COMMUNITY BUS SERVICES

HC Deb 17 May 1978 vol 950 cc701-6

Mr. Gow

I beg to move, Amendment No. 29, in page 5, line 42, leave out '16' and insert '20'.

Clause 4 deals with community bus services. As I have explained before, we welcome very much that modest measure of liberalisation of the licensing laws that is enshrined in the Bill. The purpose of the amendment is to extend that liberalisation a little further. Under subsection (2) as it stands, the liberalisation extends only to those vehicles which can carry a maximum of 16 passengers. The purpose of the amendment is to allow the vehicle to have not 16 passengers but 20.

We had a debate earlier tonight about how the Government arrived at the figure of six months for the purpose of an appeal to an arbitrator. The Secretary of State explained to the House that that was the period that was taken from the Local Government Act 1972. Now we ask the Secretary of State to tell the House why it is that he hit upon the figure of 16. One can have a perfectly satisfactory community bus which carries not 16 passengers but 20.

3.15 a.m.

As I have been on other occasions, I was tempted to be even more bold and say that a community bus, whatever the number of passengers it carries, should come within the exemptions of Clause 4. But, being a person who makes modest proposals, I am suggesting only that the number of passengers should be increased from 16 to 20.

What can be the objection to 20 passengers and a slightly larger bus? These community bus services operate mainly in the rural areas. Why should we not have a community bus which can carry 20 passengers from a remote village or hamlet to the market town to meet the needs of the community? Why should passengers be disappointed and frustrated if the bus is full?

The amendment is in the interests of those who wish to travel on a community bus. It is against restriction and in favour of liberalisation. I hope that this modest measure will be accepted.

Mr. Horam

The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) moved the amendment with his usual charm. I recall, perhaps with equal charm, his change to the title of the Minibus Act. He was responsible for changing the title of that Act from a clumsy legal version to the more succinct title by which it is now known. As a result of that Act we tend to define a minibus as a vehicle carrying 16 passengers. That is the size of vehicle that voluntary bodies normally use.

That definition is also used in European legislation. By using the same definition we achieve consistency in the various legislation involving the minibus. We are now dealing with the same vehicle—one which carries 16 passengers.

Not only does this make sense in terms of consistency in legislation but it makes technical sense, because the largest number of seats which can be fitted conveniently on to the basic Ford transit chassis is 16.

For all these reasons I do not wish to go above that number. We have settled a standard which makes good sense. Having experienced various upgradings of seating capacities, I feel that it would be wrong to make a change in the Bill.

I understand the spirit of the amendment but we have reached a sensible position. Everyone will know what is meant by a minibus. Manufacturers will be able to produce a standardised vehicle. That is an important consideration. Vehicles of this type behave in a similar way to private cars. Larger vehicles with 20 to 24 seats would have different handling characteristics and one would have to consider public service vehicle licensing. I am sure that the hon. Member for Eastbourne would regret that. With regret, I must resist the amendment.

Mr. Gow

The Minister's reply was intensely unconvincing. He said that we had to follow the precedent set down in the 1977 Act on minibuses and then said that the restriction to 16 passengers resulted from Community membership. Hon. Members who were anxious about Britain's accession to the Treaty of Rome will not have had their fears allayed by that observation. What is the Minister's authority for saying that the limit in the Community is 16? I believe that in France and Italy there are no such restrictions on community buses. Surely he is not saying that there has been a directive forbidding us from having community buses with a capacity greater than 16 passengers. I hope that in another place the amendment will be considered again, but in order to make progress now, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Gow

I beg to move Amendment No. 30, in page 6, line 24 leave out must be a volunteer and".

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this we may also take Amendment No. 31, in page 6, line 38, leave out subsection (6).

We may also take Government Amendments Nos. 32 and 33.

Mr. Gow

It is one of the extraordinary features of Clause 4 that the driver of a community bus must be unpaid. If there is no adequate existing bus service and unpaid volunteer drivers cannot be obtained to drive a community bus, the citizens who live in the area will have to do without it. If my amendment is made, they will be able to have a community bus service.

The Cuckmere community bus service operates in my constituency. It is provided by volunteer drivers. Other parts of the country may be unable to find volunteers. The Under-Secretary said in Committee that he hoped that the community bus service would be extended. But in Clause 4 the Government are saying that if no one can be found to do the work for nothing, there can be no service. Someone who was retired or who did not have to work might very well be prepared to be a volunteer driver. But one might equally find that one could not obtain a driver for a community bus unless one paid him. Therefore, I do not see the logic in the Government's case in saying "If you can't get a volunteer driver, you won't have a community bus." My amendment will facilitate the operation of community buses, which is the Government's own declared objective. I hope that on reflection the Under-Secretary will agree that where a volunteer driver cannot be found it should be permissible to pay a driver.

