Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, briefly, in looking at Amendment 1 and hearing the speeches on it, especially from the noble Lord who proposed it, I ask: what is the point of this amendment? It seems to me to be motherhood and apple pie and nothing much else. You can interpret the phrase “performance and quality” however you want—no doubt many noble Lords will link that phrase to some amendments that they will move or speak to later—but I really do not see it. Here is a Bill to improve passenger services and quality, clearly, but the noble Lord wishes to put in an amendment: Amendment 1. We will probably spend half an hour talking about it, but I hope that my noble friend the Minister has an answer as to why he does or does not like it.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak on this group after my noble friend Lord Effingham spoke, but I am prompted to do so by an earlier intervention.

It is very important that, when you make a large change, as is proposed here—the Government will claim that this is a significant change, I think, and rightly so—you are clear about what you are trying to achieve. We might assume that everyone wants better buses and so ask why there is a need to say it, but you need to be clear about what you are trying to achieve. Of course everyone wants better buses, but what actually constitutes better buses? When the railways were nationalised, everybody wanted better railways. They did not necessarily imagine that, in the 1960s, that would involve slashing nearly all the branch lines in the country and making a dramatic change to the way in which the railways operated by cutting them back.

I am in some sense trying to help the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, with his question on the purpose of the amendment. There is also a further question: if you have an objective, who is to be held to account for that objective? This seeks to hold the Secretary of State firmly to account and put him at the centre of the chain of being responsible for this Bill.

It seems to me that there is nothing else in the text of the Bill that explicitly puts passengers, passenger needs and the quality of the service they receive at its heart. I think that there would be great benefit in doing so. We know that the Government and local transport authorities are responsible to multiple stakeholders—not only the users of their services but their workers, trade unions, local electors and so on. They have to balance the large number of needs and demands on them. The amendment says that the requirements of passengers come ahead of those others and that the Secretary of State would be held accountable if the Bill did not work out in improving passenger services. I find it difficult to see, first, why the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has difficulty understanding that point and, secondly and perhaps more importantly, why the Minister, should he be moved to resist this amendment, would want to do so.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the first group of amendments relates to the Bill’s purpose. At Second Reading, I set out the need for this Bill and explained why the Government are taking action to transform bus services across England. The Bill provides new powers for local leaders, so that local communities in England have greater control over bus routes and schedules. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for their amendment and the opportunity to revisit the Government’s objectives.

Amendment 1 would place a direct requirement on the Secretary of State to have regard to improving the performance and quality of bus passenger services in Great Britain—in fact, it would make this the statutory purpose of the Bill. I absolutely support the reasons why noble Lords have drafted this amendment: they, too, want to achieve a better bus network that is more reliable and performs well. That is a shared goal. The reason we are here debating this important legislation is to reform the industry.

I recognise the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, about the KPMG report, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, about the benefits of buses to individuals and communities, as well as the inadequacies of the current arrangements. However, I am bound to disagree with the assertion that there is no evidence for the Government’s approach. There is plenty of evidence, some of which we have already talked about, such as the improvements in Manchester and elsewhere, including Cornwall, which is not a large conurbation. I also disagree with the assertion that there is public good and private bad in here. This is a very large menu of choices for local transport authorities. It is certainly not one size fits all.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, observed, during the passage of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Gascoigne, tabled a very similar amendment. It sought to insert a purpose clause setting out improvement of passenger railway services as the purpose of that Act. At the time, I explained that the Secretary of State’s and the Government’s wider plans and objectives for the rail network included improving performance but noted that this was not the sole purpose. I offer the Committee the same rationale for this Bill. The amendment to the public ownership Bill was not carried.

Of course the objectives of this Bill include improving reliability and performance. They are important aims, but the Bill seeks to do more. It seeks to improve safety and accessibility, to provide local leaders with the powers to make the right decisions for their local areas, to support reaching net zero and to put passengers at the heart of the Government’s reforms. The noble Lord, Lord Grayling, was kind enough to suggest that I would not let ideology triumph over the right solutions. In this case, the Government are not doing that, either.

The Bill contains a range of solutions for local bus issues, which allow local choices for the best solutions and would recognise, in appropriate cases, both the adequate provision of bus services by their existing means, with commercial operators, and the range of solutions, including both large and small operators. To single out one objective would undermine the message that the Government are trying to convey to local authorities, passengers, operators and the wider industry. Thus, I do not support the proposal.

Extending this requirement across Great Britain also presents significant difficulties. The Committee will have noted that most of this Bill extends to England and Wales but applies only in England, with a limited number of clauses that extend and apply to Wales and/or Scotland. In tabling Amendment 1, noble Lords appear to be seeking to apply all the Bill’s measures across the whole of Great Britain. That would raise the potential of cutting across the powers of the Scottish and Welsh Governments to decide how to run their own bus networks and what is best for their local communities. That would not be the right approach. It would mean the UK Government interfering in policy areas where the devolved Administrations categorically do not want that. It also potentially undermines their reform agendas; as some noble Lords will be aware, the Welsh Government are due to introduce their own Bill into the Senedd in the coming months, as they seek to introduce bus franchising.

This amendment would also have significant ramifications on time and resources. Local transport is devolved, so legislative consent Motions would be required. That would potentially slow down the passage of the Bill and the pace of the Government’s reforms, which would be a bad outcome for passengers, who desperately need better bus services now, for the reasons set out by the noble Earl and the noble Baroness earlier. I am sure that noble Lords opposite would not want this outcome and therefore hope that this amendment will be withdrawn.

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Above all else, it is enabling us to integrate bus services, fares, ticketing and customer information across Metrolink and bus, with London-style tap-and-go contactless bank card payments and daily and weekly caps from March this year. We are now moving to rail integration, but that is for another day and another Bill. I hope the Minister accepts my amendments in the spirit in which they are offered. I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendments 3, 5, 14, 15 and 16, which are supported by my noble friend Lord Effingham. With your Lordships’ permission, I will deal with them more logically than numerically, because they form a sort of logical suite.

The dramatic thing at the heart of the Bill is the possibility of the extension of franchising to all local transport authorities without any need for permission from the Secretary of State. It is true that other models are available, but enhanced bus partnerships already exist and simply making them a little more enhanced—although that might be valuable or lead to some sort of change—is not a dramatic intervention. As for the creation of municipal bus companies, that would be dramatic, but it is not what we are focusing on today. This group of amendments—mine in particular, but the whole group—is focused particularly on franchising, which occupies a large part of the text of the Bill, and understandably so because of the importance of it.

Yet I come back to this question all the time: why do the Government believe that franchising is a model—admittedly, one they are not imposing on any LTA; of course, I grant that—that they are willing to see any LTA, possibly every LTA in the country, adopt without any supervision, by-your-leave or check on the part of the Secretary of State? It is perfectly possible that as this Bill becomes law every LTA in the country goes for a franchising model. I am not saying that is going to happen, but theoretically it could, and nothing would prevent it.

