asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What representations they have made to the Government of Japan about their hunting of whales.

My Lords, we consistently voice our opposition to Japan’s so-called scientific whaling. On 8 January, Jonathan Shaw, the marine and fisheries Minister, met the deputy ambassador from Japan to express the United Kingdom’s outrage and to urge Japan to end its slaughter of whales. On 21 December, the UK, along with 29 other countries, also took part in a démarche calling on the Japanese to cease all their lethal scientific research on whales and to assure the immediate return of the vessels.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very helpful reply. I hope he will pass on my thanks to his department for the work that it has done on this matter. What is the position of the two people from the “Sea Shepherd” who boarded a Japanese whaling vessel yesterday in order, they say, to present a letter to the captain stating that it was unlawfully whaling? They were, according to press reports, detained and tied to the mast. Will my noble friend ensure that any protests on this subject are made at the highest level; namely, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister?

My Lords, we are in touch with both the Australian and Japanese authorities. We have noted the reports that crew members of the “Sea Shepherd” are being detained on a whaling ship. Obviously, we want to see these detained members handed over to the proper authorities, and hope that this can be achieved safely and without further delay. Japan has confirmed that the two men have been detained, but denies that they have been harmed or assaulted.

My Lords, at the meeting of the International Whaling Commission held last year in Anchorage, a motion was passed overwhelmingly calling on Japan to suspend indefinitely the lethal aspects of its scientific programme in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. It was made quite clear at that conference that the Japanese research project was not scientific and therefore broke the convention on whaling. Are the Government going to take any legal action within international fora to enforce that motion and get a redefinition of scientific whaling?

My Lords, we have been attempting to do that for quite a while. Japan’s view that its whaling is scientific is quite preposterous. The latest check on the position in 2006 showed that of the almost 500 papers on whales posted on the ISI Web of Knowledge database, only 0.8 per cent came from Japan’s whaling programme, so it is not scientific in the sense of publishing papers. We continue with our work through the International Whaling Commission, and all United Kingdom foreign posts are constantly on the lookout for people joining—or not joining, as the case may be—the commission, because that is really where these decisions must be taken.

My Lords, as my noble friend is certainly aware, Japan derives much support in these matters from the votes of some small countries—many of them, I am afraid, well known to be in the Commonwealth. It is perhaps only coincidental, but many of them get economic support from Japan. Will my noble friend at least investigate discussing with like-minded countries the possibility of setting up a fund that has a countervailing effect on Japanese economic transactions in that area?

My Lords, my noble friend raises an issue that I am told is highly sensitive. Allegations are consistently made regarding new members who join the International Whaling Commission and their apparent economic connections with Japan, but evidence has been a bit short on the table. Nevertheless, we have recently renewed our efforts through a document Protecting Whales: A Global Responsibility, the foreword to which was signed by both the Prime Minister and Sir David Attenborough. It was sent to more than 60 countries in the past few months. We are also actively working, through like-minded countries, to make sure that membership of the International Whaling Commission is such that the moratorium is maintained. My noble friend Lord Gilbert’s concern is constantly raised, but evidence is in short supply.

My Lords, will my noble friend advise the Japanese Government of the success of the Icelandic Government in promoting tourism associated with whale watching? I understand that something like £10 million a year is brought in there from that industry.

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. The figures for the southern hemisphere show that in 1900 it was estimated that there were 240,000 blue whales; yet in 1996, the estimate was 1,700. At the same time, estimates have been made that the whale-watching industry is worth a billion dollars a year globally. There are thus economic advantages to not killing whales, which, as we know with good reason, cannot be killed safely, quickly or humanely. There is economic benefit derived from preserving whales and letting their stocks rise again.

My Lords, could the Minister be a little more precise on the illegality? Is it the case that Japan is not observing the text of a treaty to which she is a party, or rather that she has chosen not to join that part of the treaty?

She has, my Lords, which raises questions on what is scientific and why Japan needs to do it. As I said, it claims that the whaling is scientific, yet it publishes no papers—or not to the extent that others do on it—so it cannot put any facts behind the claim. The meat ends up on the market in Japan, so the allegation is that it is not scientific. No research or papers come out of it, although Japan claims that, scientifically, it needs to kill 1,000 whales to find out how they live. Well, while it is not publishing any papers based on its research, that killing is feeding back into restaurants in Japan.

My Lords, if it makes no sense whatever economically, why do the Japanese Government go on doing it? Is it not absolutely essential for them to do so?

My Lords, the Japanese Government must answer for themselves. What they are doing is, frankly, indefensible, and we have expressed our outrage about it.

My Lords, notwithstanding the Minister’s reassurances, all the evidence from Written Answers suggests that the Government have not been using all the channels available to raise this at the highest level. As well as Defra, do not the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and even the Prime Minister need to engage in making it clear to the Japanese that their behaviour is not acceptable?

My Lords, that has been done and more. The Foreign Office has been involved, and we have contacted more than 60 countries within the past few months since, as I said, we republished that document with a foreword from the Prime Minister. Messages have also been sent to all our posts abroad. This has not been left just to the government department dealing with marine and fisheries; it is being dealt with at the highest level, across government and on an international basis. That is the only way we can deal with it.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

When the Civil Service Bill announced by the Prime Minister in July 2007 will be introduced.

My Lords, as set out in the Governance of Britain Green Paper, the Government are committed to taking forward legislation to enshrine the core principles and values of the Civil Service in law. The legislation will form part of the Constitutional Renewal Bill and will be published in draft for consultation soon.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. I am very pleased to hear that she is still determined to introduce this Bill, which we hope will not be very long away. Is she aware that one of the Prime Minister’s first announcements was that he intended to introduce this Bill, and after eight years the undertaking has finally been accepted? We now want to know when the legislation will come before the House and before Parliament generally. It will need to deal with the impartiality of the Civil Service, stiffened by the force of law, and with the role of special advisers, which is an important part of what I hope to see in the legislation that comes before us.

My Lords, as I have indicated, the legislation will put in statute the basic principles and values of the Civil Service—its political impartiality, its ability to serve any Administration, selection on merit through fair and open competition and the role of the Civil Service Commissioners. It will, indeed, make provision for the appointment and role of special advisers.

My Lords, I also welcome the Minister’s indication that the Bill is at last to see the light of day. Can she, however, say whether it is the Government’s intention that it should cover issues of ethical regulation, particularly in regard to some of the matters raised in another place by the Public Administration Select Committee on post-service employment?

My Lords, the noble Lord was kind enough to indicate that he was going to ask this question and I am grateful to him for doing so. I cannot at this point get into the detail of the legislation. It will be published for consultation as part of the Constitutional Renewal Bill. However, I offer him the opportunity to talk with me about the particular issues that he is keen to see within the Bill, so that I might feed them in.

My Lords, does political impartiality extend to public servants in uniform? It has been marked under the Government that chief police officers and senior military officers have been used to promote government policies. Will this be covered in the Bill and is it desirable?

My Lords, if the noble Lord would like to give me evidence of what he has indicated, I would be extremely grateful and very interested. The purpose of the Question was to look at the Civil Service legislation and I have indicated that it will be published. He can look for himself when he is able to consider the process for consultation.

My Lords, what was the secret of the success of Northcote and Trevelyan in getting legislation on this subject on the statute book so much more swiftly than the present Government?

My Lords, unfortunately, as the noble Lord knows, I am unable to ask them. However, I hope he will welcome what is proposed, especially when he sees it and is able to add his voice to the process of consultation.

My Lords, there have been a considerable number of well publicised incidents of lax security in government departments recently. Can the Minister assure the House that the forthcoming Bill will reinforce the obligations of the Civil Service to protect people’s privacy?

My Lords, the Cabinet Secretary has already been very involved in ensuring that the issues that the noble Lord rightly raises have been understood properly within the Civil Service, within all government departments and by all Ministers. I hope he will agree that it is appropriate for the Cabinet Secretary to continue to make it clear that we wish to see people’s information protected. The right way to do that is to make sure that the procedures in place are followed thoroughly.

My Lords, will the Bill cover the Diplomatic Service, which, as the House knows, comes under a different Order in Council?

My Lords, I have no information on that at this time. Might I notify the noble Lord when I do? As I said, the Bill will be open for consultation shortly.

My Lords, is not the answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that Northcote-Trevelyan only had to persuade a Liberal Government, a much easier task when putting forward radical reform?

Do me a favour, my Lords.

My Lords—

My Lords—

Armstrong!

My Lords, I think it is the wish of the House to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that some of us would be happy to relieve her of the constant and unrelieving pressure for a Civil Service Bill if she on behalf of the Government, and the Leader of the Opposition on behalf of the Official Opposition, were to give firm undertakings that they would observe and honour the core principles and values of the Civil Service?

My Lords, I will not speak on behalf of the noble Lord opposite except to say that we value the core principles of the Civil Service. I have the highest respect for the civil servants whom I have had the enormous privilege of working with over the past six and a half years.

My Lords, should not the Bill—or any Bill coming in—require all people seeking appointment to the Civil Service to provide a reference from their former employer, prior to their being appointed?

My Lords, I suspect my noble friend is alluding to something about which I know absolutely nothing. The usual procedure when seeking an employee is to seek references. I have no idea whether the Civil Service has a different procedure, nor indeed should I as a Minister, but I have no doubt that the procedures followed by the Civil Service are exemplary.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether they support the Autism Awareness Campaign’s call for a 10-year strategy, including a plan of action on autism and Asperger’s syndrome.

My Lords, we welcome the work of the Autism Awareness Campaign. Decisions to open new special schools are taken by local authorities, but we are providing significant additional resources for the training of teachers for specific learning difficulties, including autism. We also support the National Autistic Society, the TreeHouse Trust and the Council for Disabled Children in establishing the Autism Education Trust, focusing on service improvements, and we are supporting the TreeHouse Trust in building the National Centre for Autism Education.

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I serve on the board of Autism Speaks, which is jointly working on research into autism in the UK, USA and Saudi Arabia.

I thank my noble friend for that considered reply. Does he accept that, while significant numbers of parents are satisfied with the progress that has been made in this area, huge numbers of parents and carers across the country are still frustrated at not achieving satisfactory and cohesive educational services? Will he and his colleagues in the department consider looking at a taskforce on how these particular services can go forward and increase joint working across government as well as across the NGO sector?

My Lords, I will consider any suggestion put to me by my noble friend. We work closely with organisations seeking to promote the interests of children who are on the autistic spectrum. That is why, for example, we are promoting the inclusion development programme, which is a targeted training programme for teachers and includes awareness of conditions on the autistic spectrum. We are also investing significant additional sums in education for children with special educational needs, including children who are on the autistic spectrum.

My Lords, it is not good enough that the parents of children with autism and Asperger’s have to battle to get an initial diagnosis, an assessment of need and the services that they are entitled to, and they are often passed from pillar to post. Should there not be a simplification of the assessment process so that these vulnerable children do not fall in the gap between health, education and social services?

My Lords, the noble Baroness will need to tell me what she means by a simplification. The statementing process in place at the moment is there precisely to safeguard the interests of parents and children, to ensure that they have the opportunity to properly access services and in particular to contest decisions taken or judgments made by local authorities where they do not agree with them. Simplification might not necessarily serve the interests of those children or their parents at all. If the noble Baroness has specific proposals she would like to put to me, I will of course study them seriously.

My Lords, with virtually all the hidden disabilities, most of the problems occur in two places: first, where the parents are not savvy or informed enough to try to drive the educational system forward themselves and, secondly, where the person involved is spotted too late to benefit from the system. When will the Government be satisfied that every school in the country stands a reasonable chance of picking out a working-class child who has marginal Asperger’s?

