Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 24th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Kohler]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. The Lib Dems support the Bill and applaud the Government’s ambitions. This is an excellent move forward, and we support the purpose set out in clause 1. The stated aim to

“improve the performance, accessibility and quality of bus passenger services”

in the UK is vital. However, buses have for too long been a poor relation in public transport, which is why we are pushing the Government to give local authorities a general duty to promote the use of bus services.

The bus is the most popular form of public transport, but it has long been neglected and, to some extent, looked down on. New clause 22 would ensure that local authorities have a duty to encourage the use of buses and promote their benefits and services, but it is only a general duty. Subsection (2) would not be mandatory; it simply suggests the things that a local authority might consider.

Although the Government’s ambitions are wonderful and to be commended, we want local authorities to start saying to people, “Yes, buses are important, and we have a role in providing them.” That is why we are pushing the Government on that.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is very reassuring to have you in the Chair, Sir Roger. I already feel calmer, and I am sure the Minister does as well.

[The Chair]

How are you spelling that—calmer or karma?

[Jerome Mayhew]

I will tell you at the end of the day.

The Opposition welcome the Bill in principle, which is why we did not divide the House on Second Reading. We welcome it because franchising was an innovation that the previous Government introduced in 2017. At that stage, it was limited to mayoral combined authorities, although any local authority could apply to the Secretary of State for agreement that franchising could be brought in.

We are concerned, however, that the Bill does not deliver the goals of value for money and improvement of passenger services as it is currently drafted. It is therefore important that we use this opportunity to carefully consider the many amendments from the Government, official Opposition, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens; each of them has their various merits, and there are many good ideas to improve what every party agrees is currently an imperfect Bill.

That brings me to clause 1—the purpose clause—which was proposed by the Earl of Effingham in the other place, and received substantial support. It ensures that the overarching aim of the Bill is to improve bus services, and that that remains at the heart of all decisions undertaken in its provisions. By explicitly requiring the Secretary of State to have regard to that purpose, the clause embeds into the legislation a commitment to improve bus services. That is not merely a formality; it is about setting a clear duty on the Secretary of State to put the improvement of bus services at the core of any decisions he or she makes under the legislation.

The clause gives the Bill a necessary focus; it is the framework on which all the baubles of other clauses and requirements are hung. That is important when there is a change to structures, as the Bill anticipates, because it is easy for process to take over from the clear objectives of the Bill. In a purely commercial construct, where there is an operator driven by the profit motive—they need to drive fare box and have customers to get a return on their investment—it is obvious that the natural incentives focus on the customer. When we move to a franchise and the primacy of commercial incentives are removed, the risk is that the customer gets overlooked.

In what is commonly described as full-fat franchising—rather like the Manchester example of the Bee Network, which I believe we will refer to quite frequently in Committee—the local authority takes full assumption of commercial risk within its remit and the operator is contracted merely to provide a service. That brings the temptation to mould services in favour of the supplier—particularly if the supplier is a municipal bus company, such as an in-house provider—as opposed to the passenger.

With external providers, there are a couple of checks on that: first, the direct relationship between fare box and profitability, which I have already mentioned; and secondly, the local authority’s overseeing position to challenge operators and hold them to account, particularly when partnerships are the enhanced partnerships that we have in many local authorities around the country. That combination enforces the interests of the passenger, even when they are not directly consistent with commercial performance. Under wider franchising, there is a risk—albeit a manageable one—that that check will disappear, because local authorities may become both the judge and the jury.

That makes the purpose clause even more important to ensure that the Secretary of State focuses on passengers in every decision. It makes it clear that the accountability for achieving that result lies firmly with the Secretary of State, and it is useful, as in any complex consideration, to have organisational clarity. Nothing in the Bill, other than here in clause 1, puts passengers front and centre—that is a notable omission from the Bill as currently drafted; all the rest deals with procedure. Placing an explicit duty on the Secretary of State provides a valuable guiding principle throughout the Bill’s implementation period, and ensures that every step taken under the Bill will be aligned with the objective of improving bus services for all those who rely on them.

The Minister in his opening remarks said that the clause was not necessary, because it does not encompass

“the full scope of the Government’s ambition.”