So, the question we come back to, and this is what Amendment 3 is related to, is: why franchising? At the heart of franchising is the notion that a single controlling brain—yes, we are back to similar language to that which we used in relation to the railways Bill that we had before Christmas, but I do not apologise for that because a similar form of thinking is going on in this case—can produce a better service, a more rational service and a more socially friendly service than competition generated by the private sector in response to demand. There are arguments of course on both sides. This argument has been going on, as I think I mentioned in the railways Bill, since at least the 1920s. Our first attempts, or rather our success, in this country at regulating bus services go back to the 1920s with the establishment of the traffic commissioners. After they were established, their permission was needed, up until the 1980s, for any private company to run a bus service. They had to agree the routes and the fares. So we had a single controlling brain, and we went for a privatisation model from the 1980s, but the Government have simply failed to produce any evidence that this is a model that will work in all these LTAs and at a cost that the LTAs can afford without the subsidies that, notably, the Government are not promising.

When we ask for evidence, we are constantly pointed simply to Manchester and Cornwall. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, has of course given an eloquent explanation of how successful that model has been in Manchester, and I do not deny that success. It is possible that other noble Lords with roots in Cornwall will want to explain why the model has been such a success there—I do not know—but that is a very slender evidence base, if we are talking about all the LTAs in the country.

Amendment 3, therefore, is a probing amendment. It allows any private bus company to operate a service without a permit and it goes to the heart of the notion—it strikes a dagger at the heart of the notion—that a single controlling brain is necessary for good public service. It would wreck the franchising model that the Government propose—I admit that frankly—but its purpose today is to give the Government an opportunity to explain more fully why they think it is a perfectly acceptable outcome that franchising should be potentially adopted by every LTA in the country, without any regard to their experience, the size of the local transport authority or any other factor that might differentiate them significantly from Manchester and Cornwall.

With Amendment 15, I come to another point. Let us assume that franchising is okay and the case for it has been made—it has not, but let us assume that and move on, so to speak, logically. The amendment says that, before it embarks on an assessment for introducing franchising, the LTA must set out clear objectives as to what it is trying to achieve. At the moment, the Bill does not require it to do so; it is perfectly possible to embark on a franchising model without setting out for the public or for stakeholders what could be achieved and what is intended to be achieved, as well as what alternative structures and approaches might achieve the same objectives. The amendment would be a genuine improvement to the working of this proposed model because it would bring clarity right at the outset.

To move on in what is, I hope, a fairly logical order, Amendment 5 asks for data on performance and passenger numbers to be collected on a standardised basis across LTAs to tell us what subsidy is being expended per passenger in the operation of the franchising model—should they choose to take it up, of course. They might not do so, I grant you; we have discussed that already. The amendment would also require the setting out of the criteria that the auditors—I am calling them “auditors” while appreciating that the name may change as the pool of resource understandably widens—are to use when assessing the plan put forward by the local transport authority. Again, I think that those two things would be really helpful. We will want that data, and we will want to know that the auditors will be applying clear criteria standardised across the country—not the sole criteria that they will be applying but some criteria that will probably be nationally applicable. Those should be set out by the Government.

That brings us to Amendment 14, which takes us on to the point where the franchising model has been established. The franchise is running, but it is not working. In this Bill, there is no step-in power on the part of the Secretary of State in circumstances where bus services are manifestly deteriorating rather than improving as a result of introducing a franchising model. When this point was tangentially made at Second Reading—I think it was then; it cannot have been anywhere else—the Minister said that, because I had spent a long time in local government, I should somehow stick up for the autonomy of local government. I am perfectly happy to do that up to a point but, at the point at which services are manifestly deteriorating, there should be a power for the Secretary of State to step in. It exists in other respects with local authorities generally. We should have something of that order so that passengers and users of bus services can be protected. I would like to hear why the Minister thinks that that is wholly inappropriate, except on rather histrionic grounds around the autonomy of local government and principles of that character.

Finally, Amendment 16 is intended to provide a degree of stability in the local bus market in the event that a franchising assessment has taken place and been audited but, as a result of the audit, either it has been found wanting or the local transport authority has none the less decided not to proceed for whatever reason. At the moment, there is no limitation on the local transport authority starting the whole process again, if it chooses to do so, almost immediately. If that were the case, why would any private bus company continue to invest in or improve services if the axe, so to speak, could be dropped on it at any moment—that is, with them having gone through a process where they were told that they could carry on but the axe then being dropped again? Amendment 16 would put in a five-year ban on local transport authorities recommencing that assessment process to give some stability to the bus operator or operators in their area.

All these amendments, except for Amendment 3, which I admit is completely probing and would seriously damage the Bill, are good, sensible, practical ways of improving the franchising model that the Government are advancing with such enthusiasm. I very much hope that other Members of the Committee and, indeed, the Minister might want to say that they could support them.

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[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, just before the Minister responds, several noble Lords have talked about the bus service in Cornwall, saying how wonderful it is. As many noble Lords know, I live there and I often use the buses. There is nothing particularly special about a service that runs on time, publishes timetables and has bus stops that work. They have managed to persuade somebody—I think the Department of Transport—to enable them to finance a group of double-deck buses for the trunk routes. They are very comfortable and even have conference facilities on the top deck, with tables and things. It is still working very well. I think all that was needed was some officials in Cornwall Council who knew what they were doing, led by a good friend of mine, called Nigel Blackler. He managed to persuade the Government and Ministers at the time that it was a good thing—as Cornwall is geographically long and thin with one railway down the middle and a motorway down the middle and lots of others. It is quite possible to do; it has not cost them an arm and a leg and it is very popular. Why not carry on doing it?

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

May I ask the noble Lord, briefly, if he believes that the whole success in Cornwall depends on a few people knowing what they are doing and being professional about it—I am sure he is right, he knows his area—would he not want to seek from the Minister the sort of assurances that I am looking for? That is that officers in other local transport authorities that adopt franchising are seen to have similar skills and abilities before they are allowed to do so?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

If am grateful to the noble Lord. I think it was probably at Second Reading, or sometime, that we discussed the difference in the quality of local authority management between Dorset and Hampshire or somewhere there. It is down to the local authority to make sure that they have the right people. I am sure Ministers will be very keen to ensure that they do have the right people, because otherwise you will get what I found in Dorset. The train goes every hour and stops at a station called Sherborne and, interestingly, the connecting bus departs five minutes before the train arrives. That is just the kind of thing we do not want, but I hope the local authorities will be sensible enough to learn from some of these mistakes.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his interjection. In his case, it is true, but there are other cases where the market has shown a considerable inability to respond across the country.

To conclude on Amendment 14, it is for the reasons I gave that I ask the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, not to press his amendment.

Amendment 15 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, would require a local transport authority to carry out a preliminary assessment if it was considering franchising its bus services. Much of what the noble Lord has proposed to be included in the preliminary assessment is already included in the current legislation and must be included in the local transport authority’s franchising assessment. An assessment may or may not conclude that franchising is the best option. The assessment would then be published if an independent assessment had been carried out and the decision was that franchising was the best option. This amendment is therefore unnecessary, and I would welcome the noble Lord not pressing it.