My Lords, I am not in a position to answer the noble Lord’s question about every school in the country, but if one asks whether we are significantly investing in the training of teachers for this purpose, the answer is yes. For example, we are introducing mandatory national accredited training for all special educational needs co-ordinators in schools. That will apply to all new SENCOs from next year, and that measure, among others, will significantly improve the capacity of schools to engage in early diagnosis.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Celtic Nations Autism Partnership, comprising Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, has already embarked on initiatives to try to co-ordinate the provision of autism services across departmental boundaries; that an independent review of autism services in Northern Ireland is due to report at the end of this month; and that the Welsh Assembly, together with Autism Cymru, is progressing its own 10-year plan? Are Her Majesty’s Government willing therefore to support and build on the Celtic nations’ initiatives, so that government departments, the voluntary sector and others throughout the United Kingdom work together without creating more unnecessary delay?

My Lords, we are aware of the developments in Northern Ireland and Wales and will pay close attention to the plans to which the noble Lord referred when they are published. If there are lessons that we can learn for practice in England, we will do so.

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of TreeHouse. Does the Minister agree with many who advocate a 10-year strategy and many organisations in the field that, with growing numbers of children diagnosed with autism, it is of increasing importance to look at the transition between school and adulthood, and that co-ordination between the different government departments and local authority departments is crucial? Is government strategy addressing that?

My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important subject, to which TreeHouse has paid considerable attention. The training that TreeHouse provides is in no small part geared towards ensuring much better provision in respect of transition, and much better provision linking special schools and specialist support services with mainstream schools and educators. That is a big theme of TreeHouse, and I am sure that the wider education service has a great deal more to learn from it.

asked Her Majesty’s Government:

In the light of Sir John Tooke’s report into Modernising Medical Careers, how they intend to ensure that the nation benefits from its investment in medical education.

My Lords, I express my and the Government’s thanks to Sir John for the enormous dedication that he has shown in completing his review. It is a substantial and timely contribution for which the Government are tremendously grateful. I also thank the medical profession for the help that it gave him throughout the review. The department will respond swiftly to his recommendations. The Government are determined that the nation will benefit from world-class medical training in England.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and his fitting tribute to Sir John. I declare my interest in postgraduate medical education. Having invested £250,000 in each undergraduate’s training in the UK, how do the Government plan to deal with the overprovision of 40 per cent in relation to doctors applying in this round, and to ensure that they can access their e-mails to see their job offers when working in the NHS? Given the failure that was identified in managing the MMC process, are the Government considering the need for and the purposes and functions of a co-ordinating body for NHS medical education in England, as has been proposed by Sir John Tooke, to lead on and take responsibility for training issues into the future?

My Lords, let me make clear two important points when we talk about medical education. There are two separate entities of doctors: those who are employed, whom we are not talking about, versus doctors in training opportunities. This year, there will be nine opportunities for postgraduate training across England and a further 10,000 training posts, which are already filled through a run-through training system. We can never predict the number of applicants to a specific number of training posts, but that is separate from opportunities to obtain a job in the NHS.

On Sir John Tooke’s recent recommendation, which is of great interest, we have to remember that it was not in the interim report. However, it is fresh thinking and certainly welcomed by the department. It is extremely important that we think about the functionality and the clear accountability of structures before we create a structure. We have had that experience in the creation of the MMC structure. The recommendation is very creative, but we should think quite hard about it.

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend agrees that an efficient and caring workforce is a happy one. One of the serious problems now is that young doctors are applying for jobs where they do not necessarily know the consultant or the team for whom they are working. Will the Government look again at the system under which we both trained—the old firm system—whereby one can have a close relationship with a group of doctors and work much more as a team, something which is, sadly, increasingly lacking from the NHS and is compounded by the problem of Modernising Medical Careers at present?

My Lords, my noble friend raises the important issue of the relationship between a trainee and the trainer. The purpose of Modernising Medical Careers was to get over the variability in the quality of training. In certain parts of the country, there was no agreed curriculum or standard of assessment. I strongly believe that the ethos of MMC is correct. However, when it comes to the selection and the process in which MMC should be implemented, my noble friend raises an important point. In 2008 we feel that the deaneries at a local level should be carrying out the selection. I also agree with him that the NHS and its local needs should determine the number of posts at a local level. That should also be considered in the light of the Tooke recommendations.

My Lords—

My Lords—

Cross Bench!

My Lords, does the Minister accept that ever since the National Health Service began, there has been fierce competition for the best registrar posts, particularly in the most popular specialties? However, in the light of the evidence and the numerical information included in these reports by Sir John Tooke—they are admirable and have been doing their best to correct what has become a very serious situation—is it not now necessary to increase the number of specialist registrar posts within the National Health Service to make the best use of the training opportunities for these young doctors? We should bear in mind that an increasing number of general practitioners and consultants are taking early retirement, and it is crucial that there be suitable replacements for them when they retire.

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a point about increasing the number of training opportunities. I am conscious that there is a desire to increase those numbers. However, this is taxpayers’ money and we need to recognise that opening the tap on one end is not going to deal with how we manage those who end with fully trained and certified job opportunities in the future.

My Lords, could the Minster turn towards the microphone please?

Yes, my Lords, I will. I was referring to the caution that we should have if we increase the number of training posts. We would have difficulties in creating consultant opportunities at the end of that training ladder. However, forecasting workforce needs is becoming a global challenge, because the medical workforce is becoming a challenge for most countries trying to design their medical education needs.

My Lords, will the Minister give us an assurance that in future the Government will ring-fence money given to trusts for the training of doctors, and not allow it to be used for paying off their deficits?

My Lords, the funding for the multiprofessional educational and training budgets that the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, refers to is about £4.3 billion a year, an increase of about 3.6 per cent. I certainly guarantee that that budget will be ring-fenced for education and training needs. The budget for medical education has increased from nearly £590 million in 1997 to about £1.6 billion. That is an increase of 170 per cent in the funding for training opportunities for medical doctors.

My Lords, the Minster and I are aware of the meetings held in hospitals throughout the land every week to discuss possible mistakes that have been made. In view of all the mistakes that have been made over this subject, will the Minister consider introducing similar meetings into the Department of Health to discuss all the mistakes? We call them mortality morbidity meetings; we would only be interested in morbidity.

My Lords, I acknowledge the mistake in relation to the implementation of MMC last year. I was one of the trainers and carried a number of trainees with me. That was a difficult and challenging time. The previous Secretary of State has publicly acknowledged that that was a mistake and apologised to the trainees and their families.

The noble Lord raises what happened around 1 August. I am sure that he will agree that it is important to put on record that clinical colleagues took a lot of their free time to interview candidates across the country to ensure that the right individuals were appointed at the right time. The deaneries and strategic health authorities co-ordinated that activity around June or July, which ensured that our hospitals will be fully staffed on 1 August this year.

moved Amendment No. 1:

My Lords, for once, I welcome a government amendment. While the Minister did not prescribe what level of local government is to be consulted, one assumes that the traffic commissioners would consult the relevant level. This is a welcome addition to the consultation processes in the Bill.

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for this amendment and for giving consideration to the point raised in an amendment I moved in Committee. The amendment he has tabled addresses the issue.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Clause 9 [Local transport plans]:

moved Amendment No. 2:

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support what has been said by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. These advertisements are growing in number, and on trunk roads they are positioned around roundabouts. They are a distraction and enforcement action certainly needs to be taken, whether by central government or local government. I am concerned that many local councils have cut back on their enforcement staff. In the district council where I live, the local authority itself has erected advertisements at roundabouts, which is a disgraceful flouting of the law and one that I regret very much.

My Lords, I support this amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. He kindly reminded the House that we have previously contested the issue within this Chamber. I had the pleasure of leading a debate specifically on the flourishing of motorway advertisements. I wish to repeat briefly some of those arguments. First, motorway adverts are unsightly; indeed, the CPRE has waged a recent campaign to that effect. Secondly, they almost undoubtedly break planning law. Thirdly, and this is the point that was highlighted by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, there is increasing evidence that, one day, we could be confronted by an accident wholly attributable to someone trying to write down a telephone number, or take other information, from one of these motorway adverts.

If you are a passenger in a car, just look at some of these adverts. They are grossly and poorly designed to give information to anyone passing them at speed. For a driver, they are a distraction too far. Since our debates on the issue in this House, Dr Mark Young and Janina Mahfoud from the Ergonomics Research Group of the School of Engineering and Design at Brunel University in March 2007 completed a study entitled Driven to Distraction: The Effects of Roadside Advertising on Driver Attention. The report found that roadside advertising had a detrimental effect on drivers’ performance and attention, making them more likely to crash. I encourage my noble friend to ask the civil servants to read that, with a view to stoking up the action that the Government have already taken on this issue—and I think they are with us on this issue—to ensure that we can eliminate this possibility before we suddenly find it returning to Parliament as a matter of urgency.

At the moment, the duty lies upon local councils to enforce the law. I suggest, as I have in the past, that most local councils have no interest whatever in monitoring infringement of the law, as it stands, on a motorway that passes through their county or district. My own suggestion, for what it is worth, is that the Highways Agency, whose agents pass up and down the motorways every day, might more properly be given the duty of observing and pursuing those who are breaking the law.

So I support the amendment, but hope that the Government will think again about what more can be done. I acknowledge what has been done so far, but it would be a terrible day if we had to take urgent action in this House because of this increased diversion for those trying to drive safely on the motorways.

My Lords, I have listened with interest to the debate so far on the amendment. I am fascinated that the Conservative Party, which traditionally bemoans the fact that there is too much legislation, regularly proposes amendments that would bring more legislation before your Lordships’ House and the other place.

I am a bit concerned. My questions are for the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, about the exemptions he sees for political parties. He does not apparently feel that motorists, who, I agree, could well be distracted by some of these advertisements, as indicated by my noble friend, should be exempt, but, for some reason, under his proposals political parties will be. How many political advertisements has he seen in farmers’ fields for parties other than his own? I hate to inject a political note into your Lordships’ debate on the amendment, but when many farmers, particularly the bigger ones, seem to delight in putting Conservative posters in their field, why is that not distracting? He said, “Well, you do not have to write down the telephone number”. That is understandable for the advertisements to which I have referred.

However, there may well be an instance where a picture of the Leader of the Opposition perhaps, who I suppose is a reasonably handsome fellow—certainly the Conservative Party believes that to be the case—may distract a female motorist. She may look and say, “Isn’t he nice looking?”, just when the whole lane of the motorway in front of her stops dead. Is not that an ever-present danger, or does the noble Earl feel that perhaps the leader of his party is not as handsome as some of the propaganda alleges?

My Lords, I bring us back to the subject at hand, but I must say that I was very grateful to my noble friend Lord Snape for that intervention. I used to be very distracted by Tory Party posters that appeared in farmers’ fields around my village. In fact I found them quite offensive, so I suppose they could have driven me to distraction and off the road—but that was another time.

Going back to the amendment, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for his explanation. When I first looked at it I thought that this was a bit out of scope. The Bill is about local transportation; the amendment is, in essence, about roadside advertising, and it seems a little out of place. But the debate is not entirely out of place as these are important issues and relate to the sensible movement of people around communities—and one should always take road safety seriously.

Not all advertising is a danger to road traffic, but it is important that we ensure that drivers are able to concentrate properly on what they should be doing—driving in a safe and legal fashion on our roads, and particularly on our motorways.

The Government agree that very large roadside advertising can be excessively and dangerously distracting to drivers. On the other hand, small advertisements or those some distance away from the road obviously cannot be read at speed. The Department for Transport and the Highways Agency are already conducting research to determine where the balance lies in terms of road safety, and they are very aware of the research of Young and Mahfoud at Brunel University, to which my noble friend Lord Harrison referred, which is obviously very important.

We also know that unlawful advertisements can appear suddenly and without warning and then disappear just as quickly, but there are increasingly fewer of them. A publicity campaign in the summer of 2005 made it clear that placing advertisements on trailers in fields does not avoid planning law and that planning authorities can promptly enforce this law and deter further offences.