Yet the clause says that the Bill will

“improve the performance, accessibility and quality”.

Surely “quality” encompasses safety, which was the Minister’s example as to why the clause was inadequate to describe the full scope of the Government’s ambitions. I push back on that, because quality does encompass safety in the ordinary sense of that word.

Paragraph 1 of the Government’s explanatory notes for the Bill says:

“The Bus Services (No. 2) Bill brings forward primary legislative measures intended to support the government’s commitment to deliver better buses.”

Clause 1 honours that Government commitment to deliver better buses and should remain part of the Bill.

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[Simon Lightwood]

Clause 2 removes the requirement for local transport authorities that are not mayoral combined authorities or mayoral combined county authorities to gain the Secretary of State’s consent to start the franchising process. The measure puts all local transport authorities on a level playing field. It also removes from the process an administrative step that does not provide an effective check on local transport authorities’ plans, given that it occurs before a franchising assessment is produced. I am confident that the measure will make franchising more attractive to local transport authorities by speeding up the overall process.

New clause 14, tabled by the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham, would require authorities to publish a statement that outlines their objectives, reasons and supporting evidence for deciding whether franchising is the best option to achieve their aims, before they initiate the formal process. The Department for Transport has established franchising guidance; to require local authorities to provide an up-front statement during an exploratory stage would be premature. The franchising scheme assessment also provides a robust way to present the evidence and rationale behind a decision to franchise.

Although local authorities might choose to develop a feasibility assessment to investigate the right bus model for their area, this should remain optional to allow them the flexibility to adopt the approach that best suits their needs. The new clause would also make the franchising process slower and undermine the Government’s ambition to streamline franchising, making it faster and more cost-effective.

New clause 18 would require local authorities to publish the costs associated with franchised bus services operated by local authority-owned bus companies. Authorities are already subject to statutory requirements to publish detailed information on their spending and financial performance. Under the 2015 local government transparency code, they must regularly publish data on all expenditure over £500, and are required to produce and make publicly available their annual statements of accounts, which are subject to external audit and public scrutiny. The framework ensures a high level of financial transparency and public accountability, making such an additional burden on authorities unnecessary.

New clause 30 would require the Secretary of State to produce guidance for local transport authorities on the development of franchising schemes that includes specific information on rural and suburban areas and coastal communities. The Department for Transport has published franchising guidance, including on the consideration of neighbouring authorities and on the requirement to consult affected areas. The Department continuously refines the franchising guidance, and plans to undertake comprehensive updates after the Bill receives Royal Assent. The introduction of piecemeal additions without considering the guidance in its entirety would risk reducing its effectiveness.

In addition to the guidance, the Department supports LTAs through the franchising and bus reform pilot. The ambition is to explore alternative models that may suit a local area and help to provide evidence for the decision. Lessons learned, tools, templates and best practice will be shared throughout the pilot programme.

New clause 38, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald), would require franchising authorities to establish a forum of stakeholders to address staffing and employment issues in the franchising area. It seeks to increase accountability in areas that choose to adopt franchising. I am sympathetic to the new clause’s aims, but it is not the role of central Government to prescribe how local transport authorities run their services. Franchising guidance that covers driver welfare already exists, giving the franchising authority scope to decide what forums it wants to put in place to support the delivery of its bus services. The new clause is therefore unnecessary and I hope it will be withdrawn.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Clause 2 amends the Transport Act 2000 in relation to the availability of franchising schemes. It is essentially a facilitating clause to allow for one of the really important changes in the Bill, which is to remove the requirement for the Secretary of State to consent to any local authority other than mayoral combined authorities when deciding whether to embark on a franchising scheme.

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[Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I am a Warrington MP, and, as has been mentioned, the town has one of the country’s eight remaining municipal bus companies—the award-winning Warrington’s Own Buses. It is a trailblazer, and it is an example of what a municipal bus company can be and what can be achieved. For example, Warrington still has capped fares, and the bus company can still offer a flat fee of £2 for adults and £1 for under-22s. We have a pioneering all-electric fleet and a brand-new depot. Any profit goes back into the service, and we have free travel for care leavers. With a municipal bus company that understands our communities, we have been able to maintain the essential services that private providers would simply give up on and walk away from.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I agree with much of the hon. Lady’s description of Warrington’s Own Buses. A few weeks ago, I spoke to the company’s managing director and I was impressed, as I said on Second Reading. However, does the hon. Lady agree that that is because Warrington’s Own Buses has 30, 40 or 50 years’ institutional experience in running those kinds of services—experience that other local authorities simply do not have? Does she also agree that exactly the same delivery of services can be achieved through an enhanced partnership, in which the operator works in collaboration with the local authority, and it is up to them to decide what is important for the community?