There is another aspect. The present unemployment figures are hovering uneasily between 1½ million and 1½ million. If there is to be a chance of meeting a transport need, particularly with rural community buses, there will not be a great reduction in the number of unemployed, but any reduction should be welcomed by the Government. A person who has been driving buses, but who finds himself unemployed and in receipt of unemployment benefit, perhaps will drive the community bus if he can be paid but otherwise will remain unemployed.

For all these reasons, it seems to me that the amendment is justified by common sense and because it might enable more community buses to operate, to the great advantage of those who want to have a bus service and who should have one, but who, without the amendment, would have no hope of getting one.

Mr. Horam

The hon. Gentleman is correct in his recollection of what I said in Committee about our desire to facilitate the expansion of community bus ser vices. The Opposition's point in Committee was that occasions might arise from time to time when the volunteers for some reason were not able to make their scheduled drive, and that therefore the community minibus service might not operate—in other words, there would be an emergency. The Opposition put down amendments in Committee to cope with that.

I think that the Opposition are right about that. Therefore, having undertaken to look at the matter again, we have put down Amendments Nos. 32 and 33, which enable the people organising the bus service to pay a driver, in the event of his having to forsake his job for the period in which he stands in during an emergency and drives the community bus, so that the service shall be maintained.

While not wholly meeting the hon. Gentleman's wider point, this is, I think, a reasonable response to the Opposition's representations on practical grounds. Therefore, I hope that, given that we are putting forward Amendments Nos. 32 and 33, the hon. Gentleman will feel able to seek to withdraw Amendment No. 30 and not to move Amendment No. 31.

Mr. Fry

I thank the Under-Secretary for tabling Amendments Nos. 32 and 33, which result from the debate on this part of the Bill in Committee. I am glad that in the wording he has put forward he has taken on board the point made at the time by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger). However, we of course regard this as very much a second best. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) on putting forward his amendments tonight. The need for them reveals that the solution cannot be on the lines on which the Government are to move. In the long term, there will have to be commercially operated minibuses to, cater for this need.

3.30 a.m.

I know that at the moment the Government resist that, but I am satisfied in my own mind that we are moving towards it. We shall have to allow people in the more remote parts of the country—people such as the garage proprietor or someone else locally—to operate on a commercial basis, not on the same scale as the normal bus service but merely to provide some kind of transport for the people.

I say that for this reason: despite all the encouragement—one hopes that there will be many more of these schemes, and there are, I believe, only five in operation at present—there will be difficulty in continuing to find people to run community bus schemes and keep them going. Again and again one finds that every organisation, and certainly any voluntary organisation, in the end comes to depend on one or two individuals who do all the work. The problem is to keep those individuals in the right place to operate such schemes. By definition, many of the key people behind community bus schemes will be retired, so that, merely by the passage of time, the problem will recur and one will have to find others to take their place.

Therefore, in thanking the Government for what they have proposed, I say again that we regard it as very much second best and only a step towards allowing commercially operated minibuses inevitably to replace the other buses as we know them at present, which, in our view, will probably eventually die out in many rural parts of the country.

Mr. John Ellis

That was a most significant speech from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry). For the first time, we have heard it stated that this is the first step along a certain road. I do not have and I am sure that none of my hon. Friends has any compunction in saying that, where people have no service whatever, we support this ne wservice if it is for the good of the people as a whole. But I should be failing in my duty, even at this late stage, if I did not ask the House to bear in mind the possible impact of such schemes.

Where there is a bus service—whoever is running it—which is a viable concern for the whole of the day although the buses may not be anywhere near full at times, and it is endeavouring to give some sort of service throughout the day, there is a danger in a service operated in the morning or in the evening if it is then said that one can do away with the rest of the service during the day.

I must enter that caveat. I regard the hon. Gentleman's last speech as most significant. We did not hear that said in Committee, and this is the first time we have heard it so starkly put. The hon. Gentleman is right, in my view, when he says that volunteers have their limitations, for the reasons which he gave. I believe that there is an onward movement here which may have an impact on other people, some of them in the railway unions, who work in my constituency, for example—it is not just a question for the TGWU—and are giving a more comprehensive service.

Mr. Gow

In order that we may make progress, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendments made: No. 32, in page 6, line 40, after 'disregarding', insert '(a)'.

No. 33, in page 6, line 41, at end add and (b) any payment representing earnings lost as a result of making himself available to drive in exceptional circumstances".—[Mr. Horam.]