Furthermore, the Department for Communities and Local Government recently published for local planning authorities its new advice on advertising, which allows for refusal of planning permission on grounds of road safety, so it explicitly deals with the issue. It also contains specific advice on handling unlawful advertisements and includes new powers to charge advertisers for the cost of removal on top of any fines. A form of cost recovery is built in, so I do not necessarily accept the argument that it is not in the local authority’s interest to enforce because it can recover the cost of enforcement, which is important.

I agree that the signs are unsightly and I can see the potential dangers to which they give rise. I congratulate noble Lords who have highlighted the issue. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said that this was a matter of central government enforcement. He then went on to tell us that he did not believe that local authorities would or did enforce it. That is not the case. We are there to make sure that local government does its job. Not only are the Government aware of the issue of mobile roadside advertisements but we have taken measures to combat the problem. We believe that it is a matter for local enforcement. I take the point that there needs to be an interface between the Highways Agency and enforcement. The Highways Agency is aware of that responsibility. I undertake to go back to the department and remind it of the need to impress on the Highways Agency the value of joint working with local authorities on the matter.

We do not believe that specifying in the Bill the need for local transport authority action would be practical or appropriate. After all, the local transport authority, say a county council, is in many cases not responsible for planning, which lies with the district councils in that county. Even for unitary authorities, which have responsibility both for transport and planning, there are many road safety and other transport issues that require action from local transport authorities. These will be addressed in future guidance on local transport plans, rather than in legislation—the issue of mobile roadside advertisements will therefore be considered for inclusion in such guidance.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is right to seek assurance that action is taken against dangerous mobile roadside advertisements. I assure him that the Government are aware of this issue and have been taking the appropriate measures. Valuable debates and points have been made in your Lordships’ House. I know that colleagues in the DCLG and the ODPM have dealt with the matters as well. We should ensure that the Local Government Association works with its district council authority members to ensure that their powers are being properly exercised and that enforcement action is taken where appropriate, because I see the potential for a menace to road safety.

I am grateful to the noble Earl for raising the issue, which has given rise to a useful short debate. It reminds us all of the importance of enforcement and of road safety issues, but it would not be appropriate to put it as a power for local transport authorities when the power is already there at a local authority level to take the sort of action that we need to see taken in cases of abuse.

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Harrison and Lord Bradshaw. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, mentioned the Highways Agency. I understand that the Highways Agency contacts local authorities to have the adverts moved, but only in the worst cases and only on Highways Agency roads, not local authority roads. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, amused us by picking up on the political point, but my point is that we must avoid the need to legislate in haste; a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison. We need to use the legislation that we already have—again that returns to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Snape, because I was careful not to suggest a shedload of new regulation. We need to use effectively what we have.

The Minister suggested that my amendment was out of place. I will raise the issue at every opportunity I can within the rules. I will do that while the problem is apparent and growing worse, which it is.

I will read carefully what the Minister said, but while the problem is getting worse I will return to it during the passage of future Bills when I see a suitable opportunity. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 2A:

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said, we discussed this in Committee and, like him, I was surprised that the amendment was rejected by the Government. “Integrated transport” may not be the wording that we use these days, but clearly any planning that involves road and rail should be done together and the amendment would fit in well. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, mentioned the railways route utilisation strategies, the forecasts that go with them and the Government’s plan and high-level output statements for the railways. They are totally dependent on where passengers and, to some extent, freight go at either end of a journey. If the rail services are to be cut back or increased, local and regional transport plans should reflect that, and vice versa. This is before we start looking at the possible changes to transport demand when the price of oil rockets, but I shall not go into that now. I hope that my noble friend will consider this issue seriously, because this simple group of amendments would emphasise the importance of considering land-based transport in the round.

My Lords, I shall wait to hear what the Minister has to say, because he will probably tell us that the guidance will mean that such consultation will happen. In any case, an integrated transport authority would not be doing its job if it failed to consult the rail manager.

More important is the basis on which alternative road and rail schemes are considered. There is a tremendous misbalance between the benefits accruing to railway schemes and those accruing to roads. That has its roots in the methodology that the department uses to appraise various schemes. A very pessimistic view is taken of the benefits of rail schemes and a very optimistic view of those applying to road schemes.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, for bringing back what one might term a repeat amendment. I certainly agree that consultation on local transport plans with interested and affected parties, and consideration of their plans and strategies, is vital in securing transport policies and projects that best service local people. We are grateful to Network Rail, the Campaign for Better Transport and others for their proposals for railways and local transport plans; we work closely with them at all times. I also know from our discussions on this in Committee that the noble Lord is keen to see better integration between road and rail, as are the Government. As he acknowledged then, the integration of local railways with other local transportation services already forms a key component of many plans. The Government seek to continue to encourage and deepen that understanding and integrated way of working. I believe that the term integration is appropriate—I do not entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, when he seems to assume that integration is not something we favour; we clearly do.

It is right that organisations such as Network Rail should be consulted on local transport plans—that is essential. Indeed, we think such groups are already likely to be covered in any event by the duty placed on local transport authorities to consult,

“such other persons as the authority considers appropriate”.

I ought to reiterate the position that my noble friend Lady Crawley set out in Committee. The Government still consider that it is more appropriate for local authorities to decide which individual organisations to consult, taking account of local circumstances. Similarly, local transport authorities must take into account a wide range of plans and strategies when developing and implementing their local transport plans—including those of Network Rail, but also other relevant local, regional and national strategies. It is for local transport authorities to decide which of these are most relevant. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, is often seen to berate the Government—quite rightly, perhaps—for not being sufficiently localist in their approach to things and not leaving sufficient scope for local determination. This is one of those occasions where it is right that the local transport plans should be locally determined. Further, the question of who works within that and who is consulted should be locally determined because the local authorities are closer to those circumstances and it is right that they should make that decision.

To aid them—and this picks up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw—the Government intend to publish guidance that would include, among other things, suggestions as to the kinds of bodies that it would be appropriate for a local authority to consult, and the kinds of plans and strategies that should be considered within that. It is preferable to use this approach to the inclusion of, say, Network Rail, rather than developing a long list in the Bill. The guidance has greater flexibility; over time it could become somewhat outdated and outmoded, so we think that this is a more sensible way of dealing with it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, is right to say that Network Rail is an essential consultee; we do not disagree with that—we see great value in it. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made a different point about evaluating road versus rail schemes. I understand his point, which he has made on a number of occasions, and I do not entirely disagree with it, but it is at an angle somewhat to this debate, which is essentially about methods of consultation and where the balance should lie in legislating, or providing guidance, as to who should be consulted on particular aspects of local transportation planning.

The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, makes a good point, but we think that that is best dealt with in guidance rather than in the Bill, because that provides greater flexibility and more local control.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his answer. I said in my introduction that there are a lot of long lists of consultees in other parts of the Bill and I believe that it would have added to the Bill if we had put Network Rail in this part. As he said, I believe in localism and in local people taking decisions. However, this is not a political point. These days, all political parties want to see integrated transport and the best use made of rail and road, and it is important to show that in the legislation to indicate that we really mean business in trying for integrated transport systems. Therefore, I am rather disappointed that the Minister did not accept the offer to add to our enthusiasm for integrated transport by putting Network Rail into the Bill. However, I see the point that he is making and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 2B not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 2C:

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his exposition of the purpose of the amendment. As he highlighted, it was also tabled in Grand Committee. The Bill already includes, at Clauses 12 to 17, provisions for quality bus partnership schemes. The Transport Act 2000 and the amendments made by the Bill include provision requiring consultation on these quality partnership schemes. Their coverage already includes routes, frequencies and fares. Therefore, some of what the amendment proposes has already been provided for elsewhere.

Local planning authorities already have an administrative duty to have regard to all such schemes where they are relevant to their functions. A specific duty for local planning authorities to have regard to bus partnership schemes would create a precedent for having a similar express duty related to many other issues. Other transport schemes which might carry similar weight with local planning authorities include freight quality and road safety partnerships. There will also be similar examples in other sectors.

The quality bus partnership schemes created under the Transport Act 2000 and Clauses 12 to 17 of the Bill can be made when local transport plans are being prepared or at any other stage in their lifecycle. However, bus partnership schemes, as proposed in the amendment, would be restricted to being created merely during the preparation of a local transport plan. I cannot see the benefit of that.

I argue that the approach that we propose elsewhere in the Bill will enable much of what is in the amendment to be achieved. Secondly, the proposal could simply clutter up the process and create unnecessary confusion. I do not see a great benefit in it. The Bill will also provide far more flexibility about when it can be achieved. I hope the noble Lord will find some reassurance in those words. I do not see the need for this and I worry that it could offer itself as a weaker distraction to the overall thrust of the legislation. I am sure that is not what the noble Lord is seeking. For those reasons I cannot accept the amendment.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer. The amendment is tabled to try and make quality partnerships work better. Perhaps we have not always got the wording right but we prefer quality partnerships over quality contracts. The intention behind this amendment was to make them more effective. As the Minister and everyone else knows, I am involved every single day of my life in local government and we sit round the table trying to sort things out and get some agreement with outside partners more often now than ever before. This amendment was intended to make things work rather better with bus operators. I do not think the Minister has quite acknowledged that. It is time we had a bit of exercise so I would like to test the feeling of the House on this issue.

moved Amendment No. 3:

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for having taken on board so fully the point that I made in Committee. I was indeed concerned that the Government should take some steps to disability-proof the Bill, as I put it. I am grateful for the extent to which the Minister took me at my word by moving this amendment.

In Committee, I was concerned that operators would be able to use admissible objections to veto requirements in quality partnership schemes covering frequency, timing and maximum fares. The Minister said that he had not anticipated that the admissible objections process would be used or abused in that way, but he undertook to look at the matter further. The result of those considerations is the amendment that he has just put before us, which is indeed very welcome.

The Minister may see why it was relevant to reiterate that point on admissible objections, which he might think was more properly the subject of our next debate, when I ask this question: does Amendment No. 3 mean that a local authority, when it is modifying a quality partnership scheme in response to an admissible objection, will have to have regard to the needs of disabled persons? If the Minister could reassure us on that point, I feel sure that it will facilitate considerably our discussion of the next amendment.

My Lords, I am sure that that is the case, and I am happy to give that reassurance to the noble Lord. It would be most appropriate that a local authority took those things into consideration, because the value of this is all in the development of policy. It is important to give proper consideration to people with a whole range of disabilities at the policy development stage.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Clause 12 [Quality partnership schemes]:

moved Amendment No. 4:

My Lords, I support these amendments, which seek to remove the admissible objections operator veto from quality partnerships. We have had much discussion on this point and it seems that the Bill would be improved were these words removed. The Government published, immediately prior to the first Committee session, draft guidance on what an admissible objection might constitute. The provision in the guidance that allows operators to make an objection based on operators being unable to provide services to the standards specified on a commercial basis has raised several questions already.

We agree that local transport authorities are unlikely to devise a quality partnership with unreasonable requirements, as operators would not sign up—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. Our earlier amendment on the idea of producing a bus partnership scheme as part of the local transport plan would assist in ensuring that any reasonable terms were amended at an earlier stage. Allowing the reasonable objection provision to remain in the Bill would undermine the principle of encouraging local authorities to take up quality partnerships.

My Lords, I listened carefully to the debate on the amendment, which originates from the Passenger Transport Executive Group; this debate pretty much follows our debate in Committee. I am astonished that the Conservative Front Bench support this amendment. After all, the original legislation was the 1986 Act, which was introduced by the Conservative Government. They had quite a number of years following 1986 when, if they had wanted what the amendment seeks, they could have had it. I realise that there is not a great deal of support behind what the noble Earl has just said, but the fact that the Conservative Party feels that the legislation needs changing in this way is significant and a little unexpected.

My Lords, I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Snape, has said. The big enemy of bus operation in the country is road congestion. Many local authorities are not, for various reasons, addressing road congestion and seek to put all the blame for bad services on the bus operators. There are some bad bus operators and they have poor standards. Where there is a real attempt to clear congestion, generally the bus operators respond with considerable extra investment and training.

