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Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 6:

(a) the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee; (b) associations representative of travel concession authorities; and (c) such other persons as the Secretary of State thinks fit.”

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The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the amendment and in speaking to Amendment No. 7, I acknowledge immediately that there are financial implications to them, as there seems to be in everything that we have discussed today. However, in this amendment a wider point is to be made—and I would like to hear the Government’s views on it—about the acceptance of the principle that efforts should be made to assist people who are not able to use public transport and are, therefore, denied access to a reasonable life and a reasonable existence.

That is particularly the case for people living in rural areas. It is currently estimated that 27 per cent of people over 65 who live in rural areas have no access to a car. We also know that the proportion of older people is growing fastest in rural areas. The Minister, in reply to that point in Committee, effectively stated that his hands were bound, due to costs of implementing such a scheme. That is why we have looked at this matter again. I have dropped from the amendment any mention of taxis or door-to-door services. The benefit of that is that local authorities and other providers could tailor existing services to meet the needs of those that need them most and, in turn, benefit from inclusion in the national scheme.

To give noble Lords some idea, the existing community transport sector is vast and growing. Over 100,000 minibuses, serving over 10 million passengers every year, are operated for use by voluntary and community groups, schools, colleges and local authorities or to provide door-to-door transport for people who are unable to use other public transport. Door-to-door transport is not limited to minibuses; there are many voluntary car schemes throughout the UK in which volunteers use their own cars to provide transport for individuals. Therefore, a ready-made network is already in place that would benefit countless millions.

In a helpful letter, the Minister stated that extending the concession to community transport would equate to some £25 million a year. However, we have seriously to ask whether we should not look on such a scheme as a price to pay for bringing huge benefits to some of the most vulnerable in our society. I declare an interest as leader of Essex County Council, because community transport is an area of major growth there sometimes replacing existing bus services because that might be a more worthwhile and cheaper form of transport. That philosophy will grow considerably over the next few years.

I suspect that the Minister will again be unable to support the amendment, but I hope that he might give an undertaking that the Government will look again at the whole issue of people without bus services in their areas or who, for various reasons, are unable to use buses. I beg to move.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I have some reservations about the amendment. It is a fact that many ordinary bus services which are used by a lot of people are being withdrawn because there is not enough money to pay for them. In my appreciation, in many cases community transport and the like is only provided in the first place because the local authority

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has committed a good deal of money to subvent it. For people then not to pay any sort of fare may be gilding the lily a little—you are letting them off a little bit but you have already contributed a great deal in putting the service in place.

Only this morning, I was told by a bus operator at home, who operates a service along a main road between Witney, Abingdon and Wallingford, conveying several hundred people a day, that the funding for it is to come to an end in June because there is no money to support it. It is somewhat contradictory to argue that there is a need for extra funding for a part of the network to which much funding is already directed while core bus services are being taken out because there is not enough money to pay for them.

I return to what I said at the beginning: the Bill is more about funding and, more particularly, about how that funding is directed to the places that need it—we know that some of it is being misdirected—and rather less about the small amount of money that people are paying for community transport. I am all for community transport but let us not forget that we are seeking to protect the mainstream bus services.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, for reminding the House of a homely truth: you cannot spend the same money twice, and that which goes in one direction may be at the cost of another service which may be more valued.

Of course, I recognise, as I am sure do the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and all noble Lords, the value of community transport services—they clearly meet areas of real need—but, like the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, I do not think that these amendments represent the best way forward at this stage. Providing free travel on community transport for those who cannot access mainstream bus services, as suggested by the amendment, would throw up a lot of difficult and complex practical issues. How would the ability to access be defined and assessed, and who would carry out the assessment? What would the arrangements be for appealing against such determinations?

The trouble is that the amendments do not even tell us what community transport is. It is a fairly general term widely in use in our communities but it has different interpretations and covers different people. To introduce, as the amendment would do, a full waiver of the fare for a somewhat ill defined large number of people would represent a seismic shift in community transport in this country. It is not on the margins; it would represent a significant change.

Do we know whether the community transport sector could meet the extra demand generated from such a significant change? What about the extra administrative burdens that would be placed on the sector? After all, we are not talking about government implementation here; this is a voluntary sector serving the community and it might find that very heavy burdens are placed on it—a point emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. What would be the impact on existing rural bus services, and might it not

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damage services which are important but are operating very much on the margin of profitability and effectiveness?

