I beg to move. That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 122.

The purpose of new clause 6 is to remove the exemption from restrictive trade practices legislation that currently applies to agreements between bus and coach operators. That exemption was appropriate when bus services were regulated. It will not be appropriate following deregulation. Competition is at the heart of our policy for buses, and the purpose of restrictive trade practices legislation is to foster competition and to prevent undesirable restrictive trade practices.

In future when two or more operators enter into agreements by which they accept restrictions concerning the fares they will charge, the areas they will serve, the frequencies to the services and so on, they will be required to register such agreements with the Office of Fair Trading. Agreements that involve significant restrictions are to be referred by the Director General of Fair Trading to the Restrictive Practices Court.

However, I should add that, although the Restrictive Trade Practices Act is of general application, it allows a certain amount of flexibility. I emphasise that, of the agreements that are registrable, it is only those that contain significant restrictions that are likely to be referred to the court. It will then be open to the parties to those agreements to seek to persuade the court that, in terms of the criteria laid down in the Act, they are not against the public interest and can therefore stand. So the provision does not spell the end of all forms of agreement between bus operators. It does provide an essential safeguard for the interests of the passengers, which we regard as supreme in terms of the new legislation.

The new clause is an interesting example of the muddle into which Ministers have got themselves over the entire Bill. Throughout the Bill, first and foremost we are deregulating bus services. It is clear that if the interests of the passengers were truly paramount, they would require that co-operation was one of the most important things that could be offered to the traveller.

It is extraordinary that two or more operators will be covered by the agreement. I ask the Minister why he must set the number so low. In a rural area, we shall presumably have all the tiny bus companies that the Minister has been extolling throughout the Bill, the one man with his redundancy pay buying one bus. If he comes to a sensible timetable agreement with another man with a bus that he, too, has bought with his redundancy pay, will he automatically be referred to have his careful organisation examined in case he is in some way promoting a restrictive trade practice? If it were not so embarrassingly stupid, this would be one of the funniest clauses that even this hilarious Government have introduced throughout this bizarre, thankless and unnecessary Bill.

If we are to believe the Secretary of State, the National Bus Company and all the other bus operators are to be broken down into tiny units which, in some cases, will be no longer than that operating out of one particular garage. At present the co-ordination of timetabling, particularly the co-ordination of services, is of most use to the traveller. We have been unable to persuade the Secretary of State, who is really not interested in transport, of the advantages of transport planning. Indeed, he seems to reserve some of his rudest comments for those who have made the mistake of acquiring transport qualifications, whom he seems to regard as less than the dust. If he had been prepared to accept that co-ordination is vital, he would have seen that, inevitably, many operators, even if they are independent, will want to dovetail their services with those of their competitors in areas where, for one reason or another, there is enough work to go round to provide several services.

If the Secretary of State is to be believed, we could find ourselves with many small independent operators, not large ex-National Bus Company companies. That is a valid point. We know that at present, even before the Bill becomes law, many independent companies work closely with NBC companies. They plan interchanges, dovetail their services and provide support services for each other. There is no great danger in that to the passenger. Indeed, it is to his advantage. Yet if as few operators as two could be referred, the position would become dangerous.

Is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary genuinely of the opinion that the sort of transport planning that arises from operators reaching a sensible agreement is in some way a dangerous trade practice? If so, how does he justify his attitude since passengers want well timetabled, well planned and available services? If he is genuinely considering passengers, why on earth does he set the level as low as two operators?

I wish to echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). The new clause shows what nonsense the Bill is. The proposal is to deregulate bus services completely, yet the new clause shows that the Government are worried about restrictive practices emerging. It is entirely possible that in some cases that will benefit the public. I shall give one simple example.

A town bus service may follow a route but not go to the extremities of a town because it is not worth it. A second bus operator may have a route part of which is the same as that of the first operator. Both operators may find it unprofitable to go to the extremity of the town, for example, to a housing estate, although they may both find it profitable to work the route inside the town. They could reach an agreement under which one would operate to the town's extremities on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the other on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. That would be in the interests of the public, and the operators might be able to get a return for their services if they operate alternately, although they could not if they both operated the service every day. There would be profit in it and, as we know, the Government are interested only in profit, not whether passengers can get on buses. In that example, I would be in favour of a restrictive practice. The philosophy of the Labour party is along those lines.

Because of the position in the stage carriage services today, it is necessary to have something called integration. I shall not dwell on that, but it is symptomatic of the difference of attitude between the Opposition and the Government.

Lest the House should be mistaken in this matter, will the hon. Gentleman explain from his perception how it is that over the decades an inexorable loss of passengers from the buses, a decline in the level of services and massive increases in fares and subsidies, which we seek to sort out, show a healthy bus industry, as opposed to the picture that he paints?

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) said that there had not been a decline in passengers in Yorkshire. [HON. MEMBERS: "We know why."] I am sorry that Conservative Members say that they know why. The answer is that "Fares fair" has been sufficiently low to provide a good bus service of which everyone can take advantage without having to worry whether he can afford to pay for it.

rose —

I shall certainly give way in a moment.

The costs of that service are taken from general taxation and paid for by the people of Sheffield. That is their choice, and as members of the electorate in Sheffield they should be allowed to make that choice. It is wrong for the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) to deny the citizens of Sheffield the type of service they want. He may well have some technical arguments about taxation with that money coming from the general pool and then being distributed, but that is not necessarily relevant to the new clause. Some changes may be necessary — we discussed that in Committee — to ensure that the responsibility for providing services falls on the people in those areas, subject to a minimum standard of support dependent on the prosperity of the area.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Sheffield, like many other cities, has nearly half of its rates paid by the Treasury through rate support grant, that that money is garnered from every corner of the country and, therefore, that authorities and people in other parts which do not choose to subsidise their bus services but run them economically are subsidising the people of Sheffield? Why should they be subsidised at the expense of the rest of the country?

The hon. Gentleman must know that rate support grant is at a certain percentage throughout England and at a different percentage throughout the whole of Wales, and that different arrangements apply in Scotland. Therefore, the argument could easily be turned the other way. It could be argued that the citizens of Sheffield are paying for the bus services in Lancashire and Mid-Worcestershire.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, if the transport policy for the Falklands were applied to south Yorkshire, the cost to the Government would be about £500 million, which is about 50 per cent. of that which is provided to the Falklands? Does he further agree that there is a slight disparity between the transport policy for the Falklands and that for the United Kingdom?

Obviously, as my hon. Friend has produced those figures, I agree.

There is complete disparity and lack of judgment by the Government about which policies should be given proper weight in this and many other areas. For many years it has been evident to Opposition Members—it is also clear from the opinion polls, if they are anything to go by—that the Government will not sit on those Benches for much longer.

It is curious that the Government introduced the new clause because they are worrying about restrictive practices. During all our Committee proceedings they talked only about deregulation, people doing whatever they liked, and not wishing to stop an operator doing anything if he could make money from it. It was immaterial whether the public were served by such practices.

I support the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich: the fact that the Government must introduce such a new clause on report shows the stupidity of the Bill.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), I also wonder, when so much thought has apparently been given to the Bill for so long, why the new clause has been introduced. Why was it not introduced in Committee or, indeed, inserted in the Bill from the start? What events, what train of thought, and what events have made the Government table the new clause now?

As my hon. Friend said, agreements between operators are not per se against the public interest. Indeed, they can be in the public interest. It is perfectly sensible for an operator to agree with another operator, especially in rural areas, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) pointed out, to divide the services between them. The public do not want queues of competing buses, but a bus. The Opposition fear that in many suburban and rural areas, especially at weekends, there will not be a bus. There will be no bus, for sound, private enterprise reasons: it will not pay the operator to send out a bus. That will be the result of the Bill.

Why have the Government introduced this new clause so late, and why do they believe that fair agreements, which are made in other trades and industries, must automatically operate against the interests of the travelling public?

I cannot understand why the Opposition are puzzled about the introduction of the new clause. Having spent all the hours that we did together in Committee, there is every good reason for the Government to come to the House now with a reasonable measure that no doubt emerged from our dialogue in Committee—

Dialogue?

I said "dialogue". I can understand why the hon. Lady is surprised, bearing in mind the one-sidedness of the proceedings in Committee. However, if Labour Members wish it, we can return to that subject later.

The Bill will introduce a new approach to transport. not the uniform approach of the past. The uniformity of attitude, techniques and vehicles—any uniformity that one cares to think of—has utterly failed us in the past, has caused a decline in the bus sector and has not provided the travelling public with what they want. We need only examine the inexorable decline in the number of travelling passengers during the years to understand that they have made their judgment on the inadequacy of bus services. The Bill and especially the new clause address that problem. We wish to ensure, as far as reasonably possible, a new approach to the provision of bus services.

In the light of what the hon. Gentleman told us about the reduction in, the number of people travelling by bus, how does he account for the reduction in the number of people travelling by bicycle during the same period?

I doubt whether that is true. Recently, there has been a great revival in the use of bicycles, and one need only consider the number of bicycles on the premises to prove the point. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) has recently taken to the bicycle; even among us, there are living examples of people who are taking to two wheels to get around.

Perhaps if my hon. Friend and I had consulted Dr. Snashall, the House of Commons doctor, we would be riding bicycles. People today are much more exercise-conscious, and the bicycle is an ideal way of taking exercise.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Minister introduced the new clause, because he has understood, as he invariably does, the necessity to make the Bill work for the benefit of the travelling public. In doing so, we must ensure the provision of a variety of flexible services by private operators who know their localities and the needs of local passengers. They will provide the sort of service to which passengers will respond by paying their fares, which will provide revenue and profit to the operators. Everyone will be satisfied.

