Clause 38
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
12:00 pm
Ann Winterton (Congleton, Conservative)
Would that be different to the original guidance that has already been published? If we wanted to publish some guidance fairly quickly to be able to assist local authorities that wished to take up quality contracts, we would not like to then delay further. I will deal with the matter of consultation later.
It is not clear why the hon. Gentleman thinks that the relevant national authority—the Secretary of State in England and the Welsh Ministers in Wales—is not best placed to develop statutory guidance. The purpose of the guidance is to provide authorities with an overview of the legislation and to assist them in the development of schemes to ensure that they can work up realistic and well structured proposals where that is the right thing for their area.
To answer the question put by the hon. Member for Lewes, the reason that this provision appears in the Bill is that the guidance is statutory guidance. Local authorities will be obliged to have regard to it, which gives the guidance more weight. In any appeal against a scheme, the local authority’s actions and decisions will be considered in the light of the guidance. That is why it is included in the Bill in this way.
The traffic commissioners and the passenger representative body will look at quality contracts from a particular perspective. The traffic commissioners will have a major role in the approvals board for schemes, and a separate power is introduced in the Bill for the Secretary of State to issue guidance to that board. One of the strengths of the approvals board structure is that it provides an independent and impartial assessment of proposals to make a quality contracts scheme. As I have said before, we believe that it is important to preserve that independent role; we do not want it to be compromised by the senior traffic commissioner having the power to issue statutory guidance to local authorities. That is why we believe that the best method of issuing guidance is to have it prepared by the Secretary of State and the Welsh Ministers.
We also have concerns about statutory guidance potentially emanating from three different sources: the relevant national authority—the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers—the senior traffic commissioner and the passenger representative body. We think that that would be rather confusing for authorities, especially if they were expected to have regard to guidance that sought to represent the stance of very different bodies.
That said, we will, of course, consult the traffic commissioners and passenger groups on the guidance and will continue to seek their views, particularly those of the traffic commissioners as they gain approvals board experience. I hope that that explains why we have taken our stance and that the hon. Member for Wimbledon will consider withdrawing the amendment.