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

Simon Lightwood Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 26th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that with this we are considering the following:

Amendment 70, in clause 4, page 2, line 10, leave out “or places” and insert—

“, places or Rural Bus Hubs”.

This amendment is linked to NC35 and would allow rural bus hubs to be included in the specification for a franchise scheme.

Clause 4 stand part.

Amendment 71, in clause 38, page 41, line 23, after “England” insert—

“(e) the impact, or potential impact, the establishment of Rural Bus Hubs on services to villages.”

This amendment would require a review of bus service provision for villages to include an assessment of the impact of rural bus hubs, if already established, or the impact which establishing them may have on villages.

New clause 35—Rural Bus Hubs—

“(1) Local transport authorities may consider the construction of Rural Bus Hubs in rural areas which are, in the authority’s assessment, not sufficiently well-served by buses.

(2) Any Rural Bus Hub must—

(a) be a facility where bus users can park vehicles for the purposes of transferring to a bus service for the remainder of their journey;

(b) be constructed outside of town or and village centres, and be easily accessible by road, cycle or walking routes and other modes of transport;

(c) be on newly-developed sites or on sites which have been repurposed;

(d) contain car parking, electric vehicle charging, cycle parking and other amenities as the franchising authority sees fit, at a level of adequacy determined by the franchising authority.”

This new clause would allow local transport authorities to create rural bus hubs in areas to create a hub-and-spoke model of bus service delivery.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Simon Lightwood)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. At the conclusion of our sitting on Tuesday, I had begun to address the points made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham, on the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in franchising. I will briefly address the outstanding points.

The Department for Transport understands that there are barriers to SMEs accessing franchise networks. That is why we are listening to the sector about how to ensure that disproportionate paperwork requirements do not hinder SME bids for franchising contracts, and that SMEs are provided with the resources to simplify bidding. My Department has also engaged directly with SME representatives through policy development and the passage of the Bill, including on additions to guidance, such as the Department’s role in facilitating pre-tender engagement between SMEs and franchising authorities.

Already, as part of the consultation on a franchising scheme, an authority must make a statement about how it proposes to facilitate the involvement of SME operators when it conducts the procurement process for franchised services. Moreover, the grant-making powers given to local authorities via the Bill will allow grants to be designed to prioritise SME bus operators, subject to other competition and subsidy controls. I hope that that offers reassurance to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Minimum period before provision of services

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

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause 6 stand part.

[Simon Lightwood]

The clause is about mobilisation periods for franchising areas. Existing law states that there must be a period of at least six months between the franchising contracts being made and those services first being delivered on the ground. The clause will enable franchising authorities to set shorter mobilisation periods that work for them and their stakeholders, if they wish. That will speed up the franchising process and ensure that bus passengers do not have to wait for an arbitrary period before experiencing the benefits.

Clause 6 amends references to local services by inserting the words

“which have one or more stopping places”

in certain sections of the Transport Act 2000. That is intended to clarify that the relevant reference to local services includes cross-border services where appropriate. These technical changes support the Bill’s focus on giving franchising authorities more scope to facilitate the provision of cross-border services.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Dr Allin-Khan.

Clause 5 deals with the minimum period before provision of services can be changed. It is not a difficult clause, but it is worth going into some of the subsections in a bit more detail. Subsection (1) omits section 123H(4) of the 2000 Act, which set out that a franchising scheme

“may not specify under subsection (2)(d) or (3)(c) a period of less than six months.”

That meant that at least six months had to expire between the authority making a local service contract and the provision of the local service under that contract.

Clause 5(2) sets out that the transition arrangements in subsection (3) apply where, before the clause comes into force, the franchising authority or authorities have published under section 123E(2) of the 2000 Act a consultation document relating to a scheme or variation of a scheme, but have not yet made the scheme or varied it. Clause 5(3) provides that when making or varying the franchising scheme pursuant to the consultation document, the franchising authority or authorities may specify a minimum period, under sections 123H(2)(d) or 123H(3)(c) of the 2000 Act, that is less than six months.

Although I understand that the Minister and his Department want to smooth out some of the hindrances and streamline the system, and in principle I am supportive of that, the question that begs to be asked is: is there no de minimis period? It may be considered that a six-month period is too long, but what about a one-week period? Is that too short? As drafted, the clause does not provide a de minimis period. What would be the impact on franchise operators if there were an instantaneous change? That is a significant issue that needs to be considered, because we are dealing with operators that are commercial beasts. They have infrastructure, and drivers and staff that have to accommodate changes to these schemes, and yet the Government’s proposed changes would in theory allow there to be no notice at all.

I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on the Department’s, or the Government’s, thinking on this matter. I accept that six months is itself an arbitrary time limit. Why is it not seven, or five? I accept the rationale, which is that we wish to streamline the provisions in order to make it easier for local transport authorities to undertake these changes and take advantage of some of the opportunities that the Bill provides, but it is important for it to be practical and not to have unintended consequences for bus operators and their commercial activities.

Clause 6 amends sections 123E(4)(a), 123N(2)(a), 123Q(5)(a) and 123R(5)(a) of the 2000 Act. Before I go any further, it is worth reflecting that the reason why the clause is so complicated in its nomenclature is that there have been multiple amendments to the Transport Act. Although I have not researched it, some of that presumably came about through the deliberations of this House when the legislation was drafted, but there have subsequently been multiple alterations.

It begs the question of our approach to legislation in this place when an Act is so often amended. It makes it very difficult, one imagines, for people and organisations—local transport authorities, in particular—to understand what their duties and legal responsibilities are. In many instances, these are not recommendations; they are mandatory requirements, with which failure to comply could lead to judicial review and the kind of lawfare that we as a society often rail against, because we feel that the Government—and by that, I also mean local transport authorities in this instance—cannot get anything done because they are being tripped up by incredibly complex legislation with poor drafting that requires multiple amendments. That is how we get to a “section 123Q(5)(a)”—but that was a slight aside.

Clause 6 further amends the Transport Act by adding to all those subsections the words

“which have one or more stopping places”

after the references to “local services”. In itself, it is a wholly good amendment, and I am not seeking to criticise it. It clarifies that the references to “local services” incorporate any service that has a stopping place in the relevant area, including cross-boundary services operating pursuant to a service permit. However, I wonder whether this clarification was necessary in practice. I would be interested to know whether there have been any instances of local transport authorities being misled by the current drafting—I would be surprised if there had been—or any legal challenge to the current definitions that highlighted a need to clarify an ambiguity. Subject to that clarification from the Minister, I accept that there is nothing wrong with the amendment made by the clause. It is a useful clarification of the Transport Act 2000, to avoid doubt in interpretation, if, in fact, such doubt has ever existed.

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. My party has little to say on this group. We are supportive of clauses 5 and 6, although the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham made a good point, and we would like to hear the Minister’s views on it.

[Simon Lightwood]

The hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham spoke about the removal of minimum mobilisation periods. It is consistent with the aims of the Bill to empower local transport authorities to decide how best to design their bus services, and this will be an issue for franchising authorities to determine. A minimum mobilisation period does not need to be mandated by central Government. This is something that franchising authorities will need to consider, and it is in their interests to make sure that there is a smooth transition to a franchising scheme, if that is the pathway they wish to consider.

Franchising authorities will make their determinations about the duration of mobilisation periods based on numerous factors. The clause provides flexibility for mobilisation to occur in a period shorter than six months, where it is in the interests of stakeholders and passengers. As I have explained, the Government intend to update the franchising guidance following Royal Assent.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 7

Criteria for granting service permits