The hon. Gentleman need not consult the House doctor. He need only read the first report of the Select Committee on Transport, which shows that the share of passenger travel by bicycle decreased during the period about which we are talking.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I thought that we were here to discuss the provision of bus services. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not bring bicycles into the discussion too often. Perhaps he has taken to heart the words of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

I welcome the new clause, which is a demonstration of the extent to which the Government listened to the debates in Committee and were prepared to introduce several measures, responding to requests made from both sides of the Committee, to improve the operation of the Bill and to achieve its aims. In that spirit, I wholeheartedly support the new clause.

The new clause shows how ill thought out the Bill is and how quickly the Government have tried to get it on the statute book. I still do not believe that they are aware of the problems that will arise, especially in the provision of rural and off-peak services. No doubt, when the Minister replies to this debate, he will say that the new clause was introduced to ensure unfettered and fair competition. But if the Government were sincere about that, they would have introduced amendments to ensure that terms and conditions of service are laid down when tenders are invited. There is no such provision in the Bill as drafted. The Government intend to make the Bill work by worsening the working conditions of employees in the bus industry. That is the only way in which they can hope to achieve a sensible operation of the Bill.

If the Government are moving the new clause to try to secure fair competition, they should have tabled another amendment to ensure that the terms and conditions of employment will be at least equal to those in the municipal undertakings, the National Bus Company and all passenger transport authorities.

It is for local electors to determine by how much they wish to subsidise their public transport services. That should not be determined by national Government. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) said: if the people of Sheffield wish to pay that subsidy in their area, they have the right to do so. I know that Conservative Members will talk, as they did in Committee, about the large subsidy from the Government in rate support grant and the fact that most rates are raised from business and commerce. However, at the end of the day, the people determine who they want to serve in local government. It is a retrograde step to remove from local authorities the power to determine what transport they want in their areas, what fares they wish to charge and the subsidies that they wish to give.

Conservative Members do not accept that view; nor do they accept that public transport is a public service. My hon. Friends and I wish it to develop in that way. During our debates today and tomorrow, there will be many conflicts, because, after all the hours of debate in Committee, the Government will not budge an inch. They do not recognise the need to safeguard transport, especially for the young, the elderly, the disabled, and those who need off-peak, Sunday and rural services.

I welcome the new clause, which is a sensible improvement to the Bill. We have heard the stock response from the Opposition that any change in the Bill constitutes a muddle, not an improvement. But this clear improvement has arisen from our discussions in Committee. The Opposition do not understand the essence of the Bill, which is to give the public a greater and cheaper choice of public transport. That inevitably means the introduction of more operators to fill existing gaps, especially in rural areas. They can be filled by the one-man bus operations that the Opposition are so fond of knocking and for which they express so much contempt.

The clause protects the choice which it is essential to preserve under the Bill by allowing small operators to stay on the road. The simple pilot scheme in Hereford and Worcester provides a reason for the clause. The National Bus Company, by introducing buses from other parts of the country, attempted to drive out the new small operators. The new clause will prevent two large operators from getting together to drive out competition that may be in the public interest.

rose —

The smaller companies may have lower fares and lower overheads. Therefore, it will be in the interests of bigger operators to drive them out. The clause is thus essential to protect the interest and choice of the general public.

rose —

I shall give way in a moment.

The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) commented with contempt about the referral by the Director General of Fair Trading to the Restrictive Practices Court, but it must be borne in mind that the Director General of Fair Trading and his office will be a filter to consider all the agreements and to decide whether an agreement is fair. If he finds that an agreement is in the public interest, it will not be referred to the Restrictive Practices Court. That gets over the criticism of two one-man bus operators working together to run a service by themselves. The clause will provide an essential legal safeguard. This is a piece of the jigsaw that was missing from the Bill originally. It is essential protection for the general public.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Hereford trial area. He should know that competition is now confined to just one corridor on the east of the city. The lesson is clear: everyone has run at a loss in the trial area and nobody produced conclusive evidence that there has been a profit. Does the hon. Member also know that services to Kington and Presteigne are not as good as they were before and that no new routes have been created? If the hon. Gentleman says that is a good result of the Hereford trial, heaven help us.

Perhaps the hon. Member will bear in mind that during the pilot study the National Bus Company reduced fares to virtually nothing. How can that possibly mean that it ran an economic service? Can it have had any intention other than to drive off the road any competition that was already there? I do not accept that the bus service in Hereford and Worcester is worse than it was before but, if it is, the people in the area can put it down firmly to the reaction of the National Bus Company in cross-subsidising the Hereford and Worcester operation with fares collected elsewhere from bus users who were not paying economic fares.

rose —

The hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) has given a strong argument for the clause and I commend the Secretary of State for tabling it.

rose —

I am sure the hon. Lady will have an opportunity to reply.

Mr. Richard Caborn.

The hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) has given way.

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman had given way.

I had given way, Sir.

The hon. Member for Lancashire, West has raised some interesting points, not least because Midland Red was competing and using industrial muscle. Is he aware that the National Bus Company has made it clear that if the Bill becomes law one of the first things that will happen is that there will be a 30 per cent. cut in services, and from that moment on it will compete in any way possible with anybody who wishes to run services in the same area? Will he not accept that that will happen and that Hereford gives a clue? Where people are prepared to compete on small town routes there may be more buses initially but that does not mean better services. Now we know that in Hereford the people have worse services than they had previously.

The hon. Lady should consider the name of the office which will oversee this sort of thing; it is the Office of Fair Trading. I take the view that what happened in Hereford and Worcester was unfair trading. The purpose of the new clause is to make sure that the competition is fair. Unlike the Opposition, we do not believe that competition is de facto bad. We see it as the essence of the Bill. I hope that the voters of Hereford and Worcester will remember what has happened. Certainly the competition there was not fair.

The new clause indicates clearly that the Government are fishing around in regard to competition. The only restrictive practice will be that passengers who hitherto had buses to travel on will no longer have them. The hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) indicated the philosophy behind the Bill—profitability and fair trading. At no stage did he talk about producing a service for the people, whether in Hereford or anywhere else.

It should be understood that the basis for the Bill revolved around the Hereford trial area. It has been in force for about two and a half years and has been an unmitigated disaster from every point of view, so much so that when the Tories were trying to sell it to the public in a party political broadcast they had to film two dear old ladies of 30 years' standing in the Tory party.

rose —

I shall give way in a moment.

We have tried to analyse seriously what is happening in Hereford and in other areas, particularly south Yorkshire. We have never tried to hide the fact that south Yorkshire gets subsidies from central Government but they are being used most responsibly to provide a proper public and integrated transport system, unlike the service in Hereford. If the Government try to include new clause 6 in the Bill they will be doing the people further injustice. It will have considerable effect on the disadvantaged.

People from the trade unions who came to London to discuss the matter with Back-Bench Tories were appalled at the lack of knowledge among hon. Members who will be voting on the Bill. The only conclusion they could reach was that Government Back Benchers, knowing very little about the matter, had been conned either by hon. Members who were on the Committee or by the Government Front Bench. When the implications were spelled out to some of the Back-Bench Tories, they were having different thoughts. Whether they have the guts to go through the Lobby later, we shall see.

The procedure for referral under the restrictive practices legislation gives ample scope for filtering out complaints of what may seem to be restrictive practices where there is a good argument in the public interest that those practices should take place. I am happy about that, and the House should be happy.

New clause 6 is a welcome addition to the Bill because it is a better way of filtering out such complaints than clause 55 and subsequent clauses. That clause obliges authorities

"so to conduct themselves as not to inhibit competition between persons providing or seeking to provide public passenger transport services in their area."

That would not be determined under the restrictive practices legislation, and the fact that there was a good argument in the public interest for practices that inhibited competition would not be a defence to a charge that an authority had so conducted itself. It is better to do this through restrictive practices legislation than through the ordinary courts in the way envisaged by clause 55 and subsequent clauses. I shall be interested in the reaction of my hon. Friend the Minister.

The remarks of the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) about the decline in public transport were misleading. We all know why people no longer use public transport, and the Bill will do nothing to change that. It will make the situation worse, because people will have less access to public transport.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) that agreements between companies can work in the public interest and to the benefit of the companies and their employees. A classic example of this is the situation in Strathclyde, where British Rail, the Scottish Bus Group, the Strathclyde PTE and a number of independent operators are all working in a harmonious relationship. I do not know whether there is a formal agreement or just a gentleman's understanding, but the system works reasonably well.

Under the new clause, the law of the jungle will prevail. The Scottish Bus Group has already made its attitude clear. It will compete by whatever means it takes to maintain and increase its share of the market. The big strong company will, in many cases, eliminate the small independent companies, some of which have been long established. There will be a further increase in the ever-growing number of companies that go bankrupt under the Government's policies. The companies and their employees will suffer. I see no benefit from the new clause. Therefore, I shall join my hon. Friends in opposing it.

The House should be indebted to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) for his intervention because he drew attention to what he referred to as pedal power—those who move about by bicycle. Unfortunately, he misread the document to which he was referring. Table 1 of the White Paper on buses shows that travel by pedal cycle went up from 4 billion passenger kilometres in 1973 to 5 billion in 1983, an increase of 25 per cent. That increase has been due to the deterioration of the availability of buses under the existing system—one of the profound reasons why we have had to introduce this legislation.