My second point is rather procedural. I raised this at Second Reading. The Minister said then:

“The intention is not to make it difficult to establish a quality partnership scheme; the intention is to ensure that local authorities cannot impose requirements on bus operators that are unrealistic or unreasonable in relation to frequencies, timings or … fares”.—[Official Report, 20/11/07; col. 799.]

I was also given the assurance, although it is not recorded here, that the traffic commissioner would not sit by himself. He would have two people with him, one whose qualifications were in transport planning, while the other would be qualified in economics. I am sure that no bus operator will get by these people unless they have a good case. However, in any court of law both sides must have the opportunity to put their case. Therefore, I am sorry but I will not support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser.

My Lords, I will not delay the House too much, but there was a reception in the House of Commons last night, hosted by Centro, I think, and I discussed the amendments with some of the people who promote and lead Centro. I asked them whether they thought the amendments were a good idea and they all said yes. That is not to say that they liked the new buses described by my noble friend Lord Snape. There are an awful lot of other buses in the Birmingham area besides those on the three routes. It seems reasonable that the local authorities, which, as both noble Lords have said, are required to invest in bus lanes and shelters and so on, should have a role too. I think that the amendment is important and I support it. I would still like to hear from the Minister why policy has changed since the draft Bill was published.

My Lords, as I have already said this afternoon, I am grateful to the Minister for broadening the duty that already exists to have regard to the transport needs of elderly people and people with mobility difficulties so that local transport authorities will now have to have regard to the transport needs of all disabled persons. The Minister has assured us of this. This means that even when admissible objections are raised by transport operators, the local transport authority will have to have regard to the needs of disabled people before taking them on board. The Bill is disability-proofed so far as the impact of admissible objections is concerned.

However, there are a couple of other points that I would like to raise about the way the ability to raise admissible objections might work. I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s comment on these. I raise these points with some diffidence because, unlike other noble Lords who have spoken, I am by no means an expert on the way local transport services work.

First, in the draft guidance, the department suggests that one of the things that might make an objection admissible would be if the likely demand for services would not be sufficient to enable operators to provide the services on a commercial basis. Other noble Lords have referred to that element in the guidance. Can the Minister clarify whether that condition would be met if just one operator could not provide the specified services profitably or whether the test would be that no relevant operator could provide the services profitably? Admissible objections should not be used to prop up uncompetitive businesses. A quality partnership scheme should not be thwarted just because one operator would not be able to operate the services profitably.

Secondly, there is nothing about quality partnership schemes which can force an operator to run unprofitable services. If they cannot run the services profitably, they just will not use the facilities afforded by the quality partnership scheme: that is the veto they already have. Presumably this is why the Minister said in Committee that it was highly unlikely that an authority would promote such a scheme. In fact, authorities will probably go to considerable lengths to ensure that operators wish to take part in their scheme, including informal discussions and so on. Admissible objections may risk giving operators the whip hand over authorities by forcing them to modify already carefully considered schemes—perhaps to the detriment of passengers.

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this discussion. The dichotomy of views expressed has made it very interesting. I am impressed by the persistence of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in moving these amendments and I welcome the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Snape, with his breath of realism on how the bus industry works. Those are the extents of the input into this discussion.

As often happens with these sorts of issues, a balance must be struck between the legitimate and understandable expectations of local transport authorities and the public on whose behalf they are acting and the legitimate interests of operators who are trying to run a business and make a fair profit. The balance needs to be struck in the spirit of partnership to produce schemes in which both authorities and operators can feel fully committed. If the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, detected a change of direction by the Government, it was in an attempt to secure that balance and try to preserve and underline the value of local partnership to deliver good quality local bus services.

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, would he consider this? One of the concerns that local authorities have, expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, is that at the end of the process by which they are trying to get a voluntary agreement on partnership, bus operators may come to the traffic commissioner with a load of objections that they think legitimate, and which may or may not be so. Perhaps we could confirm in the draft guidance that any objections need to be raised with the relevant local transport authority prior to them being raised with the traffic commissioner. The local authority may have tried to reach agreement, and may have thought that agreement had been reached, but the bus operator may then have come up with a load of objections.

My noble friend Lord Snape said that local authorities cannot expect bus operators not to operate in a commercial world. But what we do not want is for these objections to come in at the end and extend the process. They should be there, up front, and really the concern of the operator should be that local authorities have not listened properly.

My Lords, one of the things that I learnt from my time in local government was that there is great value in getting points in early so that local authorities can take them on board and respond—that there is interaction. So there is no great difficulty with what the noble Lord is suggesting. It would make a lot of sense. Hopefully some of those issues can be resolved because at the end of it we want to provide decent quality services. The local authority wants that. It is not in the operators’ interest to fail to provide decent quality services. In fact, my noble friend Lord Snape gave a very good example of where important investment comes in. Bus operators can see that there is a market to be tapped, and that it has a commercial benefit for them. Yes, of course we would want to see that take place.

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, perhaps I may take the matter a little further. While agreeing wholeheartedly with what my noble friend Lord Smith has just said, that objections should not be last-minute ones, there is always the problem that the passenger transport authorities are not themselves responsible for the highway works on which many of these voluntary agreements depend.

Again on Birmingham, and without making political points about it, let us imagine a situation where, although both sides have ironed out the objections as outlined desirable by my noble friend, one of the highway authorities says, “We are not prepared to implement that agreement and we have the final say”—exactly what takes place in Birmingham. That would be—I hope my noble friend would agree—where a last-minute objection would be very relevant. Can the Minister offer us any comfort about this disagreement, which one can envisage taking place in other parts of the country, given changes of political control over the years, and say whether something can be done to ensure that agreements between passenger transport authorities and bus operators are not negated by the action of highways authorities on a change of political control?

My Lords, I think we get into a difficulty here. From the centre as a Minister, it is hard to try to legislate for every situation. I sympathise with the point my noble friend makes. It is clearly in the interests of operators, I would have thought—particularly where there is a commitment to ensure that timetables are kept to and that we have good frequency, punctuality levels and so on—that there is close co-operation with the highways authority. If the highways authority takes the view that bus priority and bus lanes are going to improve the quality of punctuality, that has great value, and one would hope that establishing bus lanes and so on would survive the rigours of a change of political control. All we can do from the centre is to try to encourage that process and to hope that quality partnerships further underline its importance. That is something we can try to encourage in guidance and best practice. I do not think we can go much further than that.

My Lords, I am not sure that I have had answers to many of the questions I asked. In particular, what was the new information that came to light in the original Bill; and does my noble friend still agree he said that it was highly unlikely that any local authority would put forward a scheme that was manifestly unreasonable? If there was no involvement of the bus operators there would not be a scheme. The local authority would not sit back and envisage a situation where it had to explain to its electorate why there were no bus services.

A point has been made about congestion. I am sure that is an issue; I would not dispute that for a moment. Equally, there are cases where bus operators have been fined because their services have been running too early, which probably has not been due to congestion. That indicates that we should be doing everything we can to promote statutory quality partnerships.

Obviously there is a difference of view between us as to whether the Government’s approach or that of my amendment is the best way around the matter. I understand the position. The Government have already changed their position between the draft Bill and the current Bill. Obviously, looked at realistically, there must be—and it is not my noble friend, it is the Government—a difficulty from their point of view of simply changing back again. I understand the difficulties that they are under and I hope that in the light of all that my noble friend has had to say about regulations, wording, consultations and discussions, the Government may use this opportunity to make the position more acceptable than it is today under the present Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

moved Amendment No. 5:

My Lords, although they have not gone the whole way, I thank the Government for this amendment. It makes total sense and should involve the non-metropolitan districts. I am grateful for the Government’s amendment.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Clause 17 [Regulations about schemes which specify frequencies, timings or fares]:

[Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 not moved.]

Clause 18 [Quality contracts schemes]:

moved Amendment No. 8:

My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord leading for the Liberal Democrats was about to intervene, so I was doing him the courtesy of waiting for him to do so, but as he has not I shall say a few words on the amendment, which is the culmination of seven long and expensive years on the part of the Passenger Transport Executive Group. It has consulted everybody and spent lots of money; restaurateurs the length and breadth of the country have benefited from the campaign it has waged in order to get its toys back in the box—in other words, to get their hands back on the controls on bus services.

I listened with interest to the noble Lord who moved the amendment. I read it along with him because, for some reason, the Passenger Transport Executive Group did not send me the brief that he has just used. I found it anyway and I was interested to see that the arguments are still just the same. He used the phrase,

“the mistake of the Transport Act 2000”.

I said in Committee on the 2000 Act in another place that it was no mistake that quality contracts were seen as the last resort and that every other avenue had to be explored before quality contracts, which have always been resisted by the bus industry, were implemented. I am not authorised to speak for the whole industry but, certainly in the areas that I know, the bus industry is convinced that those who operate the services have the expertise to do so rather than having to be told which services to operate and how much to charge, which would be the effect of the Government accepting the amendment. In other words, although the Passenger Transport Executive Group says—not in this briefing, but it has said it on other occasions—that it does not seek a return to the situation prior to the 1986 Act, it seeks the effect without the cause. It wants to lay down services, fares and standards without the responsibility of ownership which, I suppose one could argue, would give it even greater advantages than it had prior to the passage of the 1986 Act.

The PTEG always used the argument that, since the implementation of the 1986 Act, there had been a steady decline in bus usage. To a certain extent that is true in certain parts of the country. Let us wind the clock back a bit further to before 1986. There has been a steady decline in bus use throughout the United Kingdom since the 1960s. The reason for that is obvious—the all pervasive spread of the private car has meant that many people who formerly travelled by bus now prefer to drive themselves to and from work or any leisure activity.

My Lords, do the statistics that my noble friend has just cited apply to London, where the bus services are effectively franchised? Or has bus use gone up in London, and is there a connection between the two?

My Lords, there are two separate answers to that. Of course, bus usage has gone up in London because there are a lot more buses in London than in most other parts of the country. In seeking to make this point, my noble friend will agree that the subsidies for buses in London are approximately—I do not have the exact figures in front of me—six times those in the rest of the country put together. It would be surprising and a bit difficult for Mr Ken Livingstone to fight the mayoral battle if, with all that money thrown at those extra buses, he had to report that the use of bus services had declined in this city.

My noble friend makes a valid point, but he must take on board that, in the biggest ever survey of bus passengers carried out last year by the department, outside London, no less than 83 per cent of bus passengers were reasonably satisfied with the bus service provision. I remind him that this is in a deregulated world. In London, this Valhalla of bus services which is always prayed in aid by those who want to turn the clock back, only 78 per cent of bus passengers were satisfied with their bus services.

Neither of those facts is particularly conclusive and I am sure that they will not convince my noble friend, but they indicate that in London there is a considerable way to go before bus passengers are as convinced of the wondrous nature of what they have in this city as is my noble friend—and, no doubt, the Mayor of London. Perhaps we can agree to disagree and leave it at that. However, I hope that my noble friend will agree that, for various reasons, the number of bus-passenger carryings has declined right across the country, except in London. The other point is that London has the congestion charge, which very few other cities have or propose to have. If there were a deterrent to motorists, it would be possible to argue anywhere in the country that the result would be a greater number of bus-passenger carryings.

My Lords, I follow that highly entertaining intervention with an apology to the House. I was confused about the approvals board and I accept that I was wrong. The quality partnership and the quality contract are two separate things. What underlines what the noble Lord, Lord Snape, has said is that we are talking about a partnership and I feel that many of the protagonists on the group to which he referred do not wholly agree it is a partnership. There are bad and difficult people on the bus side, but I assure you that there are very difficult people on the other side too. It is very difficult to get people to come to an agreement, yet that is what a partnership means.

Lastly, let me turn to something the Minister said earlier that I have been thinking about. In this legislation, does the integrated transport authority assume the highway powers so that it can give direction as to how the congestion to which the noble Lord, Lord Snape, has referred can be tackled? The issue of one or two districts standing outside is bound to lead to disputes, and that is an issue which we should be quite clear on before this Bill leaves the House.