[Sarah Hall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I put it on record that Ben Wakerley, who heads up Warrington’s Own Buses, is fantastic. He has been a real asset for us. Experience is an important factor, but it is also about understanding the community that a company serves, and that does not take 30 or 40 years. It just means taking the time to know and understand the community. Ben has not been there for 30 or 40 years, but he has been leading the way with a lot of the delivery.

Collaboration can be good, but my experience of Warrington’s Own Buses, and of how it has focused on services and delivered in the way that it has, shows how powerful that format can be. I encourage other areas to adopt the same thing, because it has put power back into the hands of the community, not private providers.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

There is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about which system passengers prefer. The way to really judge that is through ridership—how many people take the buses. It is absolutely right that in Greater Manchester, under the Bee Network, there has been a post-pandemic increase in ridership of about 34%, from memory. However, does the Minister not accept that in Norfolk, where there is an enhanced partnership, ridership has increased by more than 40%, and in Essex, another enhanced partnership area, ridership has increased by more than 50%? The point is that it is not the scheme design that is fundamentally important, but the way in which it is approached. Does the Minister accept that we can have outcomes that are just as good—better outcomes, in fact—through enhanced partnerships as we can through franchising?

[Simon Lightwood]

What the shadow Minister failed to hear in my previous remarks is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to buses. This could be done through franchising; it could be done through municipal bus companies or local authority-operated bus companies; or it could be done through strengthened enhanced partnerships.

Let me touch on franchising, because the shadow Minister talks about Manchester as the full-fat model. A huge number of alternative franchising arrangements are available, including the Jersey model, which I will go into in a moment. Within franchising assessments, there will be a detailed investigation that is then checked robustly for assurance purposes. Obviously, the process as it stands does not provide an effective check on local transport authority plans, because it happens before a franchising assessment is produced.

On the Secretary of State’s consent, as I have said, it is not effective because it is at the beginning of the franchising process. The assessment must look at the finances of the proposed scheme and then be independently assured. Different areas will also have different circumstances when pursuing franchising; the Secretary of State is not in a position to scrutinise them all.

On funding and LTA support, £1 billion of funding was announced for 2025-26, £700 million of which was for local authorities to improve bus services. That is not for franchising per se; as I said, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. The Government are opening up options to local transport authorities. No LTA is being forced to franchise. No LTA has been forced to franchise through the Greater Manchester model, in fact. The Government are looking at how best to support LTAs, including through franchising pilots, which will include elements of rural communities as well. Funding is provided through the bus allocations for LTAs to decide how to spend. The franchising pilots will look at alternative models, one of which could be a joint venture model like the one in Jersey.

[Jerome Mayhew]

The Minister is right, of course, that all sorts of different franchising schemes and mechanisms are available, and I am looking forward to his description of the Jersey model. However, does he not recognise and accept that, of the authorities that have expressed a direction of travel so far, both Liverpool and West Midlands have also decided to go down what I have described as the full-fat model? It is not just Manchester being an outlier. It is likely that the Bill will ensure—in fact, it is happening already—that full fat is seen as the direction of travel. Does the Minister not think that that is correct?

[Simon Lightwood]

I concede that, at the moment, it tends to be city regions that are looking at franchising, which is why we are doing the pilots to ensure that we have the template approach. We will learn the lessons from the various different franchising models that could be used. As we announced at the spending review, York and North Yorkshire is one of the areas that would be ideally suited to demonstrate the effectiveness of franchising in a rural setting. There was a comment about coastal communities, so let me just put this on the record: this South Shields-born, not SW1-postcoded MP knows full well the importance of buses to coastal and rural communities. In fact, I am the son of a bus driver as well. [Interruption.] I have ticked all the boxes—he was not a toolmaker, though.