The increase in the number of people using bicycles is a mirror image of the decline of 28 per cent. in bus passenger numbers over the past decade, reflected in the huge decline in the number of jobs in the bus industry. That should be a cause of concern to the hon. Member and his hon. Friends.

The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) said that the Government were in a muddle. It is not the Government who are in a muddle, but the hon. Lady. She said that two operators who harmlessly co-ordinate their services will be caught by the provisions of the new clause, but they will not. I referred specifically to the problems that would arise if the case involved rigging fares or areas of service, or dividing up the market between operators. Even then, it has to be shown that such practices are against the public interest. Therefore, the hon. Lady is quite mistaken in her perception of the effect of this new clause.

Planned interchanges are beneficial and it is for the Director General of Fair Trading to decide in the first instance what is significant in the terms of that phrase, which I used in my earlier explanation of the purpose of the new clause.

Is the hon. Gentleman saying in effect that such decisions, which will have major implications for transport planning, are to be left entirely to the director general and that he will suddenly find himself constituting a detailed court of transport planning?

Almost all the industry is subject to the Office of Fair Trading and the legislation surrounding it. We are taking away the special, privileged position of the bus industry and making it like any other industry, in that it has to compete, and compete without cartelisation, price rigging and the other practices with which this new clause seeks to deal. The hon. Lady claimed that this was a hilarious new clause to introduce, but she gave no explanation of why it is hilarious to apply to the bus industry that which applies to all the industries in which hon. Members worked before they came here.

The hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) claimed that two operators would be at risk for providing alternative services. In assessing the significance of any particular agreement, the director general will take a pragmatic approach. Clearly, the sort of practices about which the hon. Gentleman was referring will not get anybody into trouble.

The right hon. Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes) asked what brought about the train of thought that led to the introduction of the new clause at this stage. Partly, it was brought about by listening to Labour Members in Committee. That led us to recognise that many of them were deep adherents to the concept of cartelisation and putting the public and the passenger low on the list of priorities.

What an abuse. The Minister should come to south Yorkshire.

I shall be happy to deal with the hon. Member and south Yorkshire at an appropriate moment. I am not sure that now is an appropriate moment, but if the hon. Gentleman makes a speech I am perfectly happy to reply to it.

Come to south Yorkshire.

I have been to south Yorkshire. I shall happily reply to any point the hon. Gentleman makes because south Yorkshire is one of our major problems.

The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) talked about removing the power of local government to decide the level of subsidy. He knows that one thing. the Bill does in cross-subsidisation is take away from the bus operators their allocation of subsidies and put it into the hands of the local authority, which will decide which routes are necessary and which are not. There will be a new responsibility for local government and a new opportunity to co-ordinate looking after the public interest.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) dealt trenchantly with the case for competition, and I welcome his support.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) asked particularly about the predatory pricing policies pursued by Midland Red in the trial area of Hereford and Worcester. The Competition Act will apply to deal with such a situation. The Director General of Fair Trading, in fulfilment of his powers under the Competition Act, is empowered to discuss with the parties, and if not satisfied to bring action against, any such activities.

It is a great pity in many ways that that part of the law was not brought to bear in the case of Hereford and Worcester. Had it been brought to bear, the number of new competitors would possibly be greater and doing well, because Midland Red could have been stopped by means of the Competition Act 1980. Nobody sems to have recognised that fact. I am glad of the opportunity to say that if in future anybody seeks to copy Midland Red by introducing predatory pricing to drive out competition, he will face the full weight of the Competition Act.

The independent bus operators in Scotland are also concerned about the speed of action, lest they should go out of business before the Office of Fair Trading can dispose of their case. Will the Under-Secretary comment on that aspect of the interim interdict that is available under Scottish law, so that a breathing space can be made available to companies facing the situation that he described?

My hon. Friends who come from north of the border inform me that the position is exactly the same as with the injunction procedure. Although I am of Scottish extraction, I am not resident in Scotland, so it would be dangerous if I tried to interpret Scottish law. However, I am assured on good authority that that is the case. I am interested to note the implicit support of the hon. Member for Maryhill for the Government's new clause. He has expressed anxiety that it will not be applied quickly enough. Therefore, he ought to join us in the Lobby if there is a Division.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause gives a right of appeal against the taxi licensing decisions of the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police. The London taxi trade has wanted that for a long time and I feel sure that on this matter at least the House will agree that it is unjust that any authority should have the power to deny or remove the livelihood of a cab driver without there being a right of appeal. Elsewhere in England, Wales and Scotland there is a right of appeal against the decisions of taxi licensing authorities.

The assistant commissioner has said that he would welcome the establishment of a right of appeal against his decisions, as it would remove from him the burden of having the final say on whether a cab driver should be allowed to continue to make a living.

The House will see that the appeal procedure proposed in the new clause is similar to the one that exists for decisions by the traffic commissioner on PSV drivers' licences. There will be a period following a decision by the assistant commissioner during which an appeal may be made. The aggrieved party may require the assistant commissioner to reconsider his decision and will have the right to be heard personally. Alternatively, or if he remains dissatisfied with the decision or reconsideration, he may appeal to a magistrates court. The decision of the court shall be binding on the assistant commissioner.

Where a case involves the revocation or suspension of an existing licence, the assistant commissioner may, if the holder requests it, direct that his decision will not have effect until the expiry of the appeal period or, if an appeal is made, until it has been disposed of.

Although we shall be reviewing all the Victorian, somewhat complex and certainly archaic taxi legislation, the new clause removes a genuine grievance which, I am sure the House will agree, should be corrected now.

This is a sensible provision, not least because so much of the Bill which affects taxis is neither sensible nor properly thought out. It has been an anomaly for a long time that the taxi trade in London has not had a right of appeal, and I accept what the Minister says about the protection that this provision will provide.

I assume that the trade has had detailed consultation with the Minister and that it is satisfied with the provision. After all, there are so many changes in the Bill that it is helpful to be able to welcome one of them that is a positive improvement rather than a retrograde step.

For example, let me draw attention to an article in the Evening Advertiser on Thursday 11 April which should be of interest to the Secretary of State. It says:

"Cab war is in store".

It goes on to say:

"A taxi war is brewing in Cirencester, with warnings of trouble and chaos from cab drivers. The row is over the taxi spaces in the market place. Three owner-drivers have operated from the rank for the last 15 years as the Cirencester Taxi Rank Association."

One wonders whether they have consulted the Secretary of State and whether they had a better reception than those people who were talking about losing their only buses into Cirencester early in the morning.

The article goes on:

"The three drivers are furious because they had to buy into the Association when they joined. Denis Gill said: 'It cost us £1,000 when we came here. The telephone and sign were all paid for by the Association.' Fellow cabby Mike Goddard said: 'This letter from the council means that anyone can just come here and operate as a taxi. Its going to be chaos. You could get up to 18 motors fighting for the two spaces.' The Market Place drivers have already had one confrontation with drivers from Cirencester radio cabs who produced the council's letter and then parked on the rank."

The reality of much of the Bill that refers to taxis is that there will be precisely that kind of punch-up. It is only rough justice that it should be happening in the constituency of the Secretary of State who is responsible for the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman is responsible for the thought, if there is any, behind it and for a mad commitment to the opposite of transport planning, which, in his case, seems to represent transport chaos. He is responsible for the absolute shambles that will occur not just in the taxi trade but also in the bus trade if the Bill becomes law.

Cab war in Cirencester will be followed by bus war, followed by general chaos. I hope that the Under-Secretary will not misunderstand me when I tell him that I hope that his information about taxi legislation is more accurate than his information about the Blackpool trams.

Having said that, we happily welcome any provision that will give an appeal procedure to taxi drivers, who, in any event, will be badly affected.

I gather that the new clause deals with a right of appeal for taxi drivers in London and has nothing to do with Cirencester. This provision is long overdue. When I came to the House in 1978 I began campaigning for London taxi drivers to have a right of appeal against the revoking of licences.

There can be few instances in our legislation —indeed, in our very constitution—where people do not have a right of appeal. This measure rectifies an anomaly that has been in existence for perhaps 300 years, going back well before the Carriage Acts of last century.

Did the hon. Gentleman intend in due course to declare his interest in the taxi trade? Although we are in agreement on this issue, he will appreciate that, as a general rule, hon. Members should know when those among us are speaking for particular groups of people.

If I need to declare an interest in the taxi trade, I do so, although I have said repeatedly in the House when challenged by Opposition Members on the same point that I have no financial arrangement with, or receive any inducement from, the licensed taxi trade. I assure the hon. Lady that if I did have such an advantage, I should have declared it in the proper quarter.

I congratulate the Minister on correcting an anomaly that has existed for far too long. It is greatly welcomed by the London taxi trade. The new clause has been introduced after full consultation with representatives of that trade, for which I thank my right hon. Friend. This legislation will bring the licensed taxi trade into line with the position as it should be in a democratic society.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall) for his kind remarks and, unusually, I thank the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) for her comment about this being a sensible provision. She went on to spoil it by quoting something in connection with Cirencester, an area which has nothing to do with the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police. The hon. Lady accused me of being inaccurate. She put before the House one of the most inaccurate pieces of geography imaginable. However, I suspect that we are in agreement on this issue.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It will be convenient for the House to consider at the same time the following: New clause 11 — Further provisions with respect to participation notices.