My Lords, this issue was debated very fully in Grand Committee; it was evident then, as it is today, that it gives rise to some very strong feelings from both the local authorities and operators, but from totally different directions and perspectives. The passion is understandable but let me bring us back to what we are trying to achieve here. Again it is a question of securing a reasonable balance and what lawyers call a proportionate way of dealing with things.

The support for an approvals board from operators is at least as strong as the opposition to it from local authorities. The arguments do not really seem to have moved on greatly since the idea was first floated. There seems to be no way in which we could satisfy both arguments, and there is no evident compromise available to us, so I cannot do much more than reiterate the points that I made in the previous debate.

We decided on an approvals board to try to get that reasonable balance between the legitimate interests of local authorities on the one hand and the reasonable expectations of the bus operators on the other. The Transport Act 2000, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned, requires schemes to be approved by the Secretary of State or by Welsh Ministers in Wales. We had particular reasons in England for concluding that this was not the best way of doing things. I will not go into those reasons again, but we concluded that operators would be vulnerable if local authorities could make schemes without any independent assessment. That was not acceptable.

A local transport authority that promotes a scheme can never be a disinterested party. It must actively support that scheme and rightly be convinced that it is in the interests of the local community. That is only fair and proper. However, how can operators be sure that their interests are to be properly protected by such a local authority? They could have a great deal to lose, and they have a right to be properly heard. They may not welcome the idea of a quality contracts scheme in any circumstances, but they would welcome it a great deal less if they felt that the local authority had made a poor case and gained public support without a proper analysis of the problems and some of the solutions. They could well persuade a court of law that the authority had damaged their interests with no tangible or evident public benefit.

I am aware that some local transport authorities say that they are prepared to risk judicial review and believe that they could fend off any challenge, but there are wider public issues at stake, including whether a court of law is the right forum in which to debate what are really issues of transportation planning and transport economics. The approvals board, with the Transport Tribunal providing the appeal mechanism, would be much more appropriate fora in which to resolve these matters.

In Committee, I gave some indication of the role that the approvals board should play. It would not be part of its role to say whether a local transport policy with a quality contracts scheme that it aims to implement is good or bad—that is clearly a matter for local decision by the electorate—but it is legitimate for the board to satisfy itself that the policy is at least internally consistent, that the effect of the scheme will be to support the policy, and that the assessment of the costs and benefits of the scheme are based on sound transport economics. All these matters can be best addressed by a panel of experts of the sort that we have in mind for approvals boards. It is not simply a matter of whether the authority has gone through all the procedures, consulted all the right people and taken note of their views. That is part of the story, but not the whole of it.

One might argue that an elected authority, because it is democratically accountable, has the right to take a risky decision that may turn out to be fundamentally bad, so long as it does so in good faith and in the procedurally proper way. That, however, will be small comfort to an operator whose directors may not have a vote in the local authority area if that operator loses its business as a result of a bad decision. It would be of even less comfort to passengers hoping for improved bus services. I recognise that strong passions have been aroused in this debate, but I am not in the end persuaded to move on the matter.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, asked about integrated transport authorities and their ability to take on highway powers. They could do that, but it will be for local authority areas to consider when they review governance arrangements and submit their proposals. It could work in that way; we see no particular problem with it. The noble Lord made the point on previous occasions that there would be some benefit in that. As I said earlier, getting things such as bus lanes and bus priority systems right would no doubt be a bonus, and being able to bring discussions with the highways authorities more directly into play would seem to be quite a sensible way ahead.

With that slight digression, while I cannot accept the amendment, I hope that my noble friend will be happy to withdraw it. We have sought throughout to strike a reasonable balance and find a way forward that, while it may not please everybody, at least finds a sensible route through this particular dilemma.

My Lords, I am not entirely surprised by my noble friend’s response because I am well aware of the hostility among bus operators to quality contracts. I have had letters from them which indicate hostility to the very idea of them. My noble friend said that he does not think that the amendment would be appropriate and that these matters would end up in the courts. He may be being unduly optimistic if he believes that the procedures outlined in this Bill will not end up as matters in the courts because it is clear that bus operators faced with decisions they do not like from the approvals board and the Transport Tribunal will pursue these issues as far as they can, including through the courts, to get a decision that they have more sympathy with.

I appreciate the comment made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley vis-à-vis the situation in London, which is a similar arrangement to that being suggested in the amendment. Issues about levels of subsidy in London—the amount that local authorities may or may not wish to put into bus services—are in fact political decisions that have to be made by politicians; they are not decisions that should be made by bus operators.

I have listened carefully to what my noble friend has said, and I do not profess to be shocked or surprised by his words. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 9 to 16 not moved.]

Clause 19 [Notice and consultation requirements]:

[Amendments Nos. 17 to 23 not moved.]

Clause 20 [Approval of proposed scheme]:

[Amendment No. 24 not moved.]

Clause 21 [Approvals boards for England]:

[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]

Clause 22 [Practice and procedure of approvals boards for England]:

[Amendment No. 26 not moved.]

Clause 23 [Inquiries by approvals boards for England.]

[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]

Clause 24 [Appeals relating to applications for approval: areas in England]:

moved Amendment No. 27A:

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for returning to this amendment, despite the assurances given by my noble friend Lady Crawley on neighbouring authorities. I had thought that we had perhaps persuaded the noble Lord at that stage that the amendment was not required.

Our view is that it is important to avoid being overly prescriptive, particularly with regard to local authorities. After all, they consult all the time on lots of issues, and will have their particular ways of handling consultation. The Transport Act 2000, which in this respect would not be amended by this Bill, sets out those people or organisations that must be consulted—including other local authorities that might be affected by the scheme at county or district level. It also includes a category called,

“such other persons as the authority or authorities think fit”,

giving the scheme authority a very wide discretion.

The local authority will thus have to use its judgment on how widely or narrowly to consult beyond those that it is statutorily obliged to consult. It has to use that judgment reasonably, but not deliberately or inadvertently exclude anyone with a legitimate interest in being consulted. If it consults everyone, on the other hand—and gets a large postbag as a result—it may find it difficult to give due weight to all responses, and if large numbers of the public appeal against decisions, that process could also become rather unmanageable and hold up schemes for a very long time.

It would certainly be strange if consultations were narrow but appeal rights were widened by these amendments to include absolutely everyone, whether or not they had a legitimate concern or interest in the scheme. If it is the noble Lord’s intention to encourage wider consultation, I conclude that this is not the right way. I remain unconvinced that we need to amend the appeal provisions at all; they should work serviceably as set out in the Bill. For those reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answer, which is obviously similar to the one that I had in Committee. There is a theme running through the whole Bill about consultation and so on. We have had several discussions around it today. Perhaps, after today’s debate, we will decide whether we need to pursue that further at Third Reading. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 28 not moved.]

Clause 25 [Making of scheme]:

[Amendments Nos. 29 and 30 not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 31:

My Lords, I do not want simply to repeat what I said before but I have not heard anything new in the argumentation put forward by my noble friend Lord Rosser. There are essentially two issues here: first, the length of schemes; and, secondly, the length of individual contracts. I shall deal with them in reverse order.

I take the point that in some restricted circumstances European Community law would allow contracts to be let for up to 15 years, although in most cases 10 years would still be the maximum. We could, therefore, set no limit in our own legislation and simply rely on the Community regulation to set the limit. However, we must not overlook the fact that the recently adopted regulation does not come into force until December 2009.

The real question is whether it would be the right policy to do so. I have little doubt that my noble friend could cite precedents where contracts have been let for longer periods than 15 years for the provision of infrastructure—light rail would be one example—where considerable investment is needed to get the project off the ground. But one advantage of buses over light rail is that most of the infrastructure is there already in the form of public highway; any improvements that may be desirable are not particularly expensive, relatively speaking, or necessarily difficult to provide. This also means that a bus network can be provided on a more flexible basis and can more easily be varied in line with changing journey patterns, demographic changes, growths in new communities and so on. So there is a real danger that a 15-year contract could create a real disincentive to responding flexibly to change in demand and could undo many of the advantages inherent in buses over tracked systems of public transportation.

A 15-year contract would also place a great deal of power into the hands of the contracted operator. The longer the period of the contract, the more difficult it would be to promote genuine competition for a successor, particularly if contracts are let over a wide area to a single operator. Even 10 years carries that risk and should be regarded as a maximum rather than the norm. It should require the operator to do something more than simply provide a basic level of service over that time.

My Lords, I am not able to fully agree with my noble friend. Nor am I entirely sure about his last point and the validity of it as an argument for distinguishing between what happens in London and in the areas outside London when renewing, as opposed to setting up, a franchise. I did not follow the logic of that, but beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 25 agreed to.

Clause 28 [Extension of maximum period of quality contracts]:

[Amendment No. 32 not moved.]

Clause 29 [Continuation of scheme for further period]:

[Amendments Nos. 33 to 37 not moved.]

Clause 30 [Approval of continuation of scheme]:

[Amendment No. 38 not moved.]

Clause 31 [Appeals relating to exempt proposals for continuation of scheme]:

[Amendment No. 39 not moved.]

Clause 32 [Appeals relating to continuation of scheme]:

[Amendments Nos. 39A and 40 not moved.]

Clause 33 [Variation or revocation of scheme]:

[Amendment No. 41 not moved.]

Clause 34 [Appeals relating to exempt variations of scheme]:

[Amendment No. 42 not moved.]

Clause 38 [Quality contracts: application of TUPE]:

moved Amendment No. 43:

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government are seeking to ensure that TUPE protection applies. I share the view expressed by my noble friend that the amendment represents considerable progress. It is, as he said, a complex issue and it is important for all those concerned to get it right. I hope that the Government will continue, if necessary, to work constructively with those directly affected by the employment issues referred to in the amendment as the Bill progresses through Parliament. I am sure that people will want to raise further issues on this matter.

I trust I am not being unrealistic in hoping that, as the Bill progresses through Parliament, the Government will still feel able to introduce amendments to ensure pension protection. Whether TUPE regulations would apply in the period between the award of a quality contract and its becoming operational—that is at least six months; it could be longer—in circumstances where an operator deregistered a service and the quality contract operator then took it over is one of the issues that may need to be explored further. I welcome the amendment and the genuine efforts of the Government to deal with what could be a very difficult problem.

My Lords, the amendment illustrates the great problems that arise from the implementation of the quality contract provisions of the Bill. It is significant that the main trade union in the bus industry—it was the Transport and General Workers’ Union; it is now part of the new union called Unite—has not been active in writing to noble Lords about quality contracts. At least, it has not written to me. However, I understand that it is in favour of such a provision. On reflection, I think that it has consulted some of its members locally and decided that it is not quite as much in favour of them as it first appeared to be.

The only representation on this amendment that I have received from the trade union movement is from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, which organises bus workers in various parts of the country, which is a legacy of certain railway companies operating their own buses prior to nationalisation. The letter was signed by the general secretary, Bob Crow—he signed it “Robert Crow”, which I found impressive; he had obviously decided at least to take his name upmarket, if not some of his attitudes. He said that he was very much in favour of franchising and, a little like PTEG, said that we ought to make sure that it came into being, rather than it being semi-blocked by a difficult government Bill. He went on to say:

“However”—

there is always a “however”—

“in these circumstances, we are very concerned about future pension provision”.

I forbore to write back: “Well, the problem with franchising is that, all too often, franchises go to the lowest bidder and pensions are not immediately uppermost in their mind when making their bids”. He might have thought of that before he wrote the letter, but I do not suppose that there will be much future in pointing out that to him.

