Clause 41
Local Transport Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Rosie Winterton (Minister of State, Department for Transport; Doncaster Central, Labour)
The point is that what we are trying to achieve here is limited to the competition between bus services. We are talking about voluntary partnership agreements between local authorities and bus operators. I take the point that there might be times when it is important to take into account that a railway service might be running along the same route but we are talking about the specific situation where bus operators are allowed to run along particular routes as and when they want, if it is a commercial service. In other areas a subsidy can be given by the local authority.
We are trying to get over the fact that it has been difficult for one or more bus operators to sit down with the local authority and work out, for example, what might be appropriate in terms of the frequency of patterns of service—that is definitely between the bus operators themselves. We have discussed at other points in the Bill whether it would be a good idea, when considering overall integrated transport plans, to look at how bus services fitted in with rail services, for example. However, in this case, we are talking specifically about the issues of bus operators, because they would be talking about running along particular routes—the local authority would like to sit down with them and organise such things as the patterns of service. I take on board the comments made by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, but that would fit into another part of how the local authority or integrated transport authority would want to look at other services in its overall transport plan.