New clause 10— Supplementary provisions.

New clause 16 — Enforcement of participation in travel concession schemes.

Government amendments Nos. 96, 99, 100, 101, 103 and 111.

In Committee, a number of hon. Members expressed concern that there should be a mechanism available to local authorities in cases where they considered that the participation of an operator in a concessionary fares scheme was necessary but that operator was unwilling or downright recalcitrant. The Government appreciated that the purely voluntary participation of operators might in some cases leave gaps in the coverage of schemes whose benefits ought to be available either more widely or throughout their area.

We undertook to bring forward amendments on Report to honour our commitment to give councils a discretionary power to insist that operators should opt in unless, through some special appeal mechanism, good reason could be shown why they should not. Some Opposition Members greeted our reaffirmation of this commitment with the utmost scepticism. But today the mechanism is before us, and it will be interesting to see whether the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) acknowledges that we have delivered.

Under these new clauses, an authority may serve notice on recalcitrant operators, who will be bound to provide the travel concessions required. The clauses also give authorities powers to require operators who are participating voluntarily to give advance notice of any intention of withdrawal. This will allow authorities to ensure continuity of provision by serving a notice obliging continued participation. There is also a mechanism for the operator to apply to me or my successors, on grounds which are quite specific. to have the notice cancelled.

I hope that hon. Members will appreciate that it would be wrong to compel operators to enter into arrangements which were onerous, inappropriate or unfair. If the Secretary of State finds that the terms of the scheme or of reimbursement are inappropriate, not just for the appellant but for all operators in that position, he must spell out the aspects of the scheme which led him to that view.

New clause 16 makes it a criminal offence for an operator who is under an obligation—perhaps having appealed, or perhaps not—to provide concessions to fail systematically to do so. If an operator accepts a participation notice, or if the Secretary of State determines that it should take effect, he cannot be allowed then to refuse with impunity to provide the travel concessions.

I hope that all hon. Members are now satisfied that we have kept our word and that they will support these amendments. I hope, too, that this will bring to an end the insinuation or scurrilous rumours that have been spread by Labour supporters that concessionary fares schemes will come to an end or in some way be affected by the Bill. They are affected by the Bill in that they are made more comprehensive on all operators. To have acknowledgement of that from Labour Members would give my hon. Friends and I great pleasure.

The new clauses and associated amendments arise out of a commitment given by the Secretary of State in Committee in March, when he said:

"It should be a matter of opting out of the scheme rather than opting in, Therefore, I undertake to table an amendment, or possibly a new clause, on Report to meet that requirement".— [Official Report, Standing Committee A, 19 March 1985; c. 668.]

We have four new clauses and a number of amendments, the net effect of which is to place on the statute book a great deal of verbiage which barely conceals the Secretary of State's reluctance to give effect to his undertaking.

Shame

The spirit of the Secretary of State's comments about concessionary fares is exemplified by the fact that subsection (1) of new clause 9, which is entitled

"Compulsory participation in travel concession schemes",

specifies that schemes may lay down conditions and that the operator may withdraw, which is hardly what we would call an enthusiastic and positive approach. Subsection (2) goes on to say:

"where arrangements so made include such a requirement, the operator in question shall be obliged to provide travel concessions in accordance with the arrangements until he gives notice of withdrawal"

That seems to be a "put up with the children, the elderly and the disabled until you find an excuse not to do so" attitude.

Will the hon. Lady at this early stage put us out of our misery and tell us whether she will thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for bringing forward this measure which was requested in Committee? We are waiting to hear whether the hon. Lady welcomes its inclusion in the Bill.

I understand the hon. Gentleman's passion to know what I think about these matters, so I shall do my best to satisfy his interest. The Secretary of State did not want to bring this concession forward. He has brought forward a small concession and still has not answered the real question concerning the funding of these schemes. We have been offered a poor substitute for the proper concessionary fare schemes which are applied by many local authorities who believe that such schemes are not a way of filling empty seats when it happens to suit the operator. Many people in local government and throughout the country see concessionary fare schemes as a means of changing the lives of those most in need of the freedom to travel, including the elderly and the disabled —those in need of the right to get out of their homes and not feel trapped by their poverty or inability to move about.

I am thinly convinced that not only the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) but the Secretary of State regard concessionary fare schemes as an irritation which they have had to consider because of the pressure put on them in Committee. The clauses which have now been brought forward do not show that, even at this late stage, the Government are prepared to discuss seriously how the schemes should be funded or to say that their suggestions will be an adequate alternative to what exists.

The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire may regard it as a political point for me to say that I am not flinging myself upon the kindness of the Secretary of State and saying how grateful I am to him for the crumbs that fall from his rich table. I shall explain why. Concessionary fares should be provided to people as a right. They have contributed to the economy throughout their working lives, and they have the right to be able to move about, not to be subjected to a substitute scheme under which they receive any old token that happens to be available from an authority which can manage to scrape up sufficient funds from its rate-capped finances to provide an alternative. I am sorry if the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire does not like that point. That confirms me in my view that what we are offered is inadequate.

Will the hon. Lady therefore tell the House the Labour party's plans for the concessionary fare schemes, the level at which she would like them imposed and the mechanism that she would use to impose them? Will she not just wrongly criticise what the Government are doing but state her alternatives?

If the Secretary of State would like to listen to the rest of my speech, he might discover what I think is wrong with his legislation.

Oh.

"Oh," says the Secretary of Sate. Even though the Labour party might find itself at the end of two years with no public transport system of any size to talk about, he thinks that Labour Members should today say, "We can somehow weld the independent operators into a scheme that will provide concessionary fares." I shall give the Secretary of State one undertaking. I hope that he will accept it because it is meant in the kindest way. I believe in public transport. I use it, and I know what it means to those who are unable to afford a motor car or to those who are but do not always have one available. A Labour Government will restore a public transport system to this country because the Labour party understands the importance of such a system and would not simply look at it in terms of the cost of the bus subsidy. A Labour Government would look at transport questions in wider social ways, not merely in terms of the cash implications.

It really will not do for the hon. Lady to dodge the question that I asked her and to answer unspecifically a completely different one which has nothing to do with the subject we are debating — concessionary fares. I asked her whether her party will in this legislation or in a wider context change the arrangements that this Government have made. The hon. Lady had dodged that question by saying that it is not really for her to say, two years before an election, what she would do. After criticising this Government's actions, the hon. Lady should state the way in which she would change the schemes.

It is clear that the Secretary of State is frightened that we are actually discussing his concessionary fares, because he does not want to talk about what his legislation states. I repeat: in two years from now, we may not have a public transport system that is recognisable by that name. My party intends when in government to set up concessionary fare schemes that will restore to the elderly, the disabled and those most in need a scheme that genuinely allows them to travel freely. If that means going back to proper passes, and not the absurdity of tokens and insisting on inadequate schemes of the type that will inevitably arise from the chaos and nonsense entailed by the Bill, the right hon. Gentleman will find that the general public will rapidly understand the difference between our proposals and what he plans.

My hon. Friend should remind the Secretary of State that we are questioning his legislation. She should ask him why his Government saw fit to undertake to underwrite concessionary fares in the London Regional Transport Bill. Perhaps she will also ask him why, in the grant-related expenditure, 50 per cent. is the level of concessionary fares. Is that the Government's standard?

My hon. Friend reminds us of the basic point that the Secretary of State was forced by London Members to write in an undertaking to protect concessionary fares in that earlier Bill. I do not know for how many sittings the House considered this point or how many words were spoken on it in Committee, but it must have been a great many. Not once was the Secretary of State prepared to give an undertaking in this legislation that he would underwrite concessionary fares. Not once was he prepared to write into this Bill a similar guarantee to the one that he wrote into the London Regional Transport Bill. The reason is simple—he did not intend the rest of the country to have proper concessionary fares schemes. The right hon. Gentleman knows that.

Although the Secretary of State did not give that undertaking in Committee, his hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) gave the game away when he suggested that the Tory policy on concessionary fares was for bus companies to make a profit before considering granting concessionary fares to the old and disabled. Before these private entrepreneurs can deal with the disabled or the old, they must first make a profit. Under the Government's policy during the next two years, until all these entrepreneurs make a profit, the disabled, the blind and the old-age pensioners will be prisoners in their homes.

There is no doubt that this is the thought behind the whole of the Government's attitude towards concessionary fare schemes. The concession was given reluctantly. It was not a genuine underwriting of concessionary fares. The Secretary of State has never been prepared to discuss the fact that it will be extremely difficult for rate-capped authorities to find the money necessary for genuine concessionary fare schemes. He has never discussed the financial implications, preferring to say that this is a matter for his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

I have asked the hon. Lady twice what her policy is and the rather pathetic attempts of the hon. Members for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans) and for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) do not obscure the point. The hon. Lady went so far as to say that a Labour Government would enable elderly people to travel "freely", but she did not say that they would travel free. Why is she so shy about answering my question? The only conclusion that one can draw is that she is not prepared to go one inch beyond the Government's position.

