Clause 19
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
11:15 am
Angela Smith (PPS (Rt Hon Yvette Cooper, Chief Secretary), HM Treasury; Sheffield, Hillsborough, Labour)
The right hon. Gentleman misunderstands my comments. I am saying that it is irrational that the bus services we have at the moment should leave one area with a provision that is barely adequate, with people unable to get to where they need to be, whereas another area only two miles down the road has 2,000 buses a week going through it because it is effectively the terminus for the service and not because it needs 2,000 buses a week. We need a more strategic overview of the network in areas such as Sheffield to ensure that everybody’s needs are properly served.
The changes are also needed because the current bus services are not reliable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe said. The biggest complaints that I receive are about routes that are changed at short notice, as the hon. Member for Lewes pointed out, and where buses do not turn up on time. Occasionally, we hear accusations that bus drivers have cut out parts of a route because they are running late and they need to get back on track. That often happens to areas such as Burncross, where the service is sorely needed.
We need to see a change in bus service provision. The economic and social case for that is irrefutable. I welcome the provisions that give integrated transport authorities the right to opt for franchising if it is right for the area. The debate is now about how we deliver quality contracts, not about whether we need them. On that point, the Conservatives have been left well behind by the views of the vast majority of the country. When the Bill has finally passed through Parliament and quality contracts are on the way to being developed across the country, we shall find that the Conservatives suffer quite badly when it is realised more widely that they opposed the improvements outlined in the Bill.
At the moment, we have a procedure for developing quality contracts that requires a referral to the approvals board and to a tribunal, as my hon. Friends have pointed out. I understand the Minister’s arguments on why we need that process. Equally, however, I ask her to understand my and my hon. Friends’ nervousness about whether the process outlined could end in lengthy delays and in attempts by the bus operators to undermine the new process in order to ensure that quality contracts never happen.
Given our experience over the past few years, it is critical that we air such issues and, if possible, arrive at a way forward. My concerns and those of my hon. Friends must be recognised in the outcome of the debate. In the end, there has to be a balance between the need to ensure that quality contracts go ahead and are successfully implemented, and the need to ensure that they are viable and recognised by bus operators as the inevitable way forward in areas such as South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
The crucial point for me is what the public interest can be deemed to be. My right hon. Friend the Minister pointed out that the public interest is about delivering a bus service that is used by more people, reduces congestion on the roads and serves the economic and social interests of a given area. The problem, bound up in the need to meet those clear criteria of the public interest, is the need to achieve a balance between the commercial routes, which bus operators will always be happy to deliver because they make money on them, and the commissioned and subsidised routes, which the PTA ensures are provided year after year. Ultimately, the argument within each quality contract will be about the balance between those two elements.
I would be interested to hear from my right hon. Friend how much the need to serve the interests of people living in those areas where routes are subsidised will be at the heart of the final process. Without that subsidy, bus operators would never run them. What about those areas that have no provision at all? What about bringing them into quality contracts to ensure that they get some form of bus service, allowing them to participate in the full life of their community?
I know that my right hon. Friend will listen to what is said this morning. I would like to hear her comments on the discussion needed to get the right process in the end—one that gives me and my hon. Friends the confidence to believe that we will get quality contracts in areas such as South Yorkshire and that they will work effectively.
The other key point was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe, who drew attention to the impatience in South Yorkshire for quality contracts and for getting them moving as quickly as possible. That is absolutely right. Just as my hon. Friend was saying, one of my great difficulties explaining on the doorstep that we have now tabled legislation that will, I hope, help to resolve the problems with public transport is then having to say, “But I am not quite sure when we are going to be able to deliver this—it may be two or three years, or longer.” Our constituents do not like that. They need to know when they can expect the improvements to take place.
I again plead with my right hon. Friend the Minister to listen to what has been said and to commit this morning to ongoing dialogue—not just on the process and how much confidence it gives us as to whether we will get quality contracts, but on us getting those quality contracts moving as quickly as possible.
I am looking for clear time limits on how long it can take from the moment the contract has been developed and the scheme consulted on to the moment it is approved by the approvals board and, if necessary, has gone through the appeals process. We need clear time limits in the Bill. An outcome of the legislative process cannot be an open-ended procedure for developing quality contracts. That is not acceptable, and I ask the Minister to respond.