New Clause
6
Cancellation
of services where quality contracts scheme
proposed
‘(1) The Public
Service Vehicles (Registration of Local Services) Regulations 1986
(S.I. 1986/671) are amended as
follows.
(2) After Regulation
5(2)(a)
insert—
“(aa)
subject to paragraph (3), in the case of any service which is provided
within an area in respect of which an authority or authorities have
given notice to the traffic commissioner, pursuant to section 130(7) of
the Transport Act 2000, that a quality contract covering the area
within which the service (or part thereof) is provided has been entered
into, on the date that the quality contract scheme to which the quality
contract relates is to come into operation in accordance with section
127(2)(b) of that Act,
and”.
(3) After
Regulation 5(2)
insert—
“(3)
Paragraph (2)(aa) shall not apply where the authority, or (where there
is more than one authority) any one of them, gives written notice to
the traffic commissioner that in respect of any particular service or
services it need not apply, or where the number of days between the
date of the notice of entry into the quality contract and the date that
the related quality contract scheme is to come into operation exceeds
183.”.’.—[Graham
Stringer.]
Brought
up, and read the First time.
Graham
Stringer:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
I shall not tax
the Committee. We have previously debated the instability of the bus
network caused during the process of preparing a quality contract. The
objective of new clause 6 is to address that by preventing the
deregistration of services during that period. In effect, it stops bus
operators walking away from their commitments to the travelling
public.
Ms
Winterton:
Although I sympathise with the aims of the new
clause, we do not need a provision in primary legislation. We can best
address the matter through amending, or new regulations. We will be
consulting later in the year on the secondary legislation that will
support the provisions on quality contracts schemes.
The Transport Act 2000 includes
a power to make regulations on the transitional period between the
making of a scheme and its coming into force. That will be extended
further by the Bill, which will allow us to make more flexible
provision for letting emergency or short-term contracts if commercial
services cease to be provided. With that reassurance, I hope that my
hon. Friend will withdraw his new
clause.
4.45
pm
Graham
Stringer:
I am reassured and I beg to ask leave to
withdraw the
motion.
Motion and
clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
New
Clause
7
Extension
of grant-making powers
‘(1)
Section 106 of the TA 1985 (grants for transport facilities and
services) is amended as
follows.
(2) In subsection
(1)(a) after “disabled”, insert “, elderly, in
full-time education or
unemployed”.
(3) In
subsection (2) after “services”, insert “or such
services that facilitate travel by those members of the public referred
to in subsection (1)(a)
above”.
(4) In
subsection (2)(b) after “services”, insert “or
such services that facilitate travel by those members of the public
referred to in subsection (1)(a)
above”.
(5) Omit
subsection (3).’.—[Graham
Stringer.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Graham
Stringer:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
I shall be brief.
The new clause would extend the powers of transport authorities to give
both capital and revenue grants to disabled people and other voluntary
groups that help disadvantaged groups. I look forward to the response
of my right hon. Friend the
Minister.
Ms
Winterton:
As my hon. Friend says, the new clause would
amend a specific power intended to be used to facilitate expenditure by
local authorities or PTEs on equipment or facilities to make it easier
for disabled persons to travel. The new clause would extend the
provision so that such grants could be used
to provide facilities or equipment needed by elderly people, those in
full-time education and the
unemployed.
I
appreciate that the needs of disabled people may require specially
adapted vehicles, special equipment on vehicles and other facilities of
that kind to enable them to travel by public transport. However, I do
not know why there would be a similar need for elderly people who do
not have disabilities. There would certainly not be such a need for
unemployed people or those in
education.
The existing
provision in the Bill and existing legislation allow and encourage
local transport authorities to provide much needed support for disabled
persons. If that were widened, there would be a danger of that support
being diluted and funding being put to other uses, which would not
necessarily be relevant to genuine
need.
I hope that, in
view of those reservations, I have persuaded my hon. Friend to withdraw
his new
clause.
Graham
Stringer:
I am persuaded, but we may return to the matter
on Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
motion.
Motion and
clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
New
Clause
9
Congestion
charging (airport roads)
‘(1)
Section 163 of the Transport Act 2000 is amended as
follows.
(2) At the end of
subsection (3) insert “,
or
(e) by a designated airport
operator which exercises the functions of a highway authority under
section 65 of the Airports Act
1986.”.’.—[Mr.
Leech.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Mr.
Leech:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
The new clause
would give powers to airport operators to introduce congestion charging
on airport roads where the airport operator exercised the functions of
a highway authority. Airports are expanding and rapidly increasing
their carbon emissions. A main cause of those emissions is journeys to
and from the airport. As airports expand, emissions from vehicles
travelling to and from the airport will rise and congestion will
increase.
The Bill
offers us an ideal opportunity to give airport operators, if they see
fit, the opportunity to tackle congestion and emissions and to
encourage passengers and visitors to airports to travel by public
transport. This measure could also help to tackle the problem of
airport drop-offs, which double the number of necessary journeys,
compared with people who choose to park and
fly.
Ms
Winterton:
As the hon. Gentleman said, he would like to
place the airport operator in the same position as a local authority in
allowing it to exercise the same functions in relation to a charging
scheme, including consulting on and making a scheme, setting charge
levels, charging road users, collecting revenue and enforcing penalty
charges against those who do
not pay. For a private company to exercise such powers, appropriate
safeguards would need to be put in place so that the public could have
confidence in the fair operation of such a
scheme.