I am flattered that the right hon. Gentleman regards my undertakings as so much more genuine and real than his own. He may not be Secretary of State next year, let alone for another two years. [Interruption.] Let us not be too unkind. He may make it to the autumn but not far beyond that, especially once this legislation becomes law. The effects of the Bill will be so wide ranging that we may have to create an entirely new public transport system, but if the Secretary of State is so worried I will give this undertaking. A Labour Government would regard the provision of concessionary fare schemes as one of the first priorities in transport policy. That is as firm as anyone can expect me to be at this stage. Unlike the Secretary of State, however, I can give a further guarantee. Under a Labour Government there will be a public transport system for old-age pensioners to travel on. The right hon. Gentleman has been careful not to claim that that will be the case after two years of the chaos and bewilderment that will inevitably result from this legislation.

Let us now consider the right hon. Gentleman's new clause, which he is anxious to obscure even further. Subsection (3) finally reaches the original objective—an authority may require an operator to participate in a concessionary fares schemes by serving a participation notice upon him. Participation notices are dealt with in new clause 11. New clause 10 provides the framework. Some authorities are very worried about the way in which this insistence will work. It is a pity that there is no blackboard, as I have a marvellous flow chart showing what will happen. It is clear that some authorities will have to go through the most complicated procedure if they want to operate a concessionary fare scheme under clause 85. I shall not bother the House with all the highly complex implications, but it will certainly not be simple to produce a workable, sensible scheme with a number of different operators. Inevitably, those most in need of concessionary passes will be affected by that.

The Secretary of State has created an extremely complex appeals procedure. As he is so keen to answer questions, perhaps he will tell us why the traffic commissioners, rather than the Secretary of State, cannot act in disputes as arbiters between local authorities and operators. The commissioners will have that role in relation to traffic regulation conditions — a matter in which they are arguably less expert.

Subsection (4) provides that an operator is to provide concessions in accordance with his individual agreement or with any general conditions applying to this scheme, unless subsection (5) applies and the operator has managed to find a way out of the scheme altogether. That being so, it is scarcely surprising that we do not regard this as the best thing since sliced bread.

Subsection (6) allows an operator, on receiving notice of a variation, to find yet another way out. Subsection (7) provides that if an operator

"is willing to participate or … to continue to participate in the scheme after the variation takes effect"

the cop-out in subsection (5) will not apply.

Subsection (8) requires the passenger transport authority to give its consent to the passenger transport executive before a participation notice is served. Presumably the Secretary of State believes that there is just a chance that the executive will have misinterpreted the authority's policy on concessionary fares and he wishes to give the operator further protection from the dreaded participation notice.

In Committee, the Secretary of State dredged up the word "otiose", meaning redundant and unnecessary, to describe some of the legislation that he had been sitting on for years. Much of what is said in the new clauses is also otiose. Despite the grudging attitude that they display, however, there is no option but to accept that half a loaf is better than no bread. Nevertheless, we should make it clear who will be affected. In the six metropolitan counties alone, more than 1· million people are covered by concessionary travel arrangements. Pensioners travel free of charge at off-peak times in four of the metropolitan counties and travel passes are provided. In Greater Manchester and in west Yorkshire they travel at half fare or at a flat rate throughout the day. The physically disabled are entitled to similar concessions throughout the day and the blind travel free throughout the day in all metropolitan counties.

Concessionary travel payments for 1984–85 are expected to exceed £100 million — almost half the aggregate VLS. Widely differing methods apply to the calculation of concessionary travel payments. Greater Manchester will be required to find between £12 million and 14 million. Is the Secretary of State seriously suggesting that a rate-capped authority will be able to make good a gap of that size? Of course he is not. What he really intends is clear from the figures that he has given for the amount to be spent on transport this year. He intends that there should be a direct cut in the amount available. He knows that authorities will find it extremely difficult to underwrite the sums required by the changes proposed in the Bill. Any authority or group of authorities can establish travel concesssion schemes, but they will find it very difficult to fund them and many existing schemes will be severely damaged.

Throughout our discussions on the Bill, the Secretary of State has said that it is entirely up to the local authority to decide not just on the type of scheme but on the way in which it is administered. Even with the minimal conditions included in the Bill, it is clear that, instead of useful bus passes and access to transport almost all day, many people will suddenly be offered an inferior system. It may involve tokens, which are easily used up and do not allow as many journeys as the present passes. In addition, the provision currently made by the larger authorities may well not be replaced when individual operators take over the services and, due to their size, cannot provide the same type of scheme or even the same kind of vehicle.

I do not believe that the new clauses genuinely undenvrite the type of scheme required by the elderly and the disabled. At best, they are a smokescreen for the Secretary of State, who did not want to write anything into the Bill. He could easily have given an undertaking to ensure continuation of the present level of concessionary fare schemes, but, for one simple reason, he did not want to do that. To him, transport is simply a matter of pounds, shillings and pence and concessionary passes are merely a way to provide, grudgingly, a lower standard of service when it suits him and at times when he cannot get enough fare-paying passengers. The hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) made that clear in Committee. To the Conservative Government, concessionary fare schemes are an indulgence and an extravagance, and should be abolished.

In fairness to the Secretary of State, will my hon. Friend acknowledge one point? When the question about private operators taking part in the scheme was first raised in Committee—it was raised by some Conservative Members as well as by my hon. Friend and others of my hon. Friends — the Secretary of State suggested that the private entrepreneurs should not pick up the old-age pensioners and the disabled, in case the prospect of a full load of full fares should be jeopardised, and that a ghost service should be run alongside to pick them up. The present suggestion, although wholly inadequate, is a massive improvement on the original one.

I accept that. However, there is no provision for the mentally handicapped, and throughout the Committee stage the Secretary of State consistently refused to accept many of the amendments that would have dealt with the problems of the disabled. It is clear that adequate schemes will be replaced by token schemes. The Bill in no way provides a proper service for the disabled or for those most in need.

Surely the hon. Lady is not suggesting a special bus service for the mentally handicapped. Of course one must provide services for those less fortunate than the very fit and healthy, but surely the hon. Lady is not suggesting that there should be a special bus service for all the disadvantaged.

Listening to the hon. Member for South Hams one would not believe that he had been a member of the Committee. Even though he appeared only briefly after dinner from time to time, I would have thought that even he was present when we debated at great length the changes that would have to be made to the Bill to safeguard the interests of the disabled. It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman should try to divert attention away from the complete inadequacy of the scheme.

I am familiar with the sheer arrogance and contempt of the Secretary of State. I once described him—he has got worse since then—as the only hon. Member in the House who could strut sitting. We are falling far behind when even the poverty-stricken Republic of Ireland has concessionary fares on everything except aircraft. Many countries are miles ahead of us. Even the Labour party should take note of that. The Government will take us back a long way. I do not know how they can defend what they are doing. We tried private enterprise and it failed. That is why we municipalised and nationalised public transport.

The Secretary of State knows exactly what he is doing. He has given us figures. In case anyone missed them, I will repeat them. The public expenditure White Paper shows a reduction in actual expenditure on concessionary fares from £245 million in 1984–85 to £197 million planned for 1985–86. That is almost 20 per cent.

rose —

Public transport in metropolitan areas will be rate-capped. It is clear that there will be a reduction in the availability of concessionary fares in metropolitan areas.

If I may say so, that is a piece of deliberate deception. The true figures are as follows: for 1982–83, a provision of £163 million; for 1983–84, £173 million; for 1984–85, £188·5 million, and for 1985–86, £197 million. There is an ever-increasing total. The outturn in each case is greater than the provision, but the hon. Lady compared the provision with the outturn. She did not say that she was confusing the figures. I invite her to withdraw what can only be described as a deliberate deception.

The Secretary of State should tell us himself what the changes were. Let him give us the figures. They are his figures. They were produced by his Department.

Concessionary fares will suffer under the Bill. There has been a slight concession. If the operators cannot find a way out—and, by heaven, there are enough ways of getting out of the schemes if the determination exists to do so—the independent operators will have to comply. In no way will that concession protect the public. When travel conditions deteriorate, the public will make its judgment.

The House might well wish to award to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) an Oscar for outrage. Her response to the new clauses is as ungracious and mealy-mouthed as it could be.

The hon. Lady has tried to play down the contribution made by the Secretary of State in Committee. It has become evident from the hon. Lady's speeches throughout the four months of the debates on the Bill that she knows very little about public transport. When referring to the Secretary of State's undertaking, she omitted to recall that he had said:

"I am not resisting the principle of the amendment— I would undertake to meet the spirit of my hon. Friend's amendment"— [Official Report, Standing Committee A, 19 March 1985; c. 668.]

If the hon. Lady had mentioned that, she might have received a different response from the House.

Much later in the Standing Committee proceedings we debated clause 85, and this humble Member suggested a five-line amendment. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State gave us a full undertaking. Indeed, I was able to say that I could not have wished for a more fulsome undertaking. Some Labour Members did not understand the word "fulsome", so I had to spell it out.

Conservative Members are very grateful for the way in which the matter has been handled. However, I thought that I had said in five lines what was necessary. That what was said in five lines in Committee now requires 150 lines demonstrates what fun the parliamentary draftsmen and the lawyers have in this place.

The hon. Lady has made considerable play of the value of concessionary fares in general, but she has failed to respond to the Secretary of State's request for her own specific views. We became used to that in Committee. Our understanding is that concessionary fares — whether tokens, passes, or off-peak passes — currently vary between £20 and £80 in value from the most generous to the least generous authority that offers them. The fair city of Nottingham seems to take a central place in terms of its generosity as well as geographically. Our concessionary fares scheme—free pass, off-peak—is currently valued at £48.