Amendment 16 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, seeks to impose a five-year moratorium on repeating franchising scheme assessments in the same area if the previous attempt was unsuccessful. The aim of the Bill is to simplify the process for authorities wishing to pursue franchising, ensuring that decisions are made at the appropriate level and in a timely manner. This amendment would introduce unnecessary constraints on local transport authorities by adopting an overly rigid approach. There are many factors that might lead an authority to decide against pursuing franchising initially, only to reconsider this later; indeed, the period of time suggested by the noble Lord would in some cases exceed the cycle of local authority elections, in which a different party that chooses to do something different might be elected. Imposing a blanket restriction limits authorities’ ability to respond flexibly to evolving conditions and opportunities. Assessments are costly and time-consuming so will not be undertaken lightly. This amendment is unnecessary; I hope that the noble Lord will not press it.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, on that point, the Minister has made in his response no reference whatever to the private sector. We are talking about circumstances in which buses are provided by the private sector in a particular area and the local transport authority, using powers to be created under this Bill, enters a franchising assessment model with a view to terminating the business of that bus operator—not terminating its activities but terminating it as a business and turning it into, simply, an agent of the local transport authority operating to instructions for a fee of some sort. That is one of the potential outcomes.

If you face that threat to your business, so to speak, and if the Government are equanimous in thinking that that is an appropriate threat to impose on the private sector, surely, if the decision at the end of that assessment is not to proceed, that private company deserves a degree of stability. Indeed, without that stability it is very unlikely to invest in any of the things we would like to see happen. Those might concern improved buses or better technology, but also better training for staff, proper recruitment, investment in the workforce and so on. An answer entirely focused on how the public sector might behave totally misses the point of what this amendment is trying to achieve.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Of course I respect the noble Lord’s view, but the needs of local communities as expressed through local transport authorities are continuous and there are many examples across the country, unfortunately, of private sector operators choosing, for legitimate commercial reasons, to significantly vary the bus network in their area with the minimum statutory notice. They are quite adept at changing their business in accordance with market circumstances, whereas I think it is quite right to afford local communities the chance—through their elected local transport authorities—to choose to take a view about whether the bus service they are being offered is good enough to continue in its present model, or whether to choose to do something different. If there is a degree of jeopardy attached to this, that jeopardy can be expressed by the continuous need for commercial operators in those circumstances to continue serving the local area well. That would therefore make it unnecessary for the local transport authority to pursue franchising, when there are already remedies in the Bill and a mixture of measures offered to local areas to achieve their aims.

The next four amendments are from my noble friend Lord Woodley, and Amendment 17 is the first of these. He has been joined by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who also spoke about this. It seeks to place a requirement to establish a joint forum between the franchising authority, bus operators and trade union representatives. However, current legislation states that franchised services must be provided under a local service contract between the bus operator and the franchising authority. It is then for an individual bus operator, as an employer, to discuss and determine staffing and employment standards within the bus company, in consultation with staff and their trade union representatives. It is also for the franchising authority to decide what forums it wants to put in place to support the delivery of its bus services.

It should not be for the Government to dictate how a local transport authority should run its services. I know that noble Lords are concerned about driver welfare standards, and I am pleased to tell them that this issue is covered in the current franchising guidance. I will consider further what is said in the guidance about consultation with the workforce, and workforce planning, as a consequence of this discussion. For the moment, I do not believe that this amendment is necessary and I ask my noble friend not to press it.

Amendments 18, 19 and 20 were also tabled by my noble friend Lord Woodley. They raise the important issue of ensuring that employee rights are protected when a local authority bus company is established or during the transfer to franchising. This country already has robust legislation in place to safeguard employees. As noble Lords know, the transfer of undertakings regulations apply to employees of businesses in the United Kingdom. Should a local transport authority choose to establish a bus company, it would be necessary for it to consider the application of TUPE regulations, which are supported by additional guidance to help employers and employees understand their respective responsibilities.

Similar principles apply to franchising. Section 123X of the Transport Act 2000 already provides for the TUPE regulations to apply to staff transfers resulting from the introduction or transfer of a bus franchise, meaning that proposed Amendment 20 would add little or no value beyond what is already in place.

Furthermore, the franchising statutory guidance offers detailed advice on how to determine whether a member of staff is “principally connected” with a service. In line with existing regulations, this guidance advises franchising authorities to work collaboratively with local operators and employee representatives to agree on criteria for determining which staff are principally connected with affected services. For example, such criteria could include the amount of time that an employee spends working on franchised services or whether the employee is part of a specific group assigned to those services. TUPE would then apply to employees identified as being principally connected.

It is of course worth emphasising that, like some other public service employers, existing local authority bus companies often go beyond basic statutory requirements to support their employees. This is particularly true for individuals from protected groups, with many local authority bus companies offering attractive terms and conditions, such as higher rates of pay, flexible working arrangements, and generous holiday and maternity and paternity provisions. However, as I said in respect of the previous amendment, I will consider further what is said in guidance in this respect beyond what is already there. I therefore ask my noble friend not to press these amendments.

The final amendment in this group comes from the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and I note and welcome his interest in safety on the bus network. He will be aware that some of the most important parts of the Bill for passengers are around disability and addressing crime and safety, which includes provisions on training for front-line and wider bus staff. However, this amendment specifically relates to training for officials from franchising authorities on IOSH, which is about providing managers with the tools to maintain a safe environment, and NEBOSH, which is a qualification in health, safety and environmental management— I refuse to say either of those as an acronym.

The effect of this amendment would be an increase in the cost and time it takes to franchise, if staff had to undertake this specific training before starting the franchising process. We all understand that safety is paramount for bus staff, passengers and the wider public but there are only a small proportion of franchising cases and those involved in franchising where having such qualifications would be relevant. It may also be that some of the training for holders of an operator’s licence, the Driver Certificate of Professional Competence, might be equally appropriate.

Part of the reform is to simplify and speed up franchising and drive down costs. This amendment would disproportionately impact authorities in considering franchising, including those in smaller towns and rural areas. This would disenfranchise local authorities, which goes against some of the core tenets of the Bill. Nevertheless, I will consider further what might be said in guidance about these important qualifications for those involved in this process who should hold them. As a result, I hope the noble Lord will feel able not to move this amendment.

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[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I support my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. That is part of what we have done with the Bee Network in Manchester. We now have park-and-rides in parts of the borough where you can park your car all day and the bus comes and takes you straight down the very busy routes. We have increased bus lanes and camera alterations mean that as the bus arrives, traffic lights respond to it. It is that certainty, especially for people going to hospital and other places, that they know they can get there if they leave the car, perhaps a mile or a mile and a half away. It stops congestion at peak times throughout the borough. It is that foresight that local authorities have to embrace.