I recognise that community transport as a concept is welcomed and admired in our society; nevertheless, introducing into the Bill free access to community transport would throw up a range of very difficult problems. We need to spend £1 billion, and we intend to do so, on this geographical extension of free bus travel. This amendment would add a complicating factor whose cost we would have difficulty in assessing and whose implications may not be wholly benign.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, the debate has shown that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is not the leader of a council but a member of one, whereas I have to grapple with the problems of community and other transport in a very large county. I do not like to go over all the problems I have on Essex County Council, but it spends £75 million a year on transport of one kind or another. We have a sophisticated process dealing with school children, special educational needs, the elderly, rural areas, buses—you name it. We are trying to get the best value out of that £75 million and therefore we are conducting a sophisticated analysis of how we can serve the county better and, we hope, spend less than £75 million a year.

Sometimes there are no rural bus services and there are not likely to be, even in a county such as Essex. Therefore, community transport is the saviour of that area. Sometimes we want to ensure that children, the elderly and people who want to get to hospitals are served by the same transport, and community transport is involved in that. Therefore, using community transport effectively is the way forward for many multi-users of transport. I am disappointed that neither the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, nor the Minister has understood what we are talking about.

I will withdraw the amendment today but I will table a further amendment for next week so that people understand what local authorities are grappling with in trying to find transport for the masses they are trying to serve. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

4 pm

Lord Hanningfield moved Amendment No. 7:

(c) that is compliant with the ITSO standard, as detailed under Crown copyright in 2004.”

The noble Lord said: My Lords, as the Bill stands, there is ambiguity about the specification of the proposed national smart card. We debated this at length in Committee and there was general agreement. The issue is how it will happen. The Bill does not specify the format that the smart card should take. That would not be a problem were it not for the fact that there is a national standard in smart-card technology, known as the ITSO standard. Detailed specifications of that were published in 2004 under the Crown copyright.



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In my view, the lack of rigid specification on this matter theoretically allows the Government to deviate from the ITSO standard, which would be a senseless waste of the significant work already completed in introducing the scheme. I know that the Minister supports the implementation of smart cards of this specification and the Government have been working to develop the scheme. Formalising this intention is important in order to provide clarity to local authorities whose duty it will be to deliver the scheme on the ground. It is important that the scheme is not nationalised and that it is operated by local authorities. However, there must be some consistency in a national scheme and I believe that that is possible.

Furthermore, the Minister indicated that local authorities already have, and will continue to have, a significant input into the development of the scheme. The Minister indicated that in his letter to us a week or so ago. I applaud the recognition that local authorities have the capacity to deliver on this initiative and would like to see the amendment pressed so as to guarantee that the work continues. I beg to move.

Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, this is one of the two important issues in the Bill. In Grand Committee, the Minister said that the Government are sympathetic to the introduction of smart cards. However, I reiterate that not only are they a method by which people can buy their tickets, but, more importantly, they would be a measure of bus use. Admittedly, in this case that would relate to smart card holders only, but it is a considerable advance on what we have now and a much better way of distributing the £1 billion to which the Minister referred and the substantial sums that are paid to operators in bus-service-operator grant. That grant is paid for the mileage run rather than the passengers carried, which is the output that we are seeking to cover.

There is a tremendous risk that without the introduction of an agreed standard, individual local authorities might begin to develop smart cards themselves. Although they could be extremely successful within their areas, they may not be compatible with schemes introduced elsewhere. In the area where I come from, I am aware that the Oxford Bus Company is launching a smart card. I have no idea whether it is ITSO-compliant, but it is important that such schemes are. I point out to the Minister that while it is possible to extend the range of the cards used in London until 2010, it will then be necessary to reissue them. It would be helpful if by 2010 there was a national standard to which London, a big part of the English market, could contribute. If we have a multiplicity of small schemes, not only will the bus companies and local authorities spend more money introducing them, but the schemes will have to be amended later on.

We want to see momentum stepped up to get a fully fledged national scheme based on smart cards. There may be some problems; I am aware that there is a need for up-front investment by operators to have machines which read smart cards on buses and to have the back-office facilities to take the information

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off the machines and use it. I would like to hear what the Government are going to do about smart cards because it is tempting to table an amendment at Third Reading setting a timescale for an ITSO-compliant smart card. Perhaps the Minister has some good news for us and will tell us that we need not bother because he has information that will cheer us on our way.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, nothing would please me more than to bring cheering news to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and, indeed, to the House about smart cards. I shall in one respect because we entirely support the motivation and aims of this amendment, which is seeking to ensure the faster and wider spread of smart ticketing, an issue we discussed extensively in Committee. I hope that I indicated that the Government are committed to that objective. Where we differ is that we do not think we need an amendment to the Bill.