Let me touch on Manchester. The figures quoted on franchising costs in Manchester refer to the level of investment being made to improve Greater Manchester’s bus network, supporting economic growth, greater productivity, access to homes and so on. In 2024-25, the cost of operating the franchised bus network was about £151 million, but it would be misleading to compare that with the £226 million in an attempt to argue that costs have inflated year on year. Greater Manchester was only partway through the three-phase transition to franchising during ’24-25, so the cost was accordingly lower. Transport for Greater Manchester was operating only half of the full network for the majority—nine months—of ’24-25. There is very little additional cost resulting from the adoption of franchising in Greater Manchester, and evidence to date shows that this model is more efficient and effective at delivering value for money.

Bus depots in Greater Manchester were required to ensure a level playing field when procuring franchised operators; otherwise, there would be an inherent advantage, of course, to incumbent operators. Depot acquisition also recognises the importance of investing to bring infrastructure up to modern standards to deliver a quality service and electrification of the fleet.

Turning to local authority bus companies—LABCos or municipal bus companies—there is a level playing field for arm’s length LABCos, which the existing ones in England are, and for private operators. There is existing legislation and regulations around local authority bus companies.

There will be different ways that LTAs can franchise. Rural areas, for example, could look to integrate demand-responsive transport into the network. It is right to recognise the successes that there have been in Jersey. When I visited in April, I saw at first hand the benefits of franchising and what it has delivered for passengers. A small team have successfully introduced franchising in rural areas. Although that offers useful lessons for rural and suburban communities in England, Jersey offers just one model, and there will be particular local transport challenges and opportunities in other places. Far from stipulating the one-size-fits-all Greater Manchester model, we are exploring and working with local transport authorities throughout the country to demonstrate different forms of franchising to make that a success.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Specification of areas

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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[Steff Aquarone]

I wish to speak to new clause 35 and amendments 70 and 71 tabled in my name. The Minister has done a very good job of outlining what those proposals seek to achieve, for which I am grateful. I am seeking to remedy the lack of vision for fixing the public transport problems that we face in rural areas.

As I have said, we cannot just throw new powers at rural areas and hope for the best. We have to create workable models for adoption to support areas to use the new powers in the best way possible. There has been great excitement about how to use them to transform the bus networks in our major cities, but in all the conversations here on this issue, rural communities seem to have been forgotten about.

In rural areas, the local bus service is not just a convenience or a “nice to have”, but a real and genuine lifeline. For many, it is the main way they can get to see friends and family, go to medical appointments, and get to the shops and to leisure activities. Bus services keeps many rural villages going. It is no surprise that when the withdrawal of routes in areas like this are proposed, there is fury locally and major campaigns against it.

I asked some of my rural colleagues about their experiences and, unsurprisingly, I was inundated. My hon. Friend the Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) has been campaigning to save the X5 between Aylesbury and Hemel Hempstead, which was replaced with an unreliable service that is making it hard for residents to get to key medical appointments. My hon. Friends the Members for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) and for Thornbury and Yate (Claire Young) are trying to bring back the 84/85 route from Yate to Wotton, a vital route to shopping centres, schools and colleges and for those visiting HMP Leyhill. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Alex Brewer) has been working with campaigners to save school bus services in Ancells Farm, with children facing the prospect of long walks down unsafe roads to get to and from school in Fleet.

There are all these communities and campaigns, but we still have not come up with better ways to serve rural areas and protect their access to services. It is telling that when my Transport Committee colleagues and I, several of whom are represented on both sides of this Committee, wanted to go and see some best practice of rural bus networks for our “Buses connecting communities” inquiry—report forthcoming shortly; I am sure everyone will be reading it as soon as it is published—we had to travel to the Republic in Ireland to find them. We simply do not have good examples of successful rural networks here in the UK.