It is a good idea that if money comes from the Government, it comes with a proviso that you are providing evidence that you can reduce traffic and increase productivity by moving people from A to B without, as my noble friend Lady Pinnock said, waiting hours and hours for a bus that could eventually cost you your job. I fully support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to four amendments in this group, Amendments 30, 31, 32 and 69, although, again, I will speak to them out of numerical order. This week I stand down as chairman of the Built Environment Select Committee, and this morning I chaired my last meeting. It is quite curious that somebody very kindly gave me as a memento and a keepsake an original edition of the government-commissioned report, largely written by Colin Buchanan, Traffic in Towns. It warned that traffic would clog up towns and get in the way and strongly suggested that measures should be introduced. The interesting thing, perhaps, is that the report was published in 1963, 60 years ago. It was a very influential report, but obviously not influential enough if we are still, essentially, making the same claim today. It is possible that there is a political explanation of why the measures that Traffic in Towns proposed have never been implemented as fully as might be wished.

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Amendment 31 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, recognises that it is important that local transport authorities know how much funding from central government is available to them. That is why funding allocations are already a matter of public record, as is the allocation methodology. In fact, the noble Lord asked me a Question in the Chamber, to which I responded, about the allocation methodology of funding awards that had recently been allocated. I have already referred, in responding to Amendment 4, to the intention of the department, subject to the spending review, to look at a longer funding period.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

The Minister makes a very important point there. When the last grant was allocated—in round numbers, of £1 billion, £250 million went to bus operators and £750 million went to local authorities—a new methodology was introduced for allocating it. It was based on three factors; I cannot remember what they were but, in a way, that does not matter, because the important point that I raised was that there was no evidence underlying the choice of these three factors. Although it is true that the Minister answered my point in the Chamber, he offered no rationale or evidence for the choice of those three factors; they will come back to me the moment I sit down.

However, that is not my main point. My main point is not to drag over the coals of what was discussed in the debate we had on that Statement but, rather, to point out that the Minister now appears to be saying that the same unevidenced methodology, with no rationale to explain it—a third this, a third that, a third the other—will be applied when the department comes to distribute whatever funding it has available for buses as a result of the upcoming spending review. That is a very important point, if he is making it. Does he want to confirm that that is what he meant? Or did he, perfectly understandably, fall into a momentary lapse that he would want to withdraw? We really need to know.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention; my response to him will probably be very similar to what I said at the time. First, the allocation methodology was far more transparent than the previous Government’s allocation methodology: it allocated money to all local transport authorities in England for bus services when, previously, there had been occasions when money was competed for via a long and tedious process not necessarily winding up in success. I, too, am struggling to recall all three of the criteria, only because my mind is currently full of these amendments, but two of them were population and bus mileage, which are self-evidently the sorts of indexes that you would use for this process.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

One was deprivation.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. I thank him for his further intervention; we got there between us, even though neither of us could remember to start with.

Those are pretty central ways of allocating that funding. I will not necessarily commit the department precisely to that methodology in future because, obviously, we have the right to consider the matter further. Equally, we would of course be open to any other proposed indices to consider against population, deprivation and place need, but, in my view, those seem to be pretty good ones; I cannot see that they are obviously wrong. In conclusion to this little excursion into this matter, it is certainly better than partial allocations and competing for money without local transport authorities being certain of success—I am certain of that.

It is important to note that much of the funding to local authorities and local transport authorities is consolidated. That funding is not hypothecated by central government, thus it is for the local transport authority to determine how to apportion its funding. For example, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government provides local authorities with funding through the local government funding settlement. Money from that can currently be used to support bus services, for example by tendering. In future, it is possible that a local transport authority could choose to put some of that funding towards a bus grant using the powers proposed by Clause 16. The same is true for funding provided through the Department for Transport’s bus service improvement plans. Local transport authorities can decide how to allocate that funding towards a variety of bus initiatives.

Local authorities also have access to other sources of funding, including council tax money and retained business rates. Some of this money could be used to establish a local bus grant without recourse to funding provided by central government. The Government do not wish to tie the hands of local transport authorities by specifying the total funding to be used to carry out the functions under this section. It is for them to work out how much they wish to spend on such grants from within their wider allocations.

The powers proposed under Clause 16 are optional and would be available to local transport authorities if they chose to use them. It is thus hard to see how the statutory guidance—which may be published but its publication is not mandatory—could contain the information that would be required by the noble Lord’s amendment.

Lastly, I fear that the amendment does not fully recognise that the statutory guidance provided for by Clause 16(6) is intended to set out factors that a local transport authority should consider when choosing to design and pay a grant to bus operators. The local transport authorities will be very aware of their financial situation when doing so. The amendment is therefore not needed and I ask the noble Lord not to press it.

Turning to Amendment 32, it is good to see that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, recognises the important role that demand responsive transport can play in contributing to local public transport provision. The amendment takes a belt-and-braces approach—both proposed subsections would have the same effect by ultimately requiring local transport authorities to think about flexible bus services, a form of demand responsive transport, if they chose to use the powers that would be granted by Clause 16 to design and pay grants to bus operators. I contend that neither the belt nor the braces are needed. There is nothing in Clause 16 to prevent a local transport authority choosing to use the powers therein to have regard to, and to support flexible bus services, to the extent that they meet the definition of “service” in Clause 16(2). I am happy to have that on the record, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, requested.

Other types of demand responsive transport—for instance, that provided using private hire vehicles—are not likely to fall within the definition of “service” in this measure. Indeed, in our drafting of Clause 16 we have deliberately made it possible for local transport authorities to support a wider range of bus service types than the Government can through the existing powers available to the Secretary of State under Section 154 of the Transport Act 2000. This is because we want local transport authorities, in line with the devolution agenda, to be able to design grants that best support the outcomes that they see as important. That is key to help ensure that local bus services are able to contribute to economic growth and to breaking down barriers to opportunity.

Noble Lords will also be aware that Clause 16(6) gives the Secretary of State the option to publish the statutory guidance. If we feel that the guidance is needed, we will publish it.

Local transport authorities will be best placed to determine whether demand responsive transport is a viable option for their areas. The Bill and other aspects of our devolution agenda—including building on the devolution deals introduced by the previous Government —are aimed at giving local authorities more freedom and flexibility. However, given that flexible bus services are a key part of the bus offering in some areas, and will continue to be an important option for local authorities when considering the appropriate mix of services, it would seem strange for the statutory guidance, if it were published, not to contain references to flexible bus services. I hope I have demonstrated that the amendment is not needed and I therefore request the noble Lord not to press it.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for Amendment 33. I note with sadness that the late Lady Randerson is not here to be able to debate it herself. It is a terrible shame. As noble Lords will all be aware, economic growth is one of the core missions of this Government, and the amendment rightly highlights the important role small and medium-sized enterprises have to play in delivering growth. The Bill supports the economic growth mission by giving local transport authorities greater freedom in deciding how they support their local bus services to boost economic growth and remove barriers to opportunity.