Perhaps in this case one could speak of a blanket subsidy, although blanket benefit may be the better phrase. A blanket benefit may be described as generous, but it usually means that those who are in need do not get enough while those who are not in need receive a benefit that they could do without. Conservative Members have often been worried about such benefits. This, however, is one of those benefits which satisfy everybody. It confers a benefit and fulfils the needs of a group of people who, as the hon. Lady said, can claim to be entitled to it, at a value that I doubt any Chancellor of the Exchequer could equal.

For less than £1 a week, we can give senior citizens in greater Nottingham the mobility of which the hon. Lady spoke so passionately. There is no way in which the Chancellor, by giving pensioners an extra £1 a week, could confer such a benefit. Even in our fairly compact city, £1 a week in cash would mean that somebody who lives comparatively close to the centre of Nottingham could make three or four return journeys a week whereas somebody who lives further out might be able to make only one. The system is excellent value for money and benefits senior citizens. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for accepting the spirit of the amendment that we tabled in Committee. I could not have wished for a more fulsome undertaking from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.

It is right that the Bill does not set down a mechanism by which concessionary travel should be provided. I am satisfied that the system will vary in different parts of the country. I believe fervently in the concessionary pass system, but there are parts of the country for which the token system is better. It is right, therefore, that local authorities should be allowed to choose a system that suits local needs. Local authorities and operators must be able to fix the value of a pass clearly and fairly.

I should merely like to repeat what I said in Committee. Neither side of the House has a monopoly on compassion. The proposals for concessionary fares are as fair as possible and it is wrong for the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) to imply that it is the Labour party's prerogative to protect the weak and the handicapped. New clause 9 gives such groups as much protection as they had before.

My hon. Friend is right. The Labour party seems also to believe that if it bobs up and down and tables new clauses saying that if would provide this, that and the other, it has expressed its sincerity. Labour Members know full well that what matters is the practicality, not the volume of words used.

Would the hon. Gentleman like to remind the hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) that it was he who said that, before concessionary fares should be offered to the elderly, independent operators would have to make a profit? It was he who said that, much as such operators would want to help the elderly, they would have to make a profit before being able to consider them. How many of the areas where no concessionary fares are provided are Conservative controlled?

It was monstrous that my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) was criticised in his absence from the Committee—

He was never there.

—and that he was not given an opportunity to repeat what he said in Committee which, taken in the round, was quite different from what the hon. Lady has suggested. As to the hon. Lady's second question, I do not know how many authorities do not provide for the elderly, nor do I know whether all or any of them are Conservative controlled. I hope, however, that when the Bill is on the statute book all local authorities will respond to my right hon. Friend's generous provisions.

Is the hon. Gentleman recommending to the Secretary of State that the concessionary fares system in the city of Nottingham should be the minimum in the rest of the country? Does he agree that some local authorities, because of rate capping, will have difficulty in supporting concessionary fares? We have just gone through one round of rate capping and the next one might involve considerably more local authorities who will have enormous trouble supporting schemes such as that in Nottingham, which I gather is free.

I can confirm that the scheme in Nottingham is free, off-peak. As the generosity of the scheme is about average, I hope that it is an example of schemes that my right hon. Friend would be more than happy to approve. He will be able to comment later.

Rate capping is the only shot left in the Labour party's locker. Few, if any, local authorities would be unable to provide a scheme such as we have in Nottingham if they cut out some of their ridiculous spending and applied the rules of normal prudent housekeeping.

If any local authority controlled by the Labour party cared a fig for old people — I do not believe that many of them do; they care for their votes —they would never mention rate capping because they would make it their priority to support a concessionary fares scheme at the expense of almost any other rubbish that they might spend money on.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State. He has, as we say, scored a bullseye. Indeed, it was the Conservatives who introduced the scheme in the city of Nottingham.

Should not the hon. Member be retorting to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that it was in Birmingham in 1955 that, in the case of Prescott v. Birmingham Corporation, the local authority was banned from operating a concessionary fares scheme? It took 10 years until a Labour Government were in power to rescind that judgment. An Act of Parliament of a Labour Government introduced concessionary travel.

I do not dispute what the hon. Gentleman has said. The law was as it was at the time of the case in Birmingham. It is to the credit of the Labour Government at that time that they changed the law. However, one could say that about almost anything that comes before Parliament: we change law because we perceive the law or the existing situation to be unacceptable.

But the Conservative Government did not do it in 1955.

There are many things that Governments do not do. There are just so many hours in the day, and we are demonstrating very ably just how long we can take over the most acceptable clauses in the Bill.

Will my hon. Friend ask himself how it can be that Sheffield, under rate capping, feels that it cannot afford a concessionary fares scheme yet at the same time can afford £16,000 a year for an anti-nuclear co-ordinating officer?

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Opposition Members may say, "Ah, yes, but you can't provide a concessionary fares scheme for just £16,000", but I am certain that, if one went through the Sheffield books, one would discover countless instances of such amounts which, put together, would provide sufficient to fund a concessionary fares scheme.

I am sorry to have to disagree with my hon. Friend, who perhaps too readily agreed with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing). My hon. Friend might like to know that in 1955 legislation was introduced by the Conservative Government to give powers to municipal authorities, including Nottingham, to grant concessionary fares immediately after the judgment to which the hon. Member for West Derby referred.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for correcting my ignorance. I trust, therefore, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that if the hon. Member for West Derby catches your eye he will be gracious enough to accept that and withdraw his earlier remark.

I wish to put right the unfortunate slur which has been made too often with regard to the proceedings in Standing Committee in what the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) tried to infer. Does my hon. Friend agree that we on the Government Benches, by accepting the principles behind the Bill, realise that private operators running without a subsidy have to run a profitable service? They cannot run an unprofitable service because they are not eligible for Government subsidy. Therefore, they have to be profitable. Only when they are profitable and are going concerns can they provide the much needed help from which the elderly, the mentally ill and others can benefit. Until the profit is there, unfortunately, they cannot provide the widescale facilities which the Opposition seek to have provided. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is concerned with the ability to make a profit? Does he also agree that under the Bill we hope to provide more facilities for a wider cross-section of people so that more people travel by bus and more profits will be made?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I see nothing untoward in the way that he puts his case. My hon. Friend is saying that one cannot offer an operator a concessionary fare scheme unless operators exist in the first place, and operators will not exist in the first place unless there is a mechanism by which they can operate. If that is what my hon. Friend seeks to say, I do not think that any hon. Member could question it. I say again that I think that my hon. Friend's name was grossly abused in his absence in Standing Committee.

There are two matters that I hope the Secretary of State will clarify in replying. When I set out in Standing Committee the scheme which operated in Nottingham, I said that the mechanism was under the control of the traffic commissioner. That scheme was agreed between the then local authority in 1967 or 1968 and the traffic commissioner, and that formula has remained ever since. In clause 11, it seems that the Secretary of State can designate somebody to act for him. I hope that I am not being presumptuous, but by implication that person appears to be the traffic commissioner. If that is so I think that nobody will regard that as unreasonable. It seems a sensible way forward.

New clause 16 seems to suggest that an operator can only be fined for failure to comply with the scheme. I hope that by implication that does not mean that, if an operator persistently abuses the facility of a concessionary fare scheme, the traffic commissioner will not have the power to take away his operator's licence. No one surely would wish to permit to remain in operation an undertaking that constantly infringes the scheme within the area of its activity. We owe it to the elderly and to the disabled who will have passes to ensure that they are not persistently denied access to the buses in their area because there is an operator who flies close to the wind.

If indeed clause 16 is just one of the mechanisms, I suggest that clause 25 might be the mechanism by which a traffic commissioner could withdraw an operator's licence for persistent abuse of a scheme.

I have been following closely the hon. Gentleman's speech, and up to now he has sounded more like the sheriff of Nottingham than Robin Hood. There is now a glorious opportunity for him to be Robin Hood. Would he at my invitation like to place on record a categorical assurance that the scheme that he has praised in Nottingham will be the same scheme after the Bill is enacted, because new clause 9 provides for opting out rather than opting in, which could be the death knell of the scheme that he has so greatly praised?

The hon. Gentleman was not a member of the Standing Committee, and clearly has not bothered to read the report of the proceedings in Standing Committee. Nor has he bothered to read new clause 11. These four new clauses have to be taken in the round. It would not be possible for any one to stand alone. They are inter-related and inter-dependent. One cannot opt out under clause 9 if there is not a scheme and, if there is a scheme under clause 11, clause 9 would operate. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman is unable to understand that.

Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to tell his constituents that the scheme will still exist after the enactment of the Bill?

I am perfectly happy to say that I am satisfied that the undertaking that the Secretary of State gave in Standing Committee and the undertaking that the Minister gave in Standing Committee were such that it would be impossible for them to renege on those undertakings under the clauses that they have included in the Bill and to stay in office. I do not have the power to give such an undertaking. That is a matter for Ministers and the law as it is. However, I believe that it is a reasonable assumption that the Bill allows local authorities to operate a concessionary fares scheme.

The Bill and the new clauses suggest to me that the scheme that we are running in Nottingham will also be allowed. As much as that scheme costs—£2·4 million—it is a sum of money that has bipartisan support in the city of Nottingham. It is a provision of first priority. It is entirely up to the local authority to decide whether it wants to run its affairs so badly that its highest priority, provision for the elderly, is at risk. I say to the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans) that, if the Conservatives control Nottingham, the commitment to the old-age pensioners will be honoured to the full. If Labour remains in control for much longer—some of the mad schemes that Labour representatives have up their sleeves might put that at risk—that is for the local authority, and the local authority alone. There is nothing that the Secretary of State can say or do that will change that.

