Hansard

During the stage 1 debate in the Parliament, I was conscious that we were dealing with this at breakneck speed. Although I gave out some information as I went through my speech, I probably did not get into the detail of the Executive's view of the direction that the bill should take. It might be helpful if I do that now. I apologise for the lack of a letter confirming that we would be happy to kick off this meeting.

I would like to thank committee members and, of course, the clerks to the committee for their work in pulling together their report. It was extremely useful to the Executive; it was constructive and balanced. The way in which you were able to pull together a range of comments was very useful.

There will be a lot of common ground in our discussions. We may disagree on amendments, but I think that there is broad acceptance of the overall purpose of our proposals. A discussion to take stock of the situation would be useful at this stage.

I will set out the thrust of the amendments that I propose to introduce during stage 2—that will give you notice of areas in which you may wish to lodge amendments. I notice that we have already lodged many amendments on the same topics. I will also highlight areas in which I have not accepted the need for amendment—we can debate that at this stage.

I am wholly in agreement with the committee on the critical role that the Executive has to play in any joint strategy and in progressing our vision at local, regional and national level. As our announcement on the framework for economic development made clear, we intend to build on last month's spending announcement with a forward delivery plan that will pull together the UK airports review, our work on rail franchising and the transports studies on the A8, A80 and M74 corridors. That plan, which will be published early next year, will also build on the legislation.

The bill's proposals on joint strategies provide for long-stop powers to help local partners work together, across boundaries, to produce a regional view on challenges, opportunities and priorities. Those powers would be invoked only when progress on a voluntary basis had not proved possible. There is no difference between the views that were expressed in the committee report and the intentions that underlie the proposals. The issue is the detail of how those proposals are achieved—that will be our second debate this morning.

I have considered very carefully your report and the Subordinate Legislation Committee's concerns about the breadth of the proposed powers, but am not persuaded that we need to modify the bill. I could return to that in more detail later.

The purpose of the bus service provisions in the bill is to give local authorities a toolkit of options to alter dramatically the experience of bus users throughout Scotland. We inherited a bus system that was fragmented and open to change. We want to provide more certainty, introduce co-operation and enable major investment by the bus companies—and to do so in a way that reasserts the balance that was lost after deregulation. The bill must deliver quality partnerships, quality contracts, further powers for local authorities to enhance service provision, enhanced powers for the traffic commissioner and better information for the travelling public so that there is a step change in the quality of bus services. My mailbag, like that of other members, is stuffed full of complaints about individual bus services. The bill offers the opportunity to set a new framework and to gear the bus industry up to manage expansion rather than decline—that would be a new ball game for the bus industry.

Partnerships and contracts will play distinct but complementary roles. Quality partnerships present an opportunity that we must not miss. No doubt we will debate the detail of those later. The partnerships approach is radical and innovative. The challenge for John Prescott is to increase the number of rail passengers by 50 per cent over the next 10 years, but it would be difficult for us to imagine a 50 per cent increase in the number of bus passengers. Why would that be so radical? How do we provide quality buses that people want to use?

Partnerships offer us the chance to build buses into our approach to tackling congestion and freeing up key routes, on which our businesses regularly get stuck. Partnerships have to be part of an integrated approach and to have the interests of bus users at their core. The consultation aspects of partnerships and contracts will give a voice to ordinary bus users, who have one at the moment only if they know the system—it is a tortuous process. We must build in greater consultation and involvement at the start, and we must have a more robust, transparent and effective system to deal with complaints. The bill should deliver a new deal for bus users in Scotland.

Partnerships offer local authorities an opportunity to think long and hard about what they can bring to the table. They can provide better traffic management and they can reallocate road space, as has been done to great effect in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We must make the most of the opportunity to work with bus companies. We must learn from the very innovative partnerships in Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield. In the past five years, bus companies in Scotland have invested an extra £167 million, which has been targeted on key routes. The bill must deliver a balanced approach so that we attract people who have perhaps not used the bus for the past 10 or 15 years on to the key routes, where we need to add volume and high quality; we must be able to tell such people that there are new, more attractive and more frequent buses on those routes.

As a result of the greenways scheme in Edinburgh, there has been a 15 per cent increase in the number of bus passengers, and there have been increases of between 5 and 20 per cent elsewhere where partnerships are in place. There is an opportunity for a mix of partnerships and contracts.

As I said at stage 1, there is a big lesson to be learned from deregulation in the bus industry and privatisation in the rail industry. If we turn the industry upside down, there will be less investment—fewer new buses and trains and a poorer service for customers. We must get the balance right. The message to the bus industry is that the partnership approach must be matched by a contract approach. We need to plug the gaps. There must be a statutory framework for partnerships, but local authorities should have the enabling power to engage in contracts where they think it is necessary to do so. The bus sector should be under no illusions about that. If the industry fails to deliver a satisfactory level of service, local authorities will have powers to put contracts into practice.

In the light of your comments on the bill at stage 1, I have reconsidered the provisions on buses and agree that they could be improved. I give you notice that I will introduce amendments to replace the "only way" test for quality contracts with the more appropriate test that a contract is necessary to implement relevant general policies. That is a more focused and less difficult test that will produce a better balance between contracts and partnerships. I also want to reduce the handover period after award of contract to a maximum of six months. Complex issues will certainly need six months, but the period could be shorter for simple contracts. That change will ensure that local authorities can act quickly if the circumstances require that they should.

I will also introduce a range of technical amendments to improve the effectiveness of partnerships and contracts. Those amendments arise from the committee report and from discussions that we held in the summer. They address such matters as the inclusion of existing facilities in partnerships, allowing partnerships to extend to trunk roads, duration of contract approvals, provision of information by bus operators, enforcement and ticketing options. We will cover some of those amendments today.