However, we are talking not just about pensions—the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to that. PTEG has belatedly realised that it is not simply a matter, as it is with railway franchising, of ringing the paint producers and having a new livery on the trains; it is a matter also of certain employment aspects of franchising, which is what quality contracts mean, albeit under a different name. I, too, would welcome, therefore, further thoughts from the Minister as the Bill proceeds to another place—I am sure that he will provide them—about proper pension provision for those who are involuntarily transferred from one company to another should the Government, or the traffic commissioners and those who advise them, be unwise enough to accept the nonsense of quality contracts.

However, more matters than just pensions are involved here. I try not to repeat matters that were debated in Committee, unlike the Passenger Transport Executive Group, which appears happy to take advantage of your Lordships’ rules that there are no rules really, that we make them up as we go along, and that it is up to individual Members of your Lordships’ House to abide by those unwritten rules. Perhaps the Procedure Committee could look at whether it an abuse of those unwritten rules for any organisation to brief Members, to see that amendments are worded exactly as they were in Committee and to provide exactly the same brief. My opinion is that it is, but I have not been here long enough to try to rewrite the rules of your Lordships’ House. There are certain other matters aside from pensions that the Minister ought to consider.

For example, many employees of the major bus companies are part of their own sharesave schemes. I know that FirstGroup and National Express have among their shareholders a considerable number of employees. When I was at National Express, all its employees were shareholders. The bus section of National Express was originally an employee-owned company. Employees came with their own shares, which were converted into National Express shares. Under the existing tax regulations, those shares are subject to taper relief. I am aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced the abolition of taper relief and a flat rate of tax of 18 per cent. I am not sure that the announcement will survive the furore that followed it, but if it does not, what will happen to those employees? After all, under the rules of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, they get tax relief for shares only in the company for which they work. If under the daft provisions of quality contracts, and through wishes not of their own but those of the Passenger Transport Executive Group, they are transferred, will there be any income tax relief for them? If their transfer is against their will, it will certainly be as a result of this legislation. What representations does the Minister envisage making to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about future tax provision for those who have calculated their worth and benefits under the existing sharesave schemes and who find themselves not working for the company which originally issued those shares and, because of that, subject to a different income tax regime? These are all legitimate concerns. PTEG has largely glossed over them, because it is not interested in them; its only concern is to get its hands back on its buses. However, they are relevant concerns, and are perhaps among the reasons why the trade unions have been less than vociferous in supporting this aspect of the Bill. What provision does the Minister envisage making to protect those employees and their legitimate savings from the ravages of the taxman?

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in particular for his support for our amendments. I am pleased that they were welcomed. I am sure that he and the noble Lord, Lord Snape, are right to say that, as the Bill progresses through both Houses, further concerns will be raised. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, raised proper concerns which I am unable to address today, but I shall certainly read in Hansard what he said and reflect on his points.

Pensions are an important issue. We are committed to continuing discussions on them because we are sensitive to them. People quite properly want to ensure that they have a reasonable pension deal and that it is properly preserved. We accept that there have to be more discussions on that. I am content that noble Lords are generally supportive of the amendments.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Clause 40 [Competition scrutiny of functions and agreements relating to buses]:

moved Amendment No. 44:

My Lords, I welcome the amendments as they will encourage bus operators to co-operate in a way that many of them are inhibited from doing now because of their fears of the draconian penalties under the Competition Act 1998. The Government will need to make it very plain to people that conversations between bus operators which are in the public interest are to be encouraged, not simply permitted. I understand that any local authority may give this certification so that it would not be open to a local authority which was being difficult to withhold its signature and override the wishes of other local authorities and the bus operator concerned.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

moved Amendment No. 45:

moved Amendments Nos. 46 to 63:

moved Amendment No. 64:

My Lords, I am pleased to give my wholehearted support to this amendment. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Low, for moving it so fully. He has covered all the relevant points.

Like many other Members of this House, I was absolutely shocked to know that this section of an Act affecting people with disabilities, passed nearly 13 years ago, has not been enacted. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, is very grateful to the Minister for the time he has given to her in discussions on this matter. We cannot forget that the Bill gives the opportunity to ensure that Section 36 of the Act is brought in.

I have heard stories of people trying to get taxis. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, told me how nine taxis one after the other just passed her. One had the audacity to wave to her as he went past. Nobody can condone that. That was not the situation that was ever intended when the Bill was brought in all those years ago. I am pleased to support the amendment. It is proportionate. It is supported by the local licensing authorities as a proportionate and logical measure. I suspect that the Minister is sympathetic to it and I hope that he can give a positive response—or some indication of when the Government will introduce this provision in the Act. Most of us are now saying that enough is enough—13 years is long enough for any part of the Act to be enacted. We would welcome it being done as soon as possible. This is a proportionate measure. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, has been extremely responsible in the way that she has put it forward. I support the amendment.

My Lords, my name is also on this amendment and I give it my wholehearted support. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, has been tireless in her work on this matter and we all want to commend her for that. I hope that we will support her today. As the noble Lord, Lord Low, has said, this does not cause any problems to local authorities. It relates to those taxis that are able to take wheelchair passengers. As both my colleagues have just said, this is 13 years too long. I support the amendment.

My Lords, the amendment is supported here. I am particularly interested in the Minister’s reply on its workability. Can this work or are we talking about something like the Dangerous Dogs Act which was passed with everybody’s good wishes but proved to have legislative holes in it? We are looking forward to something that will work.

My Lords, speaking as a recent user of these facilities, I can say that the majority of people driving taxi cabs have a lot of good will. Unfortunately, there is a small proportion of people who see wheelchair users and pass by looking on the other side. One of the difficulties will be convincing people that they should stop and take on board wheelchair users who require a taxi. I am not sure how that can be done. A number of taxi drivers have told me that they cannot take me because they have a bad back. The number of bad backs among London taxi drivers seems to be increasing as the years go by. I support the amendment and trust that the Government will find some way to ensure that it is enforced—though not in a rigorous police manner—to get over the message that people in wheelchairs need to be helped and transported.

My Lords, I am extraordinarily grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, for the way in which she has brought the amendment forward. I enjoyed a very robust discussion with her on this issue and she told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted to make sure that something got done. I was impressed by that and genuinely moved by her determination on this matter, as we all should be. Like everybody else in your Lordships’ House, I was fairly horrified by some of the stories which surrounded the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, asking her question on 18 December. I had hoped that we had moved on from those days and that we were now in an era in which drivers were much more responsible regarding people with disabilities and their access to taxi services.

Members of your Lordships’ House who were here on that occasion will also recall that I made the point that, as the noble Lord has just said, most taxi drivers are happy and content to co-operate and want to be helpful and provide a service. However, sadly, a minority do not do taxi services any favours in their treatment of people with different measures of disability. We need a power like this. It is not hard to persuade me or others that we need to move in that direction. Like other noble Lords, I greatly regret that it has taken as long as it has to get to this point. I am not going to offer up lame excuses because that is not what the House requires. It requires to know that this issue is being dealt with in an entirely proper way.

I have had some discussion with my right honourable friend Rosie Winterton on this matter. She assures me that we are very close to the point where proposals will be brought forward. She is obviously a person of great integrity on these matters and shares with me a passion to ensure that we get things right. I cannot offer a precise timetable for that—to do so would be disingenuous. We intend to make an announcement very shortly. Before we make that announcement, I want to ensure that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and—if he is prepared to give up some of his valuable time—the noble Lord, Lord Low, have a meeting with Rosie Winterton to have further discussion on this issue. There are some practical problems associated with this amendment so I hope it will be withdrawn today.

I will go through one of the issues concerned. Even if we were minded to consider the amendment today, there are one or two practical difficulties. The duties imposed by Section 36, for instance, are linked to Section 32, covering the taxi accessibility regulations that have not been commenced. Section 32 provides for the making of regulations in which technical requirements will be set out and under which it will be mandatory for any taxis governed by the regulations to comply with such requirements—not unreasonable in themselves. We would need to ensure, however, that the Section 36 duties were quite freestanding. Furthermore, the power to make regulations under Section 32 applies only to taxis and not to private hire vehicles, so further amendments to Section 36 would be required so as to apply the duties to the drivers of private hire vehicles. The amendment does not quite work as it is, which is one of the areas of concern to Ministers. We do not want to put something in place that is not workable.

While I cannot promise to bring something back at a later stage of the legislation, I can say that we are close to an announcement, prior to which perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and the noble Lord, Lord Low, could agree to hold further discussions with my right honourable friend Rosie Winterton. We are all committed to delivering more accessible taxis and making it easier for disabled passengers to use public transport. That is a common and shared objective. The implementation of that is very important, and I know from my discussions with Rosie Winterton that there has to be a further period of consultation—not a long period, but certainly to meet the usual three-month obligation. We have to ensure that we can achieve what is set out, and we want to carry out some further work.

We are reviewing the uncommenced sections, and an announcement is to be made shortly. We want to evaluate all the options. Certainly we need to have some discussions, not just with the National Association of Enforcement Officers—which, I am glad to say, shares our enthusiasm, and I welcome that—but also with the Local Government Association and others who have an interest in this matter. We want to reflect carefully on DPTAC, because it has important comments to make on these issues too.

Having said that, and I make these comments in a positive light and with the intention of ensuring that we get matters right, I hope noble Lords will not press the amendment, which is defective in some respects, but will enable us to continue our beneficial discussions so that we can progress and ensure that the objective we all seek can be achieved.

My Lords, what does the Minister think might be achieved between now and Third Reading, which is in about two weeks’ time?

My Lords, it is a matter of diaries. It is my hope that we can have some useful discussions with the moving spirits behind the amendment so we can make some progress in that regard. I asked whether it would be possible to give a date for an announcement, but the answer has come back that that would be unwise; we do not want to commit ourselves to something that we do not then deliver. However, the term “very shortly”, to my way of thinking, means exactly that. I do not want this thing to drag on any longer because that would not be in anyone’s best interests.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his full and considerate reply. I do not doubt for a moment his good will and sincerity, and I take his reply as positive. I detect in it a determination on the part of the Minister and the Government to find a resolution to this matter, as he said, “very shortly”. At the same time, I need to make it clear that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, was very anxious to get a resolution today and to test the opinion of the House. She thought, as do I, that “very shortly”—and there are obviously varying opinions about how long that is—must mean some time before August, which is the date specified in the amendment. As I said in moving the amendment, if Section 37 can be brought in, we find it difficult to see why Section 36 cannot.

moved Amendment No. 65:

My Lords, we must not assume that making a report to the Integrated Transport Authorities is simply a way of chastising bus users. If the problems are about congestion, the matter is referred to that authority so that it can take some action. It is an area where some authorities, as the noble Lord, Lord Snape, has said, have been very dilatory in the past, while they concentrated on such issues as he described, rather than putting their own house in order.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward this amendment in response to the amendment I moved in Committee, and on which my noble friend said that she would reflect. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

moved Amendment No. 66:

moved Amendment No. 67:

My Lords, listening to my noble friend I am struck by the fact that he has told us continuously, on behalf of the Passenger Transport Executive Group, that quality contracts were the way forward. Somehow, bus services the length and breadth of the country would be transformed, if only quality contracts could be implemented. The great failing of the 2000 Act was not to implement quality contracts. Now, of course, comes a safety net: this wonderful system that PTEG would inflict upon operators nationally has to be provided with a fail-safe mechanism. I understand why.

If we are to have franchising of bus services, it is obviously conceivable that the lowest bidder will be awarded the franchise. Again, experience leads me to believe that, all too often, the lowest bidder is not the best long-term choice. I understand why the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has to erect this safety net on behalf of PTEG, but surely there is a better way of doing it. If the quality contract goes ahead and the chosen operator fails, there is nothing—under the legislation as I understand it—to stop another operator being installed on a pro tem basis until the contract can be re-let. My noble friend will correct me if I am wrong. I wonder whether, when the noble Lord winds up the debate on this amendment, he will tell us, or give us an estimate of, how much money will be needed to acquire a bus fleet and rent premises. This is no cheap matter, but it was somewhat glibly skated over. Buses can be leased but, again, this is not necessarily cheap, unless one wishes to lease those glorified bread vans that disfigured our roads for some years after the 1986 Act, but which have thankfully now been swept away. I wonder if PTEG has thought about the financial implications of becoming the operator of last resort.