Those are
complex issues to work through, including ensuring that the revenue was
reserved so that it could be spent only on transport purposes and that
it did not offset other allocated funding. We would not want a private
airport operator to profit unreasonably from the use of a charging
scheme.
Mr.
Leech:
Of course, a private airport operator would not
introduce a scheme that financially damaged the airport. It is highly
unlikely that they would ever massively increase charges and put
passengers off using the
airport.
Ms
Winterton:
I am afraid that we do not think that this is
the right time to take powers to allow airport operators to charge on
roads for which they are the designated highways authority. Other
measures are in place to tackle congestion problems, and there are a
number of complex issues to be worked through before the public would
accept an airport charging scheme. We therefore cannot accept the new
clause, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw
it.
Mr.
Leech:
I thank the Minister for her remarks. I will
withdraw the new clause, but we may choose to return to the subject on
Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
motion.
Motion and
clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
New
Clause
10
Power
to require bus operators to make available information for
inspection
‘(1) The
appropriate national authority may make regulations requiring bus
operators places in such manner as may be prescribed, to make
information falling within subsection (2) available for inspection by
the appropriate traffic
commissioner.
(2) The
information referred to in subsection (1) is such information as is
available on the actual historical real time movements of buses
operated by them for such periods of time as the regulations may
stipulate.
(3) Regulations
under this section may provide that a traffic commissioner may impose a
financial penalty on any bus operator who, without reasonable excuse,
fails to comply with a requirement imposed on them by regulations under
this section.
(4) Regulations
made by virtue of subsection (3)
may—
(a) specify the
maximum penalty that may be imposed by virtue of that
subsection;
(b) require a
traffic commissioner who has imposed a penalty by virtue of that
subsection to give notice in writing to such persons as may be
prescribed.
(5) A penalty
imposed by virtue of subsection (3)
is—
(a) payable to the
appropriate national authority that made the regulations,
and
(b) recoverable as a civil
debt.
(6) An operator on whom a
penalty is imposed by virtue of subsection (3) may appeal to the
Transport Tribunal against the imposition of the
penalty.
(7) The power to make
regulations under this section is exercisable by statutory
instrument.
(8) A statutory instrument containing regulations
made under this section by the Secretary of State is subject to
annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of
Parliament.
(9) A statutory
instrument containing regulations made under this section by the Welsh
Ministers is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the
National Assembly of
Wales.
(10) In this
section—
“the
appropriate national authority”
means—
(a) in relation
to public passenger transport services operating wholly or partly in
England, the Secretary of
State;
(b) in relation to
public passenger transport services operating wholly or partly in
Wales, the Welsh
Ministers;
“prescribed”
means prescribed in
regulations;
“public
passenger transport services” has the meaning given by section
63(10)(a) of the TA
1985;
“public service
vehicle” and “traffic commissioner” have the same
meaning as in the PPVA 1981.’.—[Graham
Stringer.]
Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Graham
Stringer:
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time.
We had a full
debate on this issue earlier in our discussions. It was proposed to
oblige bus operators to inform the authorities of where their buses
were at a particular time, and where they had been, so that it could be
checked whether they were complying with their commitments to run buses
on particular routes and so that their punctuality could be checked. A
lot of the weight of my right hon. Friend the Minister’s
argument against that was that it would be inappropriate to include
global positioning system technology in legislation as a way of doing
that, although it is the most obvious way at the moment. In future,
technological innovations that have not yet been thought of may be
better.
If my right
hon. Friend reads the new clause, she will see that, with the help of
officials, I have foreseen that argument. There is no mention of GPS,
so I ask her to reconsider. The basic point of the new clause is that
bus companies should be held to account for their punctuality and
reliability on their route, and that services should be able to be
checked both while they are happening and historically. That must be a
sensible basis for
legislation.
Ms
Winterton:
I hope that I can reassure my hon. Friend that
we either already have, or are taking, all the powers that the new
clause is intended to effect. The Transport Act 1985 already allows the
Secretary of State to make regulations to require operators to provide
certain data to traffic commissioners. The new powers in the Bill will
enable traffic commissioners, first, to hold local authorities to
account if they are having an impact on bus punctuality and, secondly,
to impose sanctions on operators who fail to meet statutory
requirements to provide bus punctuality
data.
Those new powers
will form part of the new bus punctuality regime, which we are working
on with bus operators and local authorities through the Bus Partnership
Forum. We believe that they will make a real
difference.
I hope that
those are sufficient reassurances to persuade my hon. Friend to
withdraw the new clause.
Graham
Stringer:
I shall withdraw the new clause, but I would be
grateful if my right hon. Friend wrote to me so that I could better
understand how the reliability of the data can be checked. This is not
just about the records of the bus companies, which may well have been
fiddled for all sorts of reasons. Buses may not have travelled along
the routes that they said they had done and manually recorded arrival
times can be
fiddled.
The point of
having something like GPS is that it can be checked independently,
which means that the evidence is more reliable. I would be grateful if
my right hon. Friend wrote to me to reassure me further on that point.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
motion.
Motion
a
nd clause, by leave,
withdrawn.
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