The amendment is intended to ensure that local transport authorities that choose to use the new powers to design and pay grants to bus operators think about the needs of small bus operators when designing those grants. However, the amendment is not needed because under the grant-making powers given to them by the Bill, there is nothing preventing local transport authorities designing grants that prioritise and support smaller operators of bus services, subject to other competition and subsidy controls. Because most local transport authorities are in enhanced partnerships, they will be best placed to understand the needs of small operators. They will certainly know those in their areas and whether such grants would be appropriate.

As public authorities disbursing funding, local transport authorities will, however, need to ensure that any grants they design, using the powers that would be granted by the Bill, comply with relevant subsidy controls to ensure that they are not distorting their local market or the national market. I hope that assurance allows the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, not to press her amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his detailed reply and the clarity of his answers to all our amendments. I remind the Committee that my Amendment 4 seeks to encourage the Government to respond positively to the need for funding, such as TfL has enjoyed. I note that Amendment 30 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is using funding to discourage enfranchising. There is quite a world of difference between us.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

If I may finish my point before the noble Lord can come in, I thank the Minister for his assurance on funding. I am going to wait for the figures to come out of all that, but I am especially disappointed that the ministry has asked him to point towards local government funding as a source, when that funding is under huge stress at the moment. With that, I wish to withdraw Amendment 4 in my name.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I think that the noble Baroness said Amendment 30 when she probably meant Amendment 31, but that is a minor point.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Yes, sorry.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

It is complete nonsense to misrepresent my point in the way that she has done. I am really beginning to wonder, as I say, if the purpose of the Liberal Democrats is to use this Committee to attack the Conservatives rather than hold the Government to account. It is very odd indeed and might merit some discussion outside the Committee.

Amendment 4 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

This would provide better value for money for passengers and taxpayers, save local authorities the costs arising from tendering services, stop profit leakage to commercial operators under franchising and deregulation, and enable all surplus revenue to be reinvested in improving services for passengers. Transport for Quality of Life has estimated that it could save £500 million a year, which is not insignificant. Will the Minister therefore commit to reviewing and publishing the potential benefits to the farepayer and taxpayer of allowing local transport authorities to directly award their bus services to the companies they create? I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 13 standing in my name. I can see the role of direct awards as a matter of principle in certain cases. They have the effect of removing from the process competition between potential bidders for a contract, but there are benefits to competition. I know the Minister wants me to imbibe and regurgitate great chunks of Lord Ashfield’s writings from the 1920s and 1930s, in which he could barely tolerate the word “competition” without using the adjective “wasteful”, but there are some benefits that might arise from competition that even the Minister might admit to.

I am willing to accept, if the Minister gives this assurance, that taking competition out of the process can be consistent with existing procurement legislation. He started to make that argument at Second Reading. I will not challenge him and say that this is contrary to procurement legislation—possibly it can be made compatible with procurement legislation, but he needs to explain how. However, I am concerned, in cases where there is more than one incumbent operator—which may well be the case, especially where local transport is for more geographically dispersed areas—about how a direct-award process might work in a way that was seen to be fair and did not expose the process to potentially awkward, difficult and unpleasant legal challenge and things of that character.

Essentially, I am trying to get more clarity from the Government about how direct awards will work in the more difficult and complex circumstances. I am seeking explicit assurances about the compatibility with procurement legislation, which I suspect the Minister can explain convincingly, but it needs to be put on the record.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s comments. The difficulty with direct awards is that sometimes they are genuinely necessary. We experienced that on the railways—where circumstances change, a business fails or there is simply a need to take greater control for reasons that come along unexpectedly. The danger is—I go back to what I said earlier about ideology —that the requirement for a direct award caused by circumstance is overtaken by direct award driven by ideology.

I am afraid that that is at the heart of the noble Lord’s amendment. I understand the principle he represents, but it would not be right to have a situation in which a local authority was able, unfettered, to set up its own bus company and make a direct award to it, regardless of whether it was any good or not—there have been many occasions in history where the local municipal bus company has not been good at all.

In the world the Government seek to create, where in my view there is a role for direct award, on occasions, when it is necessary, I too would like to understand how the Minister would ensure that that power is used in a way that is right and proper, and, ultimately, as I said earlier, beneficial to the passenger.

Railway Electrification

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My reference earlier to integrating the electrification programme with rolling stock decisions reflects the fact that many trains on the British railway network are now capable of operating in either electric or diesel mode. That is a consequence of rolling stock purchases over the past 10 years. It enables some more choices to be made about the very expensive infrastructure cost of electrification versus electrification where it makes a real difference in both time and volume of rail traffic, and where trains that will run on electricity—when the electricity is there—will also serve parts of the network where it is not.

Some of the decisions which have been taken in rolling stock will last 35 years, like the rolling stock itself. That is true of the Great Western main line electrification, where those trains happily run on the wires as far as Cardiff and then travel by diesel not only to Swansea but further west to Carmarthen and to the south-west as well. A similar situation is true on the Midland main line, where bi-mode trains will be in operation. There is no point in investing in very expensive infrastructure if we can find another way of creating electrification for the vast majority of the network. The study being done by Network Rail, which will be completed and feed in to the department’s overall review of capital projects, will point out where that valuable public money ought to be best spent.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the electrification of the north Wales main line, that the Conservative party committed itself to in its manifesto, was to be funded from the savings made from HS2 and the Minister should not say that it was an unfunded commitment.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

There is a report out today from Rail Partners which says that the costs of rail freight have been rising three times faster than the costs of carrying freight by road. Part of this is due to the rising cost of electricity. Has the Minister discussed with his colleagues in other departments the effect on the economic case for electrification of their pursuing policies that are giving us the highest cost and the most expensive electricity in Europe?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will continue to claim that the Network North plan was unfunded, because it depended on money that had never been properly allocated in the future to HS2 phase 2. When this Government took office, there was no evidence of any financial plans to deliver virtually any part of that agenda. In respect of the cost of electricity, of course, it is dependent on the relative price of electricity compared with other forms of propulsion for rail, but in terms of electrification of the railway and its use for freight, other considerations are far stronger than the cost of electricity and where it is generated. I shall concentrate in answering this Question on the electrification of the railway, because that is the Question that was asked.

