I beg to move amendment No. 4, in Clause 4, page 2, line 36, at end add—

‘(7) The National Assembly for Wales shall provide for the costs of the arrangements for the discharge of joint functions.’.

Under the amendment, the Assembly would pay for the arrangements when it issued a direction on local transport functions. Under the Bill, the cost of new transport arrangements looks set to fall heavily on local authorities and consequently on the Welsh council tax payer. The Welsh Local Government Association has expressed a genuine concern that the Bill will result in costly administrative reform, with no benefit to the travelling public. Its regional director also expressed concern that

“Reorganisation with no substantial additional investment is not a recipe for service delivery success.”

The people of Wales have suffered enough as a result of their authorities having extra responsibilities thrust on them without being given extra money. The Bill must not be a way of allowing that to continue, especially when the costs are likely to be great—approximately £1 million per annum, in addition to the £100,000 to £200,000 in set-up costs. A large part of the £1 million running costs for the joint transport authority will be spent on its senior management and on accommodation. We need to be able to monitor that tier of administration so that the Assembly and the Minister can retain accountability for the delivery of Welsh transport. If the Assembly is to direct authorities in the joint discharge of transport functions, it should provide them with the extra money they need to discharge those functions. In that way, we can guard against local authorities having to bear unnecessary burdens when running the new JTAs.

Amendment No. 4 would place an explicit requirement on the Assembly to fund any costs arising from the issuing of a direction that local authorities should work together to carry out specified transport functions.

I am not convinced that the amendment is necessary. Welsh local authorities already collaborate on some transport projects through voluntary regional consortiums, and clause 4 will enable them to put that regional collaboration on a statutory basis. The Assembly already makes funding available to local authorities so that they can meet their transport responsibilities. Given that they are already working together, it is not entirely clear that extra funding would be required as the result of a direction under the clause.

The clause does not give the Assembly the power to impose new transport functions on local authorities; it merely allows local authorities to discharge their existing functions jointly. Indeed, under the policy set out in the framework of the Assembly’s partnership agreement with local authorities, the Assembly will not give authorities any new functions without providing funding for them.

In any event, the Assembly would issue a direction under the clause only after consulting the local authorities affected by the direction. That would give authorities an opportunity to discuss any of the proposed direction’s funding implications. Given that explanation, I again ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

From what the Minister says, it seems that authorities would have no extra responsibilities as a result of the joint transport agreements and that the Assembly would provide funding if it required further activity. If that is what the Minister is saying, he is right that there is no need for the amendment. Conversely, it would not do any harm either. However, I take his earlier point that we do not need to add superfluous amendments to legislation.

What concerns me, however, is whether the Minister is convinced that the Assembly cannot impose extra responsibilities without providing any money. I think that the Bill says that the Assembly should provide the money, but I am not certain that it must. The Minister will appreciate the difference, because transport cost creep is one of the things we are looking to avoid. That is why I tabled the amendment.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree, as was implicit from the Minister’s speech and from his as I understand it, that we should encourage local authorities to synchronise the work of the joint transport authorities and not to empire-build? I speak as a former local authority officer. Should we not encourage them to work more effectively together and to co-ordinate where there might even be some savings to be achieved?

That is our purpose. The intention behind a joint transport authority is that the two or more individual parts are not as successful and there would be natural savings, efficiencies and so on. The amendment would deal with the question, “What if   that does not happen?” I can envisage extra responsibilities easily being dumped on local authorities. In some instances they may find it easy to cope and there may not be a huge extra cost. However, in other areas of Wales the order may have a different implication. For example, if one was to insist on more bus transport in Cardiff the implication would be different from that for a much bigger area in rural Wales. That is my concern. If the Minister can convince me that it is superfluous, I shall not have any difficulties in withdrawing my amendment.

I will try to convince the hon. Gentleman that it is superfluous.

The idea of the direction is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore explained, to get local authorities to work together to produce savings rather than additional costs. We will not go on to clause 5 just yet, but the Assembly has clearly taken on board the issue of additional costs in relation to joint transport authorities. It was made perfectly clear in the letter and in the consultation that any additional costs would be borne by the Assembly.

I can only reiterate what I said before. The purpose is a direction—we can comment on that. If a local authority does not comply with a direction, that will be a breach of secondary legislation. As a last resort, if a local authority were to refuse to abide by the direction, that would lead to court proceedings. In the case that we were discussing, where an authority had been dilatory in implementing a local transport plan, I am sure that any sensible local authority would not want to go to the High Court to argue that it was justified in taking 10 years to do something that should have taken less than five years.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured about clause 4 and the amendment. Bearing in mind the track record of the Assembly and the partnership agreement, which has clearly worked so far and I have not heard any local authority object or claim that it has been breached, we intend that if—and only if, as this is not the function of the clause—any additional functions were placed on local authorities, the Assembly would recompense them under the partnership agreement. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured.

I am reassured. I am also grateful for the comments that the Minister made about taking a dilatory authority to court. Presumably the High Court can issue fines far in excess of £100,000. The validity of the amendment is justified, as is its withdrawal. I am grateful to the Minister for that.

Equally, if the Assembly was to heap extra costs on a local joint transport authority, it could do so by direction anyway. The purpose of the amendment is to prevent that from happening; it is a belt-and-braces safety measure. More progress can be made by the Government going away and thinking about the matter than by pressing the amendment to a vote. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.