All of that serves to say that it is time for a bold new approach. A good few years ago, when we were researching the Liberal Democrat manifesto for Norfolk’s 2021 county council elections, we undertook research with a number of key local stakeholders to hear what they thought of the local bus network and what we could do to improve it. I personally interviewed bus companies, council officers and other stakeholders. Most importantly, we surveyed local people, including those who do not currently use buses—an often overlooked audience segment. We concluded that we need to combine two of the most successful features of current public transport models to create a new model for rural public transport. Those two things are park and ride services and demand-responsive transport. Pairing them could create a real network that works for our rural towns and villages without the near-impossible task of running an hourly timetable to every village. That conclusion resulted in the rural bus hub scheme outlined in new clause 35.

Rural bus hubs would allow people to get between key towns and villages that they need to visit directly. People in many rural areas suffer from having to take buses in the opposite direction from where they want to go, going to the nearby town or city just to go straight back out again. That adds hours to people’s journeys, the journey is totally derailed if one link in the complicated chain goes wrong, and it is ultimately an inconvenient way to get about. As a result, it does not improve passenger numbers.

Similar to our park and ride networks, rural bus hubs would have facilities to enable those living nearby to travel to the hub independently, either by car or active travel routes. The hubs would have the amenities to charge electric vehicles, and to lock and store bikes safely, so that people could easily return to them to complete the final few miles of their return journeys. The hubs would also be well served by demand-responsive transport for those who are not independently mobile. That would ensure that the network could reach into all areas, including rural villages and harder-to-access communities that may never have had a regular service, if any service, from an existing bus route.

Such passengers, once at the hub, could catch direct, frequent buses to any part of a proper network, getting them to the hub nearest to where they want to go, and linking up with train connections or even hospitals and employment areas. It is a model that could easily be adopted by transport authorities. It would reach the most people possible without seeking to run a regular bus through every village, and it would connect those in rural areas to a proper public transport network that broadens the range of their destinations, rather than just taking them to the nearest city or large town.

My amendment 70 would permit rural bus hubs to fit into the current model of franchising, allowing for specified services to include those running to and from, or between, the hubs. My amendment 71 would add to the review of service provision to villages an assessment of how service in the villages could be impacted by the establishment of rural bus hubs, or how the establishment of the hubs has affected services for villages at the time of the review. That would ensure that, as we assess how villages are faring following the passing of the Bill, we do not simply grow a list of complaints but assess what could be done differently to make improvements and the impacts that those improvements would have.

I grew up in a rural village with a sketchy bus connection. I now live in another, and my children are growing up with the same sketchy connection that I had. That cycle cannot continue. We have to do better for areas like mine, and conventional thinking is not going to cut it. It is time for a radical rethink of how we deliver public transport in rural areas. We have to challenge the old ideas and be willing to seize on something new.

I am sure that the Government will oppose these ideas, but I would gently say that they have not put forward anything equivalent. It is all very well to say, “You could do anything,” but there is nothing of substance to say, “Of all the things you could do, these are the things you might specifically like to consider.” We could feasibly help households to reduce the number of vehicles they rely on, saving them thousands every year. We could encourage active travel by expanding the number of journeys, and the hubs could be a component of that. By expanding demand-responsive transport, we could even remove car reliance altogether, while connecting the carless to a far better range of travel times and destinations than they currently have.

The same old approach is not working. The situation will not magically fix itself with the new franchising powers alone. We have to try something different, and do something to create networked, accessible public transport that works for people, and gets them where they want to go, when they want to go there. I do not think that is asking the world, and I hope that the Government will pledge to look into this idea further to deliver real change for people in North Norfolk, and rural communities across the country.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Clause 3 is not controversial, so I will not make a long speech. Proposed new subsection (2A) of the Transport Act 2000 simply makes it clear that, where more than one area is specified in a franchising scheme, the specified areas “need not be contiguous.” I say no more about that.

Amendment 70, in the name of the hon. Member for North Norfolk, adds a reference to bus hubs. As he is my constituency neighbour, our constituents share many of the same experiences, and I absolutely support the sentiments that he eloquently expressed: rural areas are often overlooked, bus policy is designed with the major cities and large towns in mind, and policymakers—perhaps because they have limited experience of life in the kind of rural communities that he and I serve—do not consider the very different challenges that we face. I therefore support the sentiment of the amendment, but the challenge is the cost. We keep coming back to the money—or lack of it—in this legislation, because it is disproportionately expensive.