Driving Tests: Secondary Market

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

One consideration in improving the relationship between driving examiners and the DVSA is to have enough of them to conduct tests on a basis where people do not feel excluded or significantly delayed. It is not the only action the Government are taking: my honourable friend the Future of Roads Minister made a Statement in the other place on 18 December with a seven-point plan, all of which is designed both to help people get tests when they need them and to reduce the amount of time it takes between applying for a test and actually taking one.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend who, after a lifetime of bicycling, offers greater advocacy for learner drivers than the Government appear interested in doing—possibly he is looking for a driving test himself at this late stage. During the previous Government, in the last 18 months, the DVSA issued 283 warnings and 746 suspensions, and closed 689 alleged businesses all over this scam. None of this enforcement activity has been mentioned by the Minister. Has it been dropped? Has the DVSA gone slack under a Labour Administration, while they are focusing on consultations and reworkings of processes?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

As a matter of fact, the statistics I can quote back to him are that 344 warnings and 791 suspensions have been issued, and 811 business accounts have been closed since the new Government took office. I think that comprehensively demonstrates that there has been no such slackening off and that the DVSA is on top of this. The real answer, however, is to reduce the amount of time it takes to get the test in the first place so that people do not feel very early in their learning journey that they have to book a test long in advance of it taking place. The Government’s aim is to get that down to seven weeks by recruiting a large quantity of driving examiners, to whom I previously referred.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is difficult—in fact, impossible, really—for me to add meaningfully at this stage to the many personal and emotional tributes that have been paid by noble Lords to the late Baroness Randerson. I knew her since I entered the House, but only rather distantly as a figure who spoke authoritatively and compellingly from the Liberal Democrat Benches on the subject of transport. But over the last few months, as I have taken on this role, I have had the opportunity of getting to know her better. Indeed, if I may say so, I developed over that period a degree of affection for her rather shrewd sense of humour. Others know her a great deal better than I ever achieved, and I regret that I shall not have the opportunity to develop the growing personal regard that I had for her. We shall miss her very much.

I thank the Minister and his officials for the time that they have given to briefing me on this Bill. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.

I turn to the Bill itself. Over Christmas, I had a message from a foreign friend asking me what it was like living in a socialist paradise, which led me to reflect a little on the nature of the Government. What strikes me about the Government, and it is present here again, is not really their socialism, though there is a degree of that; it is the fact that they are a Government who are almost solely and utterly focused on the public sector. The public sector is the solution to everything, and of course the policies of the public sector unions are determinative. So it is that we come to what is, in essence, a public sector Bill that is fundamentally driven by a rather narrow ideological approach. It is statist and anti-enterprise. It is also mildly nostalgic and backward-looking—a sort of return to the Attlee Government is essentially what we are being offered today.

Our first objection to the Bill, therefore, is that it is bureaucratic. It is anti-enterprise and, through franchising, it is likely effectively to snuff out a number of private sector businesses, which will be reduced to becoming not entrepreneurial entities at all but merely agencies of the state, operating to a fee and doing what the state instructs them to do in terms of routes, services and charging the fares that the state, through the local transport authorities, has set for them.

The Minister knows, from his time as the owner of a private bus company, the benefits to passenger service of private businesses. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, and my noble friend Lord McLoughlin drew attention to the decline in passenger numbers, and the implication that certain noble Lords appear to draw is that it is a consequence of private provision. The same noble Lords, however, do not give credit to the private sector for the massive increase in usage of railways under privatisation. In that case they are probably right as well, to some degree. The point is that both bus and rail demand are subject to stronger fundamental forces. That is the fundamental problem that the Government have in trying to revive the sort of 1950s vision of bus services that we see in this Bill.

The fact is that in the case of rail, the Government hope to benefit from a secular rise in demand for rail passenger services. In the case of buses, they can hope only to prop up what is in fact a secular fall, a decline, in demand for bus services. A number of noble Lords have pointed out that that is very expensive to do. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, gave some illustrations of how expensive it might be. It is a random example and many examples were developed, but one of the first examples given in the debate was by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, who referred to North Shropshire and the cuts in services there. Does anyone really imagine that those cuts can be reversed and restored without heavy public expenditure?

The Government’s chosen case studies, of which they are so proud, include London and Manchester. Going back to November 2024, shortly before her political demise, the former Secretary of State, Louise Haigh, wrote in the Sunday Mirror about London:

“This represents record capital investment to the majority of places and a once-in-a-generation reform plan that aims to deliver London-style buses to every corner of the country—including those areas that are usually overlooked”.


The noble Lord, Lord Snape, said it would cost £850 million a year to sustain London buses. The figure I have is £738 million a year in 2024 but we are in, as the Americans say, the same ballpark. If I may be so bold as to disagree with such an experienced transport commentator as my noble friend Lord McLoughlin, there has in fact been a reduction in bus mileage in London of approximately 5% under the current mayor. There was a plan to reduce it by 7%. I do not think the full 7% was delivered, but it was certainly of the order of 5%. This is palpable to those of us who live in or close to central London in particular. In the case of Manchester, the Bee Network celebrated its first year of franchised bus services in September 2024. Passenger journeys in Greater Manchester grew by 5% in the first year of franchising.

By contrast, however, in the year ending March 2024—I agree this is not exactly the same period, but it is the best overlap I can get—national bus passenger numbers grew by 7%, and those figures are taken from the Department for Transport’s official statistics. I might say also in the context of secular decline that that also illustrates how little can be learned from simply looking at one year’s figures. The idea that Manchester demonstrates a huge success—outstanding, apart from the rest of the country—because of franchising needs to be substantiated. It is not necessarily very persuasive on the numbers given. As my noble friend Lord Effingham pointed out, the establishment of the Greater Manchester Bee Network required over £1 billion of central government investment. If you are spending the thick end of £1 billion a year sustaining the London bus network, you might regard a one-off payment of £1 billion to Manchester as mere small change, but replicate that around the country and you will eventually be looking at real numbers. The upshot is that any promise by the Government to give London-style bus services to the whole of the country is essentially a chimera. It is a bogus offer that the Government cannot afford to deliver.

Let us turn briefly to passengers, which is my next topic, if we move away from costs. We argued forcefully when we debated the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill that the focus of the Bill, its overriding purpose, should be to improve passenger services. It was, after all, a Bill—now an Act—about passenger services on the railway. However, the Government resisted that and overturned it in the other place. Similarly, this Bill makes no commitment to an improvement in services for bus passengers. It simply hopes that by making structural and procurement changes it will somehow achieve that. It has no overall duty on the Secretary of State to seek to improve passenger services. It says simply that perhaps the Secretary of State should.

Is the Bill going to work? In its manifesto, the Labour Party committed to reform the system for procuring bus services and to give local leaders new powers. The reality of the Bill is that the Government are not really giving local leaders new powers, but simply removing the Department for Transport’s role in confirming the appropriateness of franchising in other areas. It is our view that the Government’s decision to remove the Secretary of State’s discretionary power to grant franchising powers to local authorities risks too much, and we believe that the Secretary of State should have the power to intervene where a local authority’s franchising model is failing, as a safeguard to protect services for local people where local leadership is poor.

It is essential to understand the differences between large concentrations of persons living in an urban area and the structure of a market that exists in rural areas. That was the logic behind the 2017 Act, which gave powers to certain conurbations, in effect, to franchise or take more control of their own buses but to deny them elsewhere. Extending that power throughout the whole country is, I am afraid, to take a chance and offer a bogus prospectus to the public. The vast majority of local transport authorities will not have the skills to plan routes, assess demand, set fares and introduce a ticketing system, No doubt we will be told that the Bus Centre of Excellence will be deployed to help them. Perhaps the Minister could tell us when he responds how many people are employed by the Bus Centre of Excellence. As other noble Lords have said, the consequence is that the Bill has no answer to the needs of rural communities.