I restate what I said at the beginning of my remarks. We had a long debate in Committee. We were given undertakings which have been honoured. My constituents and I and, I am sure, my hon. Friends are grateful to the Secretary of State.

Although I recognise that the Secretary of State has fulfilled the promise to introduce new clauses that give some assurance to hon. Members that the concessionary fares schemes will continue, I think that he will agree that they are excessively complicated and full of qualifications. I wonder whether the question put by the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans) to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) can be answered by the Secretary of State.

Subsection (6) of new clause 9 states:

"Where it is proposed—

(a) to vary a scheme under section 85 of this Act".

In new clause 11, someone participating in a scheme has to give special reasons why his participation in the scheme would be inappropriate. Tomorrow we shall discuss amendment No. 97, which also refers to exemption from that obligation. New clause 16 refers to enforcement and a fine. I cannot help believing that somebody somewhere will find a way through that mire of legislation. If people have financial difficulties in maintaining the service, they may wish to use some of those ways out.

I can only bore the House with the experience that I have had over the past few months, which is driving me crazy, with regard to the provision of services by Sealink, which the Secretary of State privatised. In my constituency, it is part of the public transport system which links two sections of the railway system. The latest concession that has been withdrawn by Sealink is the half fare for service men. Men serving in the Royal Navy who live in my constituency have written to me complaining bitterly that whenever they wish to come on leave or visit home for a weekend they now have to pay full fares on Sealink whereas on the railway they have to pay only half fare. The railway gives a travel concession, but Sealink does not do so now. Also, visitors to the Isle of Wight who are unlucky enough to live near a station where they cannot buy a printed ticket that goes through a computer have to buy a separate ticket when they arrive at Portsmouth harbour. When there are hundreds of them and the boat is going in five minutes, that is no joke. Many of those people are writing to me.

I realise that I am off the point about concessionary bus fares, but that is an experience that I am now having with a private operator. I know that a commitment was not written into the sale, but a wish to maintain through booking was expressed. I pay tribute, as I did in Committee, to the role of the Minister when he tried to help put that right in April, when I pleaded with him over the Easter period. The through fare was withdrawn at the peak period of Easter. There is no legal obligation on the operator of Sealink to maintain the through fares.

The new clauses are complicated. Surely the provision could have been written in without all this verbiage. They are full of qualifications. I suggest that some operators will wish to find ways out. I know that they may be fined, but I hope that the Secretary of State will give us stronger assurances. He moved the new clause 9 very quickly. It and the others are complicated, and I find them difficult to understand. I am sure that other hon. Members do too, if they are honest about it. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give stronger assurances that the clauses mean that if a concessionary fares scheme is operating at the moment, as far as he is aware, there is no earthly reason why it should not be continued, and adequate finance will be provided to local authorities such as Nottingham so that they can maintain the scheme. Let us think again of the situation in London. It is what cities such as Nottingham and other great cities deserve. It was granted to London, and it should be granted to the rest of the country.

I declared on the Second Reading my interest in the National Bus Company, but I happily declare it again.

I should like to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State two fairly short questions about new clause 11. One concerns the use of the word "inappropriate" in subsection (3). It is an unusual word. Why has my right hon. Friend chosen it rather than "unreasonable"? If a participation notice were unreasonable, there could be quite clear reasons for it. For example, operators could be required to carry passengers with concessionary tickets at peak times, or the scheme may not sufficiently compensate the operator for the service provided. Therefore, would it not be better to use the word "unreasonable"? The word "inappropriate" seems slightly odd. For example, if there were a successor transport authority to South Yorkshire, it might impose some unreasonable conditions in the notice, which need not necessarily be inappropriate in terms of its own transport policy. I should like my right hon. Friend to answer that point.

Secondly, when participation notices are served, the operator might decide that the scheme is not appropriate for him, yet the local authority might still wish him to continue. I know that the new clause gives the operator the right to appeal, but the problem is that he could find himself operating at a considerable loss while that appeal procedure went through. I understand how the system works, and at the end either the notice is confirmed, in which case the operator must decide whether to carry on, or the appeal is allowed. Will my right hon. Friend explain why operators, who will presumably be running tight under his new regime, should have to run at what could be considerable financial losses? In the event of an appeal, will they receive compensation?

The new clauses are important because the threat to concessionary fares is the most serious threat in the Bill. In Committee, when we were assured that amendments would be made to take care of the points raised by Conservative Members, they accepted the assurances and withdrew their amendments. They believed that the Minister would come forward with some proposals to safeguard the position. At that stage my hon. Friends and I thought that they were being conned and buying a pig in a poke, and that they would not get genuine safeguards.

The hon. Members for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) and for South Hams (Mr. Steen) accepted those assurances, but the safeguards which are supposed to be included in these amendments show that they were not sincere about wishing to safeguard concessionary fares. These proposals take a short pace forward, but do not provide the type of security for concessionary fares that we wish.

Although I am prepared to accept that some Conservative Members may have a social conscience and believe that there should be some provision for the elderly and disabled, when the desire to meet that commitment is set against the cash required, I know which they choose and where their judgment lies. During our debates on this important Bill, Conservative Members have shown themselves to care more about financial implications than about protecting services and concessionary fares.

I accept that the new clause is a slight improvement to the Bill, but it is only slight. If Conservative Members were sincere, they would have secured amendments to safeguard concessionary fares for people throughout the country on the same basis as those in London.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my horror and aghast feeling that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) was not prepared to tell the House what scheme her party would operate, if it were ever in government again, or even to guarantee that the present scheme would continue? Has the hon. Gentleman ever known such hypocrisy as that of the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends, who doubt the Government's intentions about concessionary fares, and refuse point blank to answer my three questions about whether they have any plans to introduce anything better themselves, if they ever come to office?

There is no hypocrisy on the part of my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). If there is any, it is on the part of the Government, who say that they believe in concessionary fares but who do nothing to safeguard them. Whether the Secretary of State likes it or not, the Labour party is democratic. It will determine its policies at party conferences before we fight the next general election. No Secretary of State in a Labour Government would determine the policy. The opposite is true of the Conservative party, which formulates its policy after winning an election. The hypocrisy in this debates shown by the Secretary of State and his hon. Friends, who are not prepared to write into the Bill any safeguards to protect concessionary fares.

7.15 pm

In Committee, we requested that the Bill should include provisions for concessionary fares on the same basis as that which was forced on the Secretary of State in the London Regional Transport Act 1984. If they are good enough for London, they are good enough for my constituents, the people of Lancashire and the nation as a whole. That request was perfectly reasonable. Failing that, our fallback position of asking for an amendment to ensure that there would be no detriment to concessionary fare systems as a result of the Bill is absolutely reasonable. I do not conceive how any Conservative Member can debate this: issue without supporting such safeguards, if he genuinely believes that there should be concessionary fares.

In Committee, I drew attention to the fact that Hyndburn borough council was already preparing for the Bill, and had announced that 16 to 18-year-old students will no longer be eligible for concessionary fares. It said that concessionary fares could continue if the county council was prepared to meet the bill and pay the additional cost. That is nonsense. It is worth mentioning that that council is Conservative-controlled. However, if it continues to pursue that policy, it will not be Conservative-controlled for long.

The hon. Member for Nottingham, South referred to many bad local government decisions. He shares the 'view of his hon. Friends that Labour authorities are extravagant, wasteful and inefficient, but that is not true. It is a fallacy put about by Conservative Members and the Conservative party. Labour councils try to tackle the problems that face their communities, which they have been elected to do. Unfortunately, because of the financial restraints placed on them by the Government, they cannot tackle the problems to the extent that they would wish.

The implications of rate capping and penalties severely affect the future of concessionary fares. The question is not merely whether a local authority is rate-capped, but whether it receives a penalty as a result of overspending or raising an additional penny in the pound rate. The penalty can be equivalent to a 7p rate, and it is that which makes councils think carefully about what they can do.

It is not sufficient for the Secretary of State to say that local authorities have the right to provide concessionary fares, when he will not give them the money to do the job. It is strange that he says that local authorities should have the power to determine what concessionary fare schemes they should provide, when the Secretary of State for the Environment increasingly ties down local government with every act and statement that he makes. If the Secretary of State believes that local government should have the freedom to determine concessionary fares, he should say to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, "If that is the Government's policy on transport, why is it not their policy on the environment? Why do we not allow local authorities to determine their expenditure on all local services?"

The Secretary of State shows his insincerity on this issue by not being prepared to follow that line. We must put some safeguard in the Bill. However, having been a member of the Committee and having read the Second Reading debate, I doubt whether any amendments will come from the Government to provide the guarantees that are needed.

Although the new clauses are a slight improvement, they are extremely difficult to understand, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) said, and will not give the protection to concessionary fares that we would wish. If the Secretary of State, his colleagues in the Department and Conservative Members want the disabled, the blind, the elderly and others to continue to enjoy concessionary fares, even at this late stage, they should introduce suitable amendments to protect such fares. However, I believe that they will not. The procedure involved in the new clauses will be extremely difficult to administer. Although the Secretary of State will not accept it, most of us recognise that local authorities will almost certainly be forced to use tokens as a result of the Bill. Most hon. Members must recognise that tokens are not the most suitable form of concessionary fares, and that the pass is a much better system.

