My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons amendments be now considered.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

commons amendments

[The page and line references are to Bill 60 as first printed for the Commons.]

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1. This is the privilege amendment.

Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No 2.

This amendment brings back the principle raised in February in a worthy amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, at Third Reading in this House. At that time, the Government accepted another amendment tabled by the noble Lord which extended the deadline by which bus operators can appeal to the Secretary of State against reimbursement arrangements set by local authorities, in relation to the national concession under the Transport Act 2000. The deadline is currently 28 days after the date on which the reimbursement arrangements take effect. The amendment extended it to 56 days in England. I was able to respond favourably to that amendment on the grounds that provision of extra time should offer scope for the full gathering of high-quality data. This could mean that any appeals which operators feel compelled to make are more firmly grounded in empirical evidence. It should also help to reduce some of the uncertainty that local authorities might otherwise face from more speculative appeals.

As many appeals are brought jointly under the Transport Act 2000 and the Transport Act 1985, the Government’s amendment in the other place, which we are considering today, proposed changes in respect of appeals requiring operators to participate in concessionary schemes under the Transport Act 1985. Under the current arrangements regarding local authority travel concession schemes under the 1985 Act, an authority running a local scheme can serve an operator with a “participation notice” which requires the recipient to participate in the scheme. The operator can appeal to the Secretary of State against the participation notice, and the deadline for the appeal is currently 28 days from the date of the notice.

As noble Lords can see, the Commons amendment would largely mirror, in relation to the Transport Act 1985, the changes already made to the Transport Act 2000 by virtue of Clause 3(4) to (6) of the Bill. It would do so by extending the deadline for appeals against participation notices served by English local authorities in relation to local travel concession schemes. Instead of falling 28 days after the date of the participation notice, the deadline would fall 56 days after the date when the operator’s obligation to participate in the scheme started, or if the relevant bus service is not yet operating, on the date that the obligation would have started had the service been operating. This would help to align the provisions for appeals under the two concessionary legislative regimes.

The last part of the amendment makes a connected change. At the moment, an operator intending to appeal against a participation notice must give the authority notice of his intention to do so either before the operator appeals or, if the participation notice requires it, before the end of a period specified in the notice. Regulations currently provide that this period cannot exceed seven days. This current provision allowing a local authority to specify that operators must give the authority notice of their intention to appeal within seven days, measured from the date of the participation notice, undermines the purpose of extending the appeals period and negates the benefits of giving operators more time to gather data, for example, before appealing.

The amendment would tackle that by providing in effect that the local authority could specify that the operator must give seven days’ notice, or such other period as may be specified in regulations, before lodging an appeal. In other words, operators would be entitled to give notice of an appeal at any time before they lodged the appeal, except that if a local authority specified that it would like seven days’ notice, or such other time as may be specified in regulations, then at least this notice would have to be given. The amendment would apply only to schemes made by English local authorities.

My colleague in the other place, the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Gillian Merron, wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, copied to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, on 23 May, when the Government’s amendment was tabled in her name, explaining the Government’s intent. In his reply, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, welcomed the move and said that he would support it when it returned to this House for consideration. I hope that other noble Lords will agree with the noble Lord in that respect. I am always happy when we are able to reach a productive, cross-party consensus on the best way forward. The Bill makes an important improvement in the provision of concessionary travel for older and disabled people in England. It will make a real difference to some 11 million people, and consequently I—and I am sure the whole House, but particularly those of us who engaged in proceedings on the Bill—look forward to its enactment.

Moved, That the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 2.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comments and I thank Gillian Merron for moving the amendment in the House of Commons. It is a better amendment than that which I had drafted here. I thank everyone for their courtesy and co-operation.

During the Bill’s passage I repeatedly referred to the problem of local authorities actually spending the money made available under this legislation, and I believe that there will be more money. The Government have shown reluctance to direct local authorities in this respect through agreement to ring-fencing, preferring instead to allow local discretion in the use of these funds. Perhaps the Government could, however, publish a list showing the amount of block grant allocated to each authority for the purpose of meeting the cost of concessions, so that local electors—who I gather under the new Prime Minister are gradually to be given more oversight of what is happening—are aware of the use made of such funds and whether they are being used, topped up or, on the other hand, withheld from the purposes for which they were intended.

I wish to refer briefly to another subject which should be covered in the forthcoming local transport legislation—the question of tackling congestion, which is far and away the most important problem confronting the bus industry. Congestion increases costs and leads to increasing customer dissatisfaction. Local authorities are highway authorities and are charged under the Traffic Management Act with managing the highway, and they have been given increased powers so to do. Many local authorities are not sufficiently active in this field, preferring instead the often loud representations from small shopkeepers and recalcitrant motorists who, if possible, would like to drive in the shop doorway to save them walking any distance whatever. I am sorry to say—as the noble Lord, Lord Snape, mentioned when we last dealt with this matter—that some Liberal Democrat councillors are among those who are reluctant to agree to effective highway management measures to ensure that buses have priority.

I have written to the previous Secretary of State saying that where bus services become unreliable because of congestion, the traffic commissioners, exercising enhanced powers, should be able to summon the Cabinet member who is politically responsible for this state of affairs to give a publicly available account of the actions he proposes to take to remedy the situation. With that, I am most grateful to the Minister. I am sure that we have improved the Bill a little.

My Lords, I do not intend to say much except to thank the Minister and the Government. As he said, this is an example where we can work on a cross-party basis to agree legislation with amendments that seem to satisfy us all. The Bill’s provisions will certainly be welcomed by many. I therefore compliment the Government on one solid and satisfactory piece of legislation. I have nothing further to say, except that I am pleased that the Bill will receive Royal Assent and be implemented next year.

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords. I am more grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, because he expressed his thanks without asking awkward questions—whereas the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is stretching the rules of the House by raising such fundamental subjects as funding and traffic congestion when I am dealing with the limited subject of appeal times. In contrast to his constructive work in the past, that is probably stretching the issues a little.

Let me assure him that we are working hard on the formula basis for distribution, which we expect to settle over the course of this summer and will bear in mind his points about the advantages of greater openness. He will also know about the complexity of this concession’s funding, which has been discussed in previous debates on the Bill.

As for tackling concession and the role of buses in that, the Government are at one with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw—and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield—in recognising that the bus has an important role to play in this country’s public transport provision. In those areas where the bus has been given considerable priority, there have been obvious advantages to the community.

We hope that others will recognise those advantages, particularly against the background of the purpose of this measure, which is significantly to increase bus usage. I hope the noble Lord will recognise that I cannot give too many categoric assurances on those points. However, I could not agree more categorically with his amendment or with the narrowness of his original proposal.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 2.28pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The Sitting was suspended from 1.42 to 2.28 pm]