I put one more point to the noble Lord, which he could, perhaps, reflect on in winding up, provided he has been adequately briefed. Could there be a temptation to choose the weakest operator, in the knowledge that there may be an opportunity to become the operator of last resort and, indeed, move into the bus business? This is a not inconsiderable temptation, as I know from some of my conversations with the Passenger Transport Executive. I do not mind it wanting to become the operator of last resort, although I do not think that it does that very well. Again, talking about the bus industry of the past, I cannot remember this wonderful system that local authorities ran so well. As a regular user of buses in my youth, if I wanted to get home after 11 pm, it had to be either by taxi or Shanks’s pony, because the local authority was never keen to provide a late-night bus service.

We have moved on from those days. If we are to have local authorities running bus services, albeit as the operator of last resort, it is incumbent on the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to tell us whether provision needs to be made within the financial parameters of the constituent local authority’s NEPT area, and, if so, how much money we are talking about and how many staff. How does one acquire the expertise to be a PSV operator? It does not come easily or cheaply, and rightly so. We are anxious, as a nation, to prevent what I might term fly-by-night operators entering the bus business.

I do not suggest for a moment that local authorities would come under that category. However, before anyone on their behalf puts forward such an amendment, they should tell your Lordships how much money is involved and why the obvious alternative, that of installing another operator until the quality contract can be re-let, cannot be considered. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will resist this amendment as ably as he did in Committee.

My Lords, we have not had a full discussion on these points, and I did promise in Committee to look at them again. There are two separate issues: the leasing of vehicles to community transport groups and whether the PTE should have the power to operate the vehicles as a “last resort”. I shall deal with these in reverse order. I apologise for not dealing as properly as I should have with the first of the two issues, which is why I shall spend a little more time on it towards the end.

We said that we would reflect on the issue of operating powers for PTEs, even in the narrow terms set out in Amendment No.70. Indeed, the more we think about it, the less convinced we tended to be. In Committee, noble Lords referred to the comparable case of rail franchises, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley mentioned that the Strategic Rail Authority had kept a team of qualified people at the ready in case it was necessary to step in to prevent a service being disrupted by the failure of a contractor. No doubt that piece of information was provided to support the need for such a measure, but in fact it also brought home to us just what an enormous commitment it would be for a PTE to profess to be the “operator of last resort” and to have the necessary legal powers.

For the powers to be of any use it would have to be possible for the PTE to exercise them at a moment’s notice, otherwise they might as well let an emergency contract. My noble friend Lord Snape has made quite a lot of that argument. I agree with him: it would be very difficult to acquire that level of expertise in that sort of timeframe. The practicalities of it are that they would need a public service vehicle operator’s licence, the necessary financial standing and a professionally competent transport manager available at any time the emergency might arise. They would also need the vehicles and drivers. Arguably those of the failed company would be available, but they would not necessarily fall into the PTE’s lap.

What is more likely to happen, particularly if we are talking about a company of any size, is that receivers or administrators would be called in and would continue to run the company’s affairs as best they could until a buyer was found. In particular, they would be likely to want to keep services going as these would bring in revenue to abate any unfortunate losses. Maintaining contractual obligations would take precedence over discretionary activities, so services outside quality contracts schemes may be more at risk.

That might not happen in the case of small operators, particularly sole traders, but they would generally be managing small contracts, and I think that one could fairly argue that it should be easier to replace them on the open market. I am told that where, for example, a contractor defaults on a schools contract, there is little difficulty in finding another operator to step in, even at very short notice. Local transport authorities with a quality contracts scheme have powers to let emergency contracts under Section 131 of the Transport Act 2000 until a new permanent contractor is found.

The PTEs, I understand, are more worried about what would happen if a big contractor should fail and, for any reason, the administrators were unable to keep the company trading, or chose not to do so. In that case it is hard to see how a PTE could step in more effectively than another operator, or several other operators, each taking a slice. The PTE would need a very large operator’s licence, say for as many as 200 or 300 vehicles, and a means of getting hold of those vehicles and the people to drive them. One assumes that they would not have them on permanent standby. I find it surprising that this argument has been put forward as robustly as it has. I do not think it is a practical proposition; I am not sure that PTEs would welcome these powers in the long run; and I think it would be onerous to require them to set up a permanent shadow organisation which had little to do for most of the time.

Finally, I doubt whether it would provide what we could reasonably envisage as good value for money.

I have rather more sympathy for the other proposition contained in the group of amendments. This is a separate issue. Again I reiterate my apology to my noble friend that in Committee we were so exercised about the “operator of last resort” issue that we rather overlooked this one. I am sorry about that because it is clear that there may be some merit in this amendment which was not fully exposed in that debate.

I fully understand that one practical way in which a PTE could help the community transport sector, particularly dial-a-ride services for older or disabled people, is by purchasing suitable vehicles and leasing them, perhaps for a nominal fee. This may be a more cost-effective way of supporting these services than other forms of grant aid—and it appears that, unlike local authorities, they may be prevented from doing so because of the effect of the disapplication of the leasing power in Section 10 of the Transport Act 1968.

I am not certain whether the amendment would entirely achieve what my noble friend is arguing for. It would seem to extend only to services aimed at elderly or disabled people. That is because it would be caught by the words “public passenger transport services” which appear at the end of the paragraph in Clause 58. Services provided under Section 19 permits—the permits used by community transport bodies—are not included in that term unless they are,

“provided wholly or mainly to meet the needs of members of the public who are elderly or disabled”.

I am not sure whether my noble friend intended the leasing power to be restricted in that way. I suspect that he did not. I also suspect that the PTEs may want the power to extend more widely, even if their main concern is to support services for older or disabled people.

My commitment today is simply this: we can see merit in the amendments. We are happy to take away this issue and see whether we can move in the direction indicated in my noble friend’s amendment and better perfect it to fit the purpose which I think he probably intended for it. I hope on those terms that the noble Lord will be able to withdraw this amendment and to not pursue the others in the group.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his response, in particular to Amendment No. 67. We await what emerges further on that.

On the issue of the operator of last resort I do not think that my noble friend responded to the point that there are those powers within London. Any local transport authority would have to decide about the costs involved in deciding whether to exercise those powers of operator of last resort. Obviously, the costs involved would depend on the extent to which it was going to decide to act as an operator of last resort in the exceptional circumstances in which that normally arises. In the light of the Minister's response, that option is not going to be available to the transport authority to consider even if it wished to do so. I note my noble friend's response with regret on Amendment No. 70, but I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 67.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 68 to 70 not moved.]

moved Amendment No. 71:

My Lords, when the Minister replies, I would like him to reflect on whether the amendment will undermine certain commercially provided services. Local authorities have, since the Transport Act 1985, given considerable assistance to disabled people who are suffering from illness and it is within the scope of their powers to help people in full-time education. I would like to know if that is additional to what is available now or whether it is another attempt by certain people to get in on providing services that are available in the market.

My Lords, as the noble Lord has explained, this is a slightly narrower version of an amendment that was examined in Committee. I appreciate that in the new amendment he is seeking to define more precisely the broadening and grant-making powers of the PTAs and other local transport authorities that he proposed previously. I recognise that he has identified services for older persons, those in full-time education and the unemployed as the new focus of his amendment.

Taking the point that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, made, in so doing the amendment runs the risk that it might—as he seemed to suggest—adversely impact on the funding allocated for expenditure on transport for disabled persons. That is one of the reasons why I am less than happy with it. In general terms, it is hard not to sympathise with the proposition and the suggestion that there should be some flexibility. I understand the spirit within which the amendment has been moved and the desire to do all that we can to promote social inclusion. Having said all that, I am not sure that a convincing case has yet been made for the substantial changes in Section 106 which even the latest modified amendment brings forth. We should proceed with some caution in the area. I am not aware that local transport authorities in general have identified that the current scope of Section 106 is providing a serious block on what they wish to achieve. I have not had that said to me and I do not know that the evidence exists to make that case. That is not to say that we might not be willing to look carefully at any specific examples that might be brought to us.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his response. In the light of the points that he has made and his view of the amendment’s consequences, there will be need for further reflection. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 65 [The Public Transport Users' Committee for England]:

moved Amendment No. 72:

moved Amendments Nos. 73 to 75:

moved Amendment No. 76:

moved Amendment No. 77:

My Lords, this is neither technical nor whatever other word my noble friend used. I shall press him on bus users’ representation. He will be aware that the present system involving Bus Users UK is favourably regarded by people in the industry. I understand that the Government are looking at whether that organisation or another should adequately represent bus users. The trouble with Bus Users UK is that it is funded by the bus industry, and some critics say that its voice is muted because of that. I am in no way authorised to say this, but I will say it anyway, given my connections with the bus industry: that industry would be quite relieved if someone else funded it, but no one else does, so it remains the responsibility of the bus industry.

I realise that future bus users’ representation does not technically come under the terms of the amendment, but my noble friend mentioned it. While I am a great admirer of Mr Phil Tonks and his colleagues based in the Midlands—they can fairly be described as critical friends of the bus industry—can the Minister give us some idea of the Government’s future thinking and share and endorse my view that UK bus users are adequately represented? If the Minister could say whether the Government could come forward with a suggestion for alternative funding, I am sure that he would be widely acclaimed—if not by Her Majesty’s Treasury.

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Snape, said. I am a former chairman of a bus users’ body and am aware that Bus Users UK does a lot of work. The bus industry provides some of the funding, but a small amount of extra funding would provide a very effective means of representing bus users. I trust that the Government will thoroughly consider that before, by regulation, they move to a more expensive and more sophisticated system

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for responding to our points made in Committee. I still think that there is merit in having a joint users’ council for the rail and bus industries. He did not explain how it could be funded and how it could work—which is just as well, because Clause 77 is not the easiest clause to understand. At least there is a website which combines rail and bus travel information, and that is now very helpful for passengers, following some initial problems. I look forward to following this matter closely, as it develops.

My Lords, I am grateful for the comments made. I heard the plea of my noble friend Lord Snape on behalf of the bus industry for it to be relieved of funding consultative and complaint organisations. I am sure that that will focus minds back in the Department for Transport. He always raises interesting issues. We are consulting on various options, but it would not be the best use of the House’s time if I ran through all of them. We will certainly consider what he and other noble Lords said on the issue. Funding is for another day. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said that more money might make the system better; maybe, but I do not know. I am not sure that the system is wonderfully effective; we want to improve it and ensure a better and more representative focus on the issues of concern. I hope that we can achieve that outcome following further reflection. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for his kind comments.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

moved Amendment No. 78:

moved Amendment No. 79:

moved Amendments Nos. 80 and 81:

moved Amendments Nos. 82 to 108:

My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned. In moving the Motion, I suggest that Report stage begin again not before 8.32 pm.

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

rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 23 November 2007, be annulled (SI 2007/3301).

The noble Lord said: My Lords, we take up again what was a fruitful source of debate and indeed a happy hunting ground for my predecessor in this job, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. We continue to debate a saga of unfortunate actions that have led to unfortunate consequences.

In a sense, the Government are fortunate that the consequences of this series of regulations are now fairly well disguised behind a growing economic slow-down which is being followed by falling prices in the UK housing sector. All of that is exacerbated by the consequences of the sub-prime banking collapse in the United States which has caused a shortage of credit in the UK banking system and aggravated the general loss of confidence in the market. The collapse of Northern Rock, which is as yet unresolved, does nothing to help the situation.