We believe that some subsidiary elements of the Bill are welcome—for example, closing the loophole in the safeguarding of children who are being transported to school on independent school bus services—but we have other concerns, which I will briefly run through, because we will have an opportunity to discuss them further in Committee.

The first is the relative silence of the Bill on ticketing, which is remarkable. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who is always ahead of the game, said—to the rather older Members of the House, perhaps—Oyster cards are not where it’s at any more. Contactless payment, at the very least, is what one should be looking at, rather than a bespoke Oyster card-type system. But it is remarkable how little the Bill has to say about that and, as she said, about the ability to deploy that payment method outside a particular local transport area. Where is the Bill taking us on that; what do the Government have in mind?

Data collection is very important, but more important is its dissemination. In London, the data collected by Transport for London is available free to all app developers. Do the Government intend the same with the data collected nationally; or is it, heaven forfend, the secret plan of the Department for Transport to develop its own app to disseminate this on an exclusive basis? I think we would like to know.

The training of bus drivers in relation to disability in particular is very important, but as the Minister knows, because I have expressed this to him privately, I am concerned about the implications of the passage in the Bill on drivers being trained to tackle anti-social behaviour and potentially violent activity. It is my very clear view—and I suspect it is, on reflection, his—that it is not right for the public to expect bus drivers to put themselves at risk in order to confront incidents that the police would tackle by deploying two, three or four uniformed officers. We have to be very realistic about this, and we will want to explore the issue when the Bill is in Committee.

Safety is of course terribly important, as the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, made clear. It is worth asking to what extent the franchise model contributes to a sort of aggressive bus management that might lead to buses being driven less safely than might otherwise be the case. I said earlier that the Bill has a sort of nostalgic “back to Attlee” flavour to it. One way of illustrating that is that it completely fails to mention anything to do with demand-led transport. The Bill very much envisages a fixed-route, traditional bus service but in fact, in many rural areas demand-led transport might well be and is already proving to be a much more effective way of providing affordable services to communities. The Bill as it stands contains almost no provision for that and makes no reference to it; it will be interesting to see how that fits with the franchising system.

I will conclude. This is an ideologically driven, backward-looking, bureaucratic and expensive Bill. We, for our part on these Benches, shall do our best to improve it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

It was a long time ago.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It was a long time ago; the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and I completely agree. I wanted only to say that I do not claim particular credit for it; if you lead a team, you should give credit to the team that you lead and not take it all yourself.

The noble Lord’s more important points were about inclusion and accessibility. I absolutely recognise the points he made about the accessibility of the bus service to people with disabilities. I note his contention that Clause 22 does not go far enough, but I promise—and I am sure we will discuss it in Committee—to look at the degree and extent to which this clause can answer his points. He must be able to see that the intention of Clause 22 is to improve bus stopping areas and for the Secretary of State to give some guidance, which ought to be mandatorily taken into regard by local transport and highway authorities.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raised points about community control and who is in control. As I said, the point of this is to return control to local transport authorities. He also raised a question, which he largely answered, about what happens if local transport authorities do not do their job. One would hope that the citizens of the local transport authority would vote them out for not doing their job. That is the remedy. I do not think that the Secretary of State coming down on local transport authorities like a ton of bricks is a satisfactory alternative; we want to return control to the people who should rightly have it.

Incidentally, there have been bus routes down the Embankment since the trains went. I used to travel on route 109, but it does not go there any more.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also raised some important points on the Bill. She raised Clause 9 on approved persons, which we will discuss in Committee. The intention is not to deregulate approved persons but to widen the range of them. I completely agree with her that they should have some qualifications. An unqualified person should not be able to make a judgment about whether a franchising scheme is right.

The noble Baroness asked whether Clause 11 complies with the procurement regulations. I am advised that I am able to tell her that it does.

The noble Baroness welcomed Clause 19 and referred to assistance data. I will take that away and see what can be done. Bringing data on bus service usage into the 21st century is quite important and I am sympathetic to the idea that, as long as it is not a burden to bus operators, or indeed local transport authorities, collecting data is the right thing to do, so that we know what is going on.

I note very clearly the noble Baroness’s comments on Clauses 24 and 25, that diversity training is not the same as the rights for disabled people, and on what we did, with her great assistance, in the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, referring to the Equality Act. I will go away and reflect on that.

Lastly, I come to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who has some extraordinary views about socialist paradises and returning to the era of the Attlee Government. I find it particularly extraordinary because I know that the noble Lord has such a strong view about the autonomy of local authorities. The Bill intends to return bus services to the autonomy of local authorities and for the Secretary of State not to intervene so much in the provision of services.

I have to tell the noble Lord that there is currently a huge disparity in the provision of bus services across Britain. I was not only responsible for the bus service in London, as he knows, but, for a measurable length of time, I was responsible for the bus services in what was laughingly called south-east England but apparently included Norfolk, Northampton, Leicester and Southampton. Even within one bus group, 20 years ago, there was an extraordinary variation in the provision of services and the extent to which bus operators sought to maximise the network and the return on it, or cut off individual journeys, to the extent to which some towns and cities in Britain find themselves short of or even without bus services after 7 pm and on Sundays.

I think I know roughly how to run a bus network, and one of the things you should do, which is the feature of the best bus services run by the private companies outside London—I can mention some places, but I will not—is to seek to service the network and to take people to school, hospital, work, leisure and home. It is in those places where those services have drifted away that something else needs to be done.

That is also true of rural services. The noble Lord alleged, quite wrongly, that the Bill does not deal with demand-responsive transport. It very much does—that is one of the remedies open to local transport authorities, as it should be. It is not a particularly cheap methodology but it is there to be used and, in fact, there are some startlingly good examples of it. He refers to it as though it is an urban feature but his own Government instituted an experimental regime in Cornwall, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, knows, has produced rather a good bus service in Cornwall by having features of Cornwall Council’s activities that amount to franchising in the same way that the Bill will allow to happen.

I have come to the end of my allotted time. There is a limit to what I can answer here. As I set out earlier, the Bill is primarily about empowering local leaders wherever they are. It is a privilege to bring this forward to your Lordships’ House for Second Reading. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in today’s debate. I welcome the support of those who have spoken in favour of the Bill’s measures and look forward to continuing the debate on the Bill in Grand Committee.

