.