Lancashire county council has made great strides in co-ordinating all the concessionary fare systems in the county. The chairman of the county council's transport committee wishes Lancashire to merge its schemes with those in Greater Manchester and Merseyside, so that those who live in the north-west can enjoy much wider concessionary travel. That will be a tremendous step forward. However, when the Bill is enacted, such steps forward will become more difficult to introduce. There will almost certainly be reductions, not improvements, in the provision of concessionary fares.

Although we hear words of sympathy from Conservative Members, we have yet to see them vote to support their words. I doubt whether, when we vote later on other issues, any Conservative Member will have the courage to support protection for concessionary fares.

In Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) said more than once that it was not only pressure from Labour Members in Committee on the London Regional Transport Act 1984 which forced the Secretary of State to make a concession. There was also pressure from Conservative Members, who had the courage not only to utter words of sympathy but to vote when it mattered.

The hon. Gentleman will know that the Conservative manifesto stated that concessionary fares would be protected, which is why those hon. Members voted as they did.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that information. It is hard to imagine that the Conservative party tried to honour some of the pledges in its election manifesto, but I accept his assurance that Conservative Members did so on that occasion. If the Conservative Members of that Committee had not been prepared to support what they believed and to tell the Secretary of State, "If you do not protect concessionary fares in London, we will not support the Bill," it would have gone through unaltered. If Conservative Members had had the same courage in respect of this Bill, we could have been debating amendments much more meaningful than the present ones, which, while they may satisfy Conservative Members, do not satisfy me and my hon. Friends.

I do not accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) that it will be impossible in Lancashire to operate a system other than tokens. In half of my constituency, tokens are used; the only snag is that many people cannot use them, either because there is no rural bus service or because they are too disabled to get on the buses. Therefore, my constituents will welcome the fact that, in future, they can use their tokens on regular taxi routes.

In my constituency, it is essential to have concessionary fares, for the simple reason that existing bus fares are extremely high. For example, it costs £2–10 to get from Lancaster to Abbeystead, and £1–90 to get from Pilling to Garstang. A great problem is that, when one gets to the centres of population, one cannot get back home because the buses leave so quickly. That means that passengers must rush to do their shopping and certainly cannot pause to have coffee or tea with their friends. There is a mad scramble to get back. However, when they can use their tokens for taxis, their visit will be more leisurely. They may go to the town by bus, as they do now, but they can use their tokens to return home.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No; I have finished.

Conservative Members, led by the Secretary of State and the Minister of State, have taken another step in a cynical and fraudulent conspiracy to mislead pensioners and to give the impression that something is being done, whereas they know perfectly well by now — the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) gave the game away—that what they are doing with the new clauses is saying to local authorities, "We give you the licence to do the impossible if you can find out how to do the impossible." Nothing in the clauses explains how local authorities will continue to fund the good schemes that exist now.

It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Nottingham, South, in an almost throwaway remark, say that if some authorities would stop wasting section 137 money, they would be able to fund concessionary fare schemes. Given that the maximum spending under section 137 is the equivalent of a 2p rate, that gives us some idea of the Mickey Mouse notion of concessionary travel—

Will the hon. Gentleman accept from me that, in the city of Nottingham, the 2p rate raises just under £l million? I understand that in the county of Nottinghamshire it raises three times that amount. Although he may believe that that is Mickey Mouse money, I do not, and I doubt whether anyone else in the Chamber does.

The hon. Gentleman explained that the present, somewhat limited concessionary travel scheme in Nottingham cost £2?2 million. Therefore, from his figures, it appears that Nottingham's section 137 money provides less than 50 per cent. of what it costs to fund the existing scheme. But in Tyne and Wear, with which the hon. Gentleman is familiar to some extent, the concessionary travel scheme costs about £22 million. The equivalent of a 2p rate in Tyne and Wear, which at present would be only £2 million, comes nowhere near meeting our requirements.

That is the key to the deception that is being perpetrated on the public. The hon. Member for Nottingham, South tried to wriggle away repeatedly—we shall look at his answer with interest in the Official Report —from the question whether he could put his hand on his heart and say that even the scheme in Nottingham will exist after the Bill is enacted.

I challenge the Secretary of State to put his hand on his heart and say that every existing concessionary travel scheme will still be in place after the Bill is enacted. I do not see that he could say that some of the best schemes in metropolitan country areas and in some municipal areas can exist when the grant-related expenditure that he will allow in the rate precept will be the equivalent of half fares. He has already said that. That might be the case at the moment. but metropolitan counties and other authorities have more flexibility to do something more generous if they wish.

7.30 pm

If the GRE is to be based on the assumption that concessionary travel means half fares, that shows the true philosophy of the Government Front Bench. It fits in with the remarks of the Minister of State at the Bus and Coach Council dinner when he said that the shire counties had got it about right. Given the assumption that concessionary fares will be based in half fares, given that the transport joint boards in the metropolitan counties are effectively rate-capped, and given that the Secretary of State will determine the rate precept for concessionary travel, I do not know how it will be financially possible for authorities which at the moment provide a completely free scheme or which make generous provision for children, such as the 5p flat fare in my county, to maintain those services under the financial arrangements that will result not only from this Bill but from other legislation that is going through Parliament.

The hon. Gentleman must turn his wrath on the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). She has made it clear that she has no intention, if she ever comes to power, of financing concessionary fares on a full repayment basis. Three times I challenged her and three times she denied it. The cock crowed thrice. Would the hon. Gentleman please take the hon. Lady outside and have his argument with her in private? There is no point in blaming me for what she has said.

I have no wish to have any argument with my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) because she is not sitting where the Secretary of State for Transport is sitting. If she were, and if we had a Labour Government, I and my hon. Friends might be making complimentary speeches about restoring the public transport system that the Secretary of State is about to wreck, or we might be having arguments about how fast we could go along that road. However, it is the Secretary of State who is responsible, and he has not answered the specific points I made.

It is disgraceful to try to distract hon. Members into arguments about what a Labour Government would do if they were in power. We are arguing about what the Secretary of State is doing. I was making a specific point, that it is fraud and hypocrisy to claim continually that clauses are being put in the Bill to enable people to have concessionary travel schemes. The people who benefit from such schemes at the moment do not understand the kind of parliamentary deception that is being practised. They have believed, not unreasonably, that when Ministers say they are protecting concessionary travel, that means that what exists in their area will stay. The Secretary of State knows very well that that is not what it means and that that will not happen. Therefore, it is deception and fraud.

The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) say that the new clauses are capable of improvement. How would they improve them?

I am arguing that these clauses could have more teeth. I am not arguing specifically about the requirement on operators to provide a scheme. I realise that I am somewhat wide of the clause but much of the debate has been in the same vein.

There is no dispute about the fact that these clauses are the Government's response to the promises made continually in Committee to come back on Report with something that guaranteed concessionary travel. We are arguing that concessionary travel is not guaranteed by the new clauses because they do not provide the means for local authorities to finance even existing schemes, let alone enable local authorities which wish to improve their concessionary schemes to do so.

Why did the hon. Gentleman not table a new clause seeking to achieve the objective that he is now putting forward? Was his arm twisted by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich, who has made it clear that it is Labour party policy to cut concessionary fares? Will he tell his constituents that, instead of spreading all this rubbish?

It is absolute slander to say that it is Labour policy to cut public transport. The Secretary of State is misrepresenting what has been said by anyone on these Benches.

Will my hon. Friend explain to the Secretary of State that we debated the matter at great length in Committee? The Secretary of State knows very well that, had we put down the same amendments that we debated in Committee, we should have been ruled out of order. He is well aware that the Labour party has spelt out time and time again its commitment to concessionary schemes. What is more, the Labour party has brought them into effect when it has been in control in local government. All his party does is seek to destroy existing schemes and refuse to give the finance that is necessary.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. She is right that in Committee many amendments about concessionary travel were tabled by Labour Members. Those amendment would have specifically enabled local authorities to have concessionary travel schemes and to require operators to be involved in them. Conservative Members consistently defeated the amendments because the wording would have put an obligation on the Secretary of State to supply adequate funding.

I well recall the Under-Secretary of State arguing that, if we passed an amendment which would have provided free concessionary travel for old people throughout Britain at all times, it would have cost, in his estimate, the scandalous sum of £230 million. He thought that the possibility of something costing £230 million would convince us all that not even a Labour Government could contemplate it. That brings to mind the absurd runway that has just been laid in the Falklands. If we could provide free travel at all times for every old age pensioner at £230 million, that would be chickenfeed for such an achievement.

I hope the hon. Member will dissociate himself from the deception— I cannot find another word for it—that has been perpetrated by the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). She told the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) that the reason why the Labour party had not tabled amendments specifically on this matter was that they would be ruled out of order. May I suggest that that is a rather lame excuse? To its credit, the Liberal party—now absent from the Chamber—tabled an amendment to leave out clause 1, which is the kernel of the Bill. If the Liberal party can put down an amendment to underline what it wants to say, why should it have been so difficult for the Labour party?

We are straying off the debate about this new clause. I am not answerable for what the Liberal party does about anything. This matter was debated at great length in Committee and I remind hon. Members that we were told—

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that anyone can put down any amendment, but it is up to Mr. Speaker whether or not it is selected? Will he also bear in mind the fact that the amendments about concessionary bus passes that the Secretary of State suggested should be tabled would not be accepted because that could have an effect on the money resolution?