I will also lodge for discussion a new schedule to secure the compatibility with competition legislation of our proposals on partnerships, ticketing and information. That is a key issue in the committee's report. We were aware of that issue when we introduced the bill in June, but we have made progress on it since then. The schedule will inform our discussion.

The committee invited our views on the possible establishment of an integrated transport users body. The role of bus users has to be central to the implementation of new and improved bus services across Scotland. We have tried and tested customer representation arrangements for the rail and ferry industries. We have considered this issue over the summer and I intend to lodge an amendment to establish a much more open and independent complaints procedure for the bus industry. The current procedure is not transparent and it is difficult for the ordinary bus user to negotiate. A new procedure will buttress the more open and participatory approach that we will take with partnerships and contracts.

Although we will have detailed discussions on exactly what we will include in partnerships, we still need to examine some details of the schedule on competition. Those amendments must be discussed in much more detail.

I welcome the committee's broad acceptance of our proposals on road user charging. I realise that that acceptance is not unanimous and that we must debate the detail of the proposals. It is right that we haul those details over the coals, because people outside the Parliament expect us to be transparent. Many questions have been raised about the consultation and approval process for the charging scheme and I will set out our intentions regarding the process before we reach the stage 2 debate on them. I expect to give the committee details of the consultation process a week before that meeting, to give the committee time to consider the detailed provisions and to raise questions or lodge amendments.

The committee also expressed reservations about the impact of workplace parking levies on congestion and wanted the Executive to provide further and more detailed evidence on the subject. I am happy to do that; again, it would be appropriate to provide that evidence a week before the committee's stage 2 discussions, to permit the committee to consider the information.

The provision of free parking at the workplace encourages employees to drive to work. Such journeys form a large proportion of peak-time congestion and many of them are made by drivers alone, often on routes where public transport is available or—crucially—where such a service could be provided. If the revenue from any workplace parking levy were ring-fenced for local transport improvements, peak-time congestion could be reduced in two ways. First, employers could be encouraged to review their parking provision and to think much more imaginatively, using green transport plans or other means, about how their employees get to work. Secondly, the levy would generate resources to improve public transport alternatives. We are happy to debate the detail of those core objectives. Research into the workplace parking levy confirms our arguments and two recent studies—on London and Nottingham—suggest that there might be reductions of 3 to 13 per cent in peak-time traffic. As this is a relatively new and innovative initiative, I am happy to give the committee further detail of the research.

I welcome the committee's support for our commitments on hypothecation, additionality and sharing revenues across local authority boundaries and I will lodge an amendment to clarify the point that consultation is a statutory duty on local authorities. I also propose to lodge an amendment to allow Scottish ministers to pay grants to assist local authorities with the introduction of charging schemes. That follows my announcement in June that the Executive would be prepared to offer matched funding where a local authority was seriously considering introducing a scheme. My commitment last week to an integrated transport fund provides an opportunity to do that. Furthermore, I will lodge a series of technical amendments to improve on and amplify our proposals, although I do not think that they will generate great debate in the committee.

After discussions with local authorities over the summer, I still do not think that trunk roads should be included in local charging schemes. In many cases, trunk roads act as through routes for traffic travelling from one side of the country to the other and going nowhere near the relevant city centre. In such circumstances it would be difficult to justify a congestion charge to a motorist who is merely travelling through the area. I realise that we will return to that issue in more detail. Finally, I should emphasise that we will commission research on exemptions before we introduce any relevant regulations.

I welcome the committee's support for our proposals on concessionary fares. In a sense, I started that process with last week's funding statement in which I intimated our intention to introduce free bus travel for all Scotland's pensioners and disabled people within existing scheme boundaries and outwith the morning peak. The committee raised points about extending eligibility for concessionary fares to other groups. Although I am keen to take an enabling power to do so, I currently do not have the resources to implement that measure; that is a more long-term issue to consider. That said, I will lodge an amendment on that issue later during stage 2. I am happy to share with the committee our research study on concessionary fares, to show how we reached our conclusions in the spending review.

As for the committee's recommendations on bridges provision, I am happy to confirm today the principle of additionality. Your clerk is looking nervously at you, convener. I have only two very brief comments on home zones, which we will debate in detail later. Local authorities' considerable powers on home zones are not being used to their full extent. We are commissioning four home zone pilots that will start this autumn and will enable us to assess the effectiveness of existing legislation and whether there should be more best practice guidance. We will examine the impact of home zones before, during and after implementation and, if there prove to be any legislative obstacles, we will review the schemes. However, we do not think that we need additional legislative powers.

I will flag up three areas that are not covered by the bill and that might be of interest to the committee. I will lodge amendments that will extend the freight facilities grant to coastal and short-shea shipping in Scotland. [Laughter.] It is a difficult issue—I look forward to other members getting their tongues round it. Those provisions will complement the UK-wide provisions in the Westminster bill and give us more scope to extend freight opportunities from road to rail and/or sea. At the moment, we are quite restricted on what we can do.

Following last week's spending announcement, I wish to take powers in this bill to give Scottish ministers the important enabling power to pay grant to local authorities and public and private companies to fund specific transport projects under the integrated transport fund.

Finally, over the summer, I have been lobbied extensively on experimental redetermination orders. I propose to permit local authorities to introduce such orders to convert footpaths to joint pedestrian and cycle use, where appropriate. However, local authorities will have to go through various stages in that process.

I hope that those additional measures will help members to frame their amendments and give them a sense of what the Executive is keen to do in response to the committee's stage 1 report and to questions that have been raised over the summer.