Old Oak Common: Train Disruption

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to criticise a railway that cannot operate reliably on Sundays and a lot of work is going into making sure that the optional working arrangement for Sundays for drivers and train managers on the Great Western Railway is addressed. But he is conflating two issues. We are mindful of the railway needs of the south-west of England. I think I have met virtually every Member of the other House west of Bristol on the matter of Old Oak Common. Old Oak Common will be an asset to the railway, and the railway to the south-west of England. As always with these things, construction is difficult and takes more time than we would like, but the result will be a better railway network for all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister said that a station at Euston is indispensable for the success and effectiveness of HS2. Indeed, the Government made funds available in the Budget to build the tunnels from Old Oak Common through to Euston. How close are the Government to seeing deliverable engineering proposals for the construction of those platforms at Euston that allow passengers to board, alight and make use of these tunnels? How far away are we from actually having a plan?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am not sure whether the noble Lord knows, but one of the things that I took on in my previous role was chairing the Euston Partnership, which I did for five years. In that time, we saw at least two iterations of a design for the HS2 station. One was eye-wateringly expensive and included air-conditioned platforms, which is not the case even in Saudi Arabia. The alternative looked like an eastern European railway station after the Second World War, with corrugated iron canopies. Neither of those is at all sufficient. I have seen work going on for an integrated station between the Network Rail side and the HS2 side. I am optimistic that it is affordable, and that it can be financed and built. Incidentally, there will be a large amount of office space, creating jobs and housing in that area as well.

Electric Scooters and Electric Bicycles: Pedestrian Safety

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly recognise the passion with which the noble Baroness speaks. Before Christmas, the Government published the English devolution White Paper, which has in it a provision for local transport authorities to be empowered to regulate on street micromobility—that is, e-bikes and e-cycle schemes—so that local areas can shape these schemes and tackle the scourge of badly parked e-cycles and e-scooters.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, as well as being potentially criminally ridden, these vehicles are also being used in the course of committing crime. In 2023-24, there were 11,000 offences recorded involving the use of e-bikes and e-scooters—a huge growth on previous years, and there is no sign of abatement. Do the Minister and his Government have a plan for curbing this epidemic?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It is easy to recognise the position the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, talked about. Indeed, he talked about it in very similar terms the week before Christmas. It is primarily a matter of enforcement by chief police officers, simply because, as he says, there may or may not be a crime in relation to the use of e-scooters and e-bikes, but crimes are being committed as a consequence of using them. This debate is one of the ways of drawing it to the attention of chief police officers, so that enforcement action is appropriately taken.

Cost of Living: Rail Fares

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her warm tribute to Baroness Randerson.

As I said, the Government are to have a rail sale early this year, in which many millions of tickets will be sold at discounted fares. Noble Lords will know that, following Covid, the demand characteristics of the railway have changed: there is still less commuting, despite changes in working practices, and more leisure travel. That gives real opportunities to produce fresh fare scenarios that will incentivise travel. To pre-empt a question that otherwise will be asked, the railway needs to be adequately able to cope with leisure travel for all seven days of the week in order that people can not only travel cheaply but get a seat when they do.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I echo what the Minister said about the late Baroness Randerson. We will have an opportunity to discuss her sad demise later in the week and return to the subject then.

In the future that the Minister envisages for the reformed railways, will it still be the case that regulated fares are set by the Secretary of State, or does he expect that power to pass to Great British Railways? Will that be in the consultation document that he has promised is going to be issued? When are we going to see that consultation document, given that he told the House he hoped it would be issued before the Christmas Recess, which clearly has not been the case?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments on Baroness Randerson.

On the future of the fares structure of the railway, it is overwhelmingly likely that, whoever the Secretary of State is, they will continue to have a strong interest in the fares structure of the railway. However, the proposition is that Great British Railways will be responsible for both revenue and cost, and therefore will have some freedom to set fares. It is true that I had hoped that the consultation document would be available before Christmas, but clearly that was not the case. The passage of the seasons in political time is variable, but I am going to promise that it will be available in the next few weeks.

E-scooters and E-bikes

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to a trial conducted by the previous Government which has gone on rather a long time—rather too long, in my view. Would it not make sense for the Government to draw that trial now to an early conclusion and see what lessons could be learned from it before proceeding with legislation, so that it could be informed by the results of the trial? Will the Minister be able to give a commitment that that will be done? When he learns the lessons of that trial, and will he take a particular interest in the use of e-scooters in relation to crime which we see on the street, which is a cause of great concern—not least mobile phone theft?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Happy Christmas to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

Hammersmith Bridge

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We know what the range of costs for a future renovation of the bridge should be. They are very significant—at least a quarter of a billion pounds. I cannot currently say how detailed that is, but I know that it is the order of magnitude of what would need to be done to move further than just stabilisation, which will be completed, as I say. It must have been quite a burden to both chair and be in those meetings, and I am interested to hear about that. I hope that my honourable friend the Minister for Local Transport, when he reconvenes the taskforce, quickly brings the meeting to a clear understanding of what the bridge is to be used for in the future, and therefore what needs to be done to it in the long term.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Greater London Authority Act explicitly transferred the responsibility previously held by the Government Office for London to fund capital transport projects by the boroughs to the Mayor of London. It is undoubtedly the Mayor of London’s responsibility to provide funding for this. Does the Minister not agree that what we are seeing here is a failure by two Labour-run authorities that, at the expense of members of the public, are engaged in a competition to show who can be more anti-motorist?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will say two things to the noble Lord. First, the bridge has got into its current state over decades, which have seen various changes of control by the owners, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Secondly, he will know better than most that the level of settlement afforded to the Mayor of London for transport purposes by the previous Government was frankly derisory, and therefore the current Mayor of London has not been able to allocate money to all the things he would like to. We need to establish what the use of the bridge will be in future, which is a matter for the two boroughs. In other circumstances the noble Lord would defend fiercely the right of local authorities in London to decide what to do with their local roads. That has to be established. From that, it can be worked out what to do with the bridge, how much it will cost, how long it will take and, incidentally, who should pay for it.

Train Crew Shortages

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. The lengthy disputes were damaging to passengers and to the railway’s revenue and sapped the morale of the staff—and, indeed, of the management. In particular, in relation to Northern, the number of disputes and the length of time for which they have taken place reflect the fact that no serious effort seems to have been made to resolve them in the time that the company was in the ownership of the last Government. The previous Secretary of State, the current Secretary of State and I are absolutely resolute that we have to resolve these issues. They are quite deep-seated, but as we are here today, the management and the trade unions are in discussion about how to do that, and we are strongly supporting them.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I start by commiserating with the Minister on the fact that transport does not appear to be being mentioned in the latest great reset speech today. It must be tough not being a priority. On the running of the railways, the noble Lord knows better than anybody else that, to run a railway, you need management with strong focus and a strong hand. Does he not accept that the morale of management at the train operating companies is absolutely shot to pieces as a result of the recent legislation, while it waits for the Hendy axe to fall, and that, in effect, at least over the next few years, the railways are being run by the unions—much as the Government appear to be being run by the unions?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is no need to reflect the Government’s policy on railways in any particular speech by any member of the Government. We have a clear direction to go in, and we are going there. On the management of the railways, I have to say, if the noble Lord opposite knew the managers as I did, he would know that many of them were in fact rather pleased that there is now a direction. Their morale, as with my own when chairing Network Rail, was significantly damaged by the promise of reform, which started after the May 2018 timetable debacle and was not fulfilled by the previous Government. This Government are going to do it.