The hon. Member is absolutely right that park and ride is an interesting hub-and-spoke model for rural areas, but there is also the on-demand model, which I have previously described as the Uberfication of rural transport. The tech is obviously already there. Someone books in and says that they want to go from here to there; the algorithm sorts out the route and how many people can be picked up; and then they are delivered from door to door. Because it is door to door, it has the opportunity to provide an improved customer experience.

The challenge is getting the take-up, because it requires a large number of people to buy into such a scheme, and the set-up costs are expensive. There has been a trial in Wymondham, in Norfolk, where the county council put forward a type of on-demand rural service, but the take-up was disappointingly low. Why was that? My working hypothesis is that, if it is a pilot, hardly anyone knows about it, but if there is wide-scale adoption—“This is the future of rural transport”—and it is backed up with public information so that everybody in the community cannot help but know about it, the take-up will be much greater and that then transforms the economics of it.

As a fellow Norfolk MP, I fully support the concept behind the hon. Member’s amendment, but I am afraid that I question whether it is needed, given the specifics of the drafting. As “places” are not defined under the clause as drafted, I am not sure about the requirement to define a specific place—this is my lawyer’s background coming through; it is a nasty rash I am developing—and I wonder whether there is a legal need for that clarification.

I will move on to clause 4. According to the explanatory notes, it inserts proposed new paragraph 123H(2B)(a) into the 2000 Act to clarify that services can be specified by routes or the places intended to be served. I think that is sensible. For example, a franchising authority could specify the services by listing the principal points to be served, so, “The local services to be provided under local service contracts are ones that serve the following principal points,” followed by a list of what they are, such as the hospital, the railway station and the doctor’s surgery.

Another example under this proposed new subsection would be for services to be specified route by route. I will come back to that in a moment, because that is quite an important clarification when we look at the kind of operators that will be in a position to provide these services. Specifically, there is a question about the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to contracts under franchising, which sounds a bit niche but is nevertheless important.

Proposed new paragraph 123H(2B)(b) of the 2000 Act clarifies that services can be specified by describing intended services in general terms. It is broad and gives franchising authorities a wide range of options for specifying services under this proposed new subsection. That, again, is eminently sensible; I will not go into the detail.

Proposed new paragraph 123H(2B)(c) of the 2000 Act clarifies that franchising authorities can combine the approaches under proposed new paragraphs (a) and (b). For example, a franchise authority that covers both urban and rural areas could specify services by reference to the specific routes for the urban areas, in line with proposed new paragraph (a), and then could take a broader approach for the rural areas. Finally, paragraph (d) clarifies the catch-all that franchising authorities can specify services “in such other way”.

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[Steff Aquarone]

I appreciate the warm support from the hon. Gentleman, who is, as he stated, my constituency neighbour. I defer to his lawyering experience on his salient points about the propriety of my amendments given the Bill’s drafting, but I will ask for his reflections on two points.

First, cost is a big unanswered question in the Bill. If the Minister had access to the Treasury, I know that he would be raiding it to fund improved rural bus services. Does the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham agree, however, that at least looking at a hub model makes more sense financially, and for service provision, than trying to establish hourly services in every village?

Secondly, I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for amendment 71. Although I intend to withdraw amendment 70, I will push amendment 71 to a vote with his support.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I do not disagree with anything the hon. Member said. I do not have in my head the financial details associated with rural hubs, but it makes more commercial sense as a matter of principle, although it would probably not be profitable, to have a hub-and-spoke approach rather than an hourly service for every village. I do not know whether the hon. Member has counted the villages in North Norfolk, but there are well over 100 in Broadland and Fakenham, so that would be a challenge for any provider.

The Opposition support the concept of new clause 35 if the finances—the missing link—add up, but we question the need for it, because there is nothing in the Bill to prevent local authorities from doing what it sets out.

[Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)]

I am conscious that we are finishing in three minutes, so I will limit my comments to give the Minister some time. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham, I query the premise that public is better than private. The hon. Member for Warrington South mentioned the ability to provide a better service than existing franchise services, but I want to put on record that we can still get £2 fares in South West Devon. There is not necessarily a concrete need for a franchise; it is not necessarily a magic wand. I will fit my other comments in somewhere else, because I am conscious of time.