The department has already done a great deal to promote the use of smart ticketing. It sponsored the ITSO standard and is already working with local authorities in various parts of the country to develop projects using it. We are supporting the migration of three legacy schemes, introduced before the development of ITSO, so that they comply with it. Cheshire, Nottinghamshire and Southampton’s migration schemes are expected to be completed in the next 12 months, and they will join the ITSO standard. We are also working with other local authorities developing ITSO pilot schemes in their areas. For example, the NoWcard scheme in Cumbria and Lancashire, and the Yorcard pilot in South Yorkshire. The department is also working with TfL and ATOC to agree the implementation of ITSO in London.

Our work is not confined to smart ticketing on buses; it extends to the national rail network. The south western franchise, of which there has been some criticism in the House recently, includes a commitment to implement ITSO smart cards across the network by January 2009. The East Midlands and West Midlands rail franchises also include a requirement to provide ITSO-compliant ticketing by 2010. That is clear evidence and proof of our considerable commitment to the use of smart cards and to their effective and rapid development. I repeat what I said in Committee: I do not believe that the issue should appear through amendment to the Bill. Clause 1(5) makes provision for the specification of the permit in regulations. These regulations could—and I have no doubt that the tenor in the House is that we hope that they will—permit an ITSO-compliant smart card in due course when the necessary arrangements are in place.

The amendment as drafted does not actually require the permit to be in smart card form, but allows local authorities to offer ITSO-compliant smart cards as an alternative to permits being in such form as local authorities wish, subject to regulations stipulating form and duration made by the Secretary of State. The option to offer cards in ITSO-compliant form is already available to local authorities, so in an obvious sense this amendment does not add anything to what we already have and are doing. The amendment has the unfortunate effect of taking away the current guarantee

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that the appearance and function of cards, including ITSO compliance, will be uniform, which is what we are working towards.

Under current provisions, the Secretary of State can ensure that permits issued by local authorities both outside and within London are in a form which he stipulates. This can cover a unified appearance and ITSO compliance. This power to unify is undermined if an option is offered to local authorities instead simply to offer ITSO-compliant cards of whatever appearance, and regardless of any regulations issued by the Secretary of State.

So we think that we are better placed with the legislation as it stands to reach the objectives which we all share and that we have done the work to show that we are going about this in earnest. I hope that noble Lords are reassured by that response.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I think that we are all agreed about where we want to get and that we could have something in the legislation to ensure that that happens. There are all sorts of things in legislation that we on these Benches do not support. The Minister went on to talk about the wording of the amendment. Clearly, one wants to look at that. As we are all agreed about this, perhaps we can come up with something in the legislation to ensure that it ultimately happens. We are agreed that we want a national scheme, and obviously that may take time, but we want local authorities to implement it along the lines of the ITSO regulations. I will look at the wording again before next week. If the Minister has anything to add before next week perhaps he could contact us. We are all agreed on the matter, it is just a question of how we get there. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market moved Amendment No. 8:

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in this amendment, I return to the question of costs. I know that we spent a certain amount of time on this in Grand Committee. I hope that the intervening period has given the noble Lord a chance to consider some of the points raised.



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The first question at issue was whether the government have allowed enough money in total to fund the concessionary fares scheme. I accept that it is notoriously difficult to make precise estimates of how much a scheme like this will cost. We have evidence from the introduction of the scheme in Scotland and Wales and also when the full fare scheme was brought in locally. We know that the tendency always was to underestimate the costs. That is not intended as a criticism of anyone, but we need to take it into account that all the evidence is that the take-up of concessionary passes has always exceeded expectations. The use of the fares and the use of the buses have always exceeded the estimates, and operators costs were always higher than planned. Therefore, it seems important that we have more of an understanding of how the Government will keep these costs under review so that local authorities receive the right amount of money for the scheme.

4.15 pm

The second set of problems is rather more intractable. I hope that the noble Lord has had some time to think about them because the difficulties faced by individual councils can be quite profound. That is fundamentally because of the Government’s decision to link the funding of the concessionary fares scheme with the overall local government financial settlement. Funding is related to all sorts of strange demographic equations and the complexities of local government finance but is not linked to how many people are actually using the buses. That will cause difficulties for certain councils. Some authorities will receive much less money than they need. That may be because their eligible population is higher than the average that has been allowed for, or it may be because they have more bus-friendly policies, which have created a higher than average demand.

We discussed the issue of honeypot authorities. I referred to Blackpool, but the noble Lord was rather damning in his assessment of Blackpool as a honeypot. Nevertheless, pensioners will want to visit areas such as Blackpool and to use these cards. Therefore, that local authority, which is not particularly well-off, will have to meet higher costs. In that sense, certain local authorities are going to have difficulties.

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