All these factors hinder the possibility of seeing a clear and precise picture of the impact caused by the introduction of home information packs. However, there are things that we know. We know that the Government have never dared to publish the results of the research, which cost £4 million, into the effects of the pilot schemes. This is most unfortunate. It inevitably leads suspicious minds like mine to the conclusion that there is perhaps something the Government wish to hide—or, at the very least, not to reveal. We know that in its fifth report of this Session, the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee undertook a very helpful and full review across what I will term the housing market industry. Its conclusions, which I will paraphrase, are as follows. The objectives of the home information packs regulations are to provide consumers with better information at the right time to reduce costs and carbon emissions from homes. It goes on to say that these amending regulations provide for a further reduction in the information required in home information packs. Views among stakeholders continued to be divided—both about the benefits of this change and about home information pack policy generally.

I acknowledge that the Association of Home Information Pack Providers continues to be enthusiastic because of the transitional arrangement that the Government have put in place. It goes on to note that there are problems in obtaining even some of the reduced information required. I believe that I have interpreted its note correctly. The fact that there is less information than was originally intended means that the general purpose of the packs is not as strong as it might otherwise have been. However, its enthusiasm is not matched by others elsewhere. While noting a reduction of costs of searches by some local authorities, the Council for Mortgage Lenders also noted that delivering energy performance certificates through home information packs will take more than 13 years to cover the housing stock. Yet energy performance certificates are the main reason for pressing on with home information packs. It goes on to say that the Government should reflect on whether energy performance certificates could be more quickly, and more universally, delivered in a different way.

As someone who is participating in the Committee stage on the Climate Change Bill, which is currently in this House, the matter of speeding up the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from the domestic sector cannot be deferred for 13 years; the problem is more urgent than that. Those qualified to provide energy performance certificates will need to provide their services to any householder. We have a much greater urgency than is implied by having them tied to home information packs.

A memorandum from Mr Michael Garson to the Statutory Instruments Committee lists 10 objectives which, he says, the home information packs fail to meet. I do not intend to list them all as it would take too long.

Hear, hear!

My Lords, I am glad that I have a measure of agreement. Those objectives range from increasing the costs of home transactions to uncertainty about standards and whether those standards can be consistently applied.

Anecdotal evidence from members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, who are in the housing business on a day-to-day basis, is not helped by the state of the housing market. Inquiries that they receive about possible new business are down by 5 per cent in the south of England and nearer to 30 per cent in the north. That is a very heavy reduction, and prices are going down at the same time.

I also received the comment from RICS members—again, this is anecdotal—that home information packs had become a source of revenue for some of them. In other words, the law of unforeseen consequences applies: the client will pay more for the home information pack than it costs to produce.

It seems to be said everywhere that the searches required for home information packs are inadequate for the purposes of clients’ lawyers before any purchase can be completed. The members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors are clear that, in reality, the home information pack is not a major consideration in the minds of home-buyers.

It is now time to appreciate that the introduction of home information packs has been a distraction in the housing market and that we should bring them to an end. This Prayer could be the first step in that process. I beg to move.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 23 November 2007, be annulled (SI 2007/3301). 5th Report from the Merits Committee.—(Lord Dixon-Smith.)

My Lords, I feel as though I am intruding on old friends in this debate. When there was a debate on the No. 2 Regulations last year, my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market started by saying, “Here we are again”. I am taking over from her today and, as I look around, I see a number of Members of the House whose words on that occasion I have recently read. On that occasion, on a Motion moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, from the Conservative Front Bench, the Government, with Liberal Democrat support, got what might be called a “non-fatal mauling”. To say that the Government ignored that would be unfair; I am sure that they paid a great deal of attention to what was said, not least because many of the points made in the debate were very valid. Nevertheless, they ploughed on.

I have never been terribly enthused by home information packs. They were a good idea, but the Act was flawed and the implementation has certainly been flawed—at least, it has been very difficult. It has been fragmented and there has been an impression of stuttering and stumbling along. Having said that, we should pay credit to the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who, as a Minister, has put a lot of personal commitment and energy into making HIPs work. Without her efforts, they probably would not have been put into force. Some people may consider that to be a good thing but I think that she should be given the credit for them. However, they are still struggling to get over the finishing line, as we see with the amendment regulations before us.

In many ways, it is too soon to make a judgment on home information packs. In the debate on 18 July, the Minister said:

“They will help to end frustration and reduce costs”.—[Official Report, 18/7/07; col. 273.]

At the moment, the kindest thing that one can say is that that case is as yet unproven, but it may be that that will be the long-term effect. However, Parliament as a whole will have to come back to this issue at some point in the future to see whether HIPs are doing what has been claimed for them. If they are not, their cost will mean that they should be done away with. Nevertheless, at the moment the jury is not out because the evidence and information is not there, but the jury will be needed in future.

The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said that the Government had never dared to publish the report from the pilot trials. I do not know whether that is the case or whether it has just taken a long time for the information to emerge through the system. Again, I shall be kind to the Government and suggest that that may be the case, but one has to ask when this information will be published, as clearly it must be. On the previous occasion, they promised to publish it in the late autumn. Whenever autumn may be nowadays with global warming, it certainly does not extend into January of the next year. We need a clear commitment on when the information will be published, because it is vital. It is extraordinary that a system has been introduced across all types of housing before publication of the report on the pilot schemes, which were presumably intended to give us the benefit of that information before the decision to proceed was made.

My Lords, I declare my interest as a consultant to a firm of estate agents. My noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith mentioned some of the problems with the energy performance certificate and although it is welcomed by a lot of people, I would remind the House that it is not a panacea. It is not going to solve the energy problems of housing. It might identify some but it does not provide a solution.

HIPs are a very different issue, and that issue, among others, has led to this Government being the most disliked and distrusted when it comes to property matters, most particularly for the lack of consultation. Even the Communities and Local Government Select Committee in another place, which has just published its annual report for 2007, said:

“CLG’s failure to engage effectively early enough with stakeholders is both one of the principle reasons why HIPs were delayed and a further example of the Department’s inability to build the relationships it needs if it is to succeed in taking partners with it across the whole range of policy”.

It was absolutely crucial that the Government took the property industry with it. It clearly failed and that was a major mistake.

What have been the effects of HIPs so far? With regard to speeding up the process, we have no evidence at all. In fact, we are building up quite a caseload of work imposed by the purchasers’ solicitors, asking for far more details in the searches and not accepting the vendors’ searches. Few buyers read HIPs or even ask for them. In our firm we have not had a single prospective purchaser even asking for a home information pack. I thought I had better widen the range, so I rang a number of estate agents around the country. I have not found one that has said a prospective purchaser has asked for a home information pack. One prospective purchaser asked for an EPC but none for a home information pack.

There has been a reduction in the number of properties coming to the market. Whether this can be blamed entirely on HIPs is debatable and I am not going to make judgment at the moment, but it is sad at a time when we clearly need more housing. There is a reduction in land coming on the market for new build and there is also a reduction in new stock coming on the market. That is going to restrict mobility and changing jobs, and it is going to add to the general economic decline and depression that is beginning to affect us. In the research we have been doing—and I have talked to other agents about this—we have also found that no action is being taken on the EPC. People will look at the EPC but they have got their own ideas for the house. Very little action is being taken as a consequence of having that certificate.

What are the consequences of these regulations? We come back to something that I have been stressing all the way through our discussions on home information packs and that is first-day marketing. I ask the Minister, please, to think again. In many cases, it is taking well over two weeks to get a home information pack. There are still delays and there are going to continue to be delays. Please do not distort the market any more by withdrawing the ability to market on the first day that one gets the instructions. It is a very important part of how the property market works and is used by so many agents, particularly in the south-east where the market tends to be bigger and stronger than elsewhere. To take that away would be really detrimental, and I mean that. It would be utterly detrimental. I ask the noble Baroness to think again and let us continue to market at day one. I know of no evidence of agents deliberately flouting HIPs, so could she just leave that provision? I again raise the point of my noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith about the results for the pre-implementation trials of HIPs. It is quite wrong that the Government have not published these. It was a pity that the Liberal Democrat Party was taken in by the Government’s promises on pre-implementation trials but the results should have been published by now.

Let me quickly move on to the leasehold market. The plans for this are vague and the regulatory impact assessment is based on assumptions about consumer behaviour rather than evidence. One particular concern is that the impact assessment fails to take into consideration the carbon cost of preparing an EPC. Will a new EPC be required with every lease? If so, how does that comply with the rules from Brussels that tell us that an EPC is valid for 10 years? If you have to have an EPC only every 10 years, the letting market is being treated differently to the sales market. That leads to all sorts of further complications. What the Government still have not addressed with regard to letting is the problem of getting information out of managing agents. As far as the regulations are concerned, all one now needs to produce is the lease, but as from 1 June one is going to have to produce all the details and we are going to be back in the hands of managing agents who have no incentive at all to provide that information to vendors. That is going to mean a further delay in bringing property to the market. I hope the Minister will think on that again.

My Lords, listening to the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, it seems to me that there has been a continuous and sustained undermining by people with vested professional interests who see HIPs as an unwelcome intrusion in their hitherto unchallenged stranglehold over both buyers and sellers in the domestic housing market. They resent the fact that the consumer is getting a better deal via HIPs. This is a small part of the major drive by the Government both to improve the buying and selling of houses and to stimulate the housing market.

I do not take kindly to people who are given evidence from the department and stand up here and ignore it in their debate. Last December, I wrote to the department and asked for an update on the HIPs saga. I was told by the department that an announcement which addressed the points was going to be made, and I got a copy of it. That information—which is public information and I cannot believe that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, who is very good at his homework, is not in possession of it—answers a number of queries. When we have previously debated this subject, one of the main arguments has been the inaccessibility or unavailability of qualified people to carry out the surveys. I was told in December that 5,794 people are now accredited to provide energy performance certificates. When the figure was 2,000 it was derided, but at that time the figure of 2,000 was adequate. As the programme has been rolled out with more and more properties from four-bedroom down to one-bedroom properties, more and more people are required. But the evidence is that they have not only been found and trained but also accredited as worthy of carrying out these inspections. I cannot understand the point that is being made.

Another point made was about cost. We were told that HIPs would cost the consumer £600. The figures I have from the department show that the cost has been between £300 and £350 over a period of six months. That was the figure that we were given nine months ago, and Members opposite should reflect on the cavalier way in which they are treating the information that is available to them.

My Lords, I very much welcome the statement made by my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton, with which I entirely agree. I felt that the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, were the mouthpiece of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. They did not like it, so the thing should be cancelled. HIPs are being blamed for the downturn in the housing market, based on anecdotal evidence. We were told that the Government need to agree this with the property industry. This is my interpretation. The property industry needs to engage with the Government. My understanding is that the Government tried very hard to engage with the property industry. Negotiations went on for some time, and in the end the property industry said, “We don’t like it”.

My noble friend talked about the consumer. This is where we should start. I am told that having a HIP has stopped quite a few vendors, or so-called vendors, putting their house on the market and simply testing how much they will get for it. If they actually have to spend money on a HIP, they might think twice before doing that, which is not very good for people who want to buy it. The other thing is that if there are three or four people competing to buy a house or a flat, you could end up with three or four surveys of the same house or flat, which is great for the surveying industry but a complete waste of money. The HIP is a way out of this.

Ditto with the energy performance certificates, Yes, people might not want them, surveyors might not want to know about them, and they might not be perfect, but they will provide information to people who can then take action or not. I suggest that, as the price of gas, electricity and everything goes up, more and more purchasers, when taking the decision whether to buy, will welcome them as providing information so that they can decide whether they will buy a place, whether it needs more insulation and how much it will cost.

The noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, seemed to like the idea of the energy performance certificates, but did not want them to be part of the home improvement pack. I do not know how one could become obligatory without the other.

My Lords, I wish it was a home improvement pack. It is only a home information pack.

My Lords, I am very sorry. I simply reflect on the Motion tonight. Basically, it would throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, there have been problems, but they are largely solved, in my opinion. Are we really going to accept a Motion on behalf of one professional organisation? I am a member the Institution of Civil Engineers. It certainly does not go around praying like this against what I think is a very good regulation on the basis that, “We don’t like it, therefore the Government should not push it forward”. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.