§ 8.32 p.m.
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. The question of changes in the public service vehicle licensing system in this country has been raised in your Lordships' House on several occasions during the last year or two. I myself have taken part in two debates in the past 12 months during which the matter was touched on, as I recall, in a rural context. But the last time the matter was raised in its own right was, I believe, when noble Lords opposite added certain clauses about bus licensing to the Government's Road Traffic Bill in June 1974. These represented a slightly modified version of earlier legislative proposals by the previous Administration, which had been criticised in this House and elsewhere. The Government spokesman on that occasion accepted those clauses as expressing the will of the Committee, though he made it clear that the Government still had reservations about the merits of those proposals and were engaged in discussions with the bus industry.
1515 In another place the clauses were removed from the Bill pending the outcome of the further consultations which had been embarked on, with all the interests concerned, about how rural transport problems should most usefully be tackled, whether by amendment of the law on the lines favoured by the Party opposite or by some other means. The main point of difference between the two Parties on this issue has, throughout the past four or five years, been on the question of consultation. The present Government have consistently been of the view that legislative proposals for across-the-board changes in this important area should not be brought before Parliament unless there has been proper consultation. Because of this, we have been accused frequently of dragging our feet while bus services decay and vanish. Yet somehow we in this country seem to have managed to retain the capacity, size for size, to carry more people about by bus than most of our European neighbours. Perhaps there is more than a little to be said in favour of making haste slowly after all in this field, where anyone who is really honest with herself or himself must surely have to admit of the possibility that there is no simple answer to a problem that has so many facets, and that it is far easier to destroy in haste than it is to rebuild at leisure.
My Lords, the series of extensive and detailed consultations begun by the Government in 1974 did take a long time; there is no denying that. It is never easy to bring together the right people to discuss matters of this kind with Ministers. They, as well as Ministers, have heavy commitments. But it was time well spent, because it meant that people had time to think and not just to react. A good deal of new light was thrown on the variety of problems that tended to be lumped together as "the rural transport problem". It became clear that although various alternatives to conventional stage bus services were being tried out or considered, no systematic effort seemed to have been made to exploit to the full the scope for flexibility in the provision of services that existed within the licensing system. There was certainly no agreement on how to proceed. What, appeared to be needed before one risked throwing out the baby 1516 with the bathwater was exploration of a range of possible solutions to problems that could be matched to the circumstances of particular areas.
The Minister for Transport announced the Government's conclusions in December 1975. They intended to promote a series of experiments in various parts of the country to test on the ground what could be done to help rural communities within the existing licensing system. A steering committee would be established, of representatives of all the interests meeting under the chairmanship of a Minister, to oversee the whole series of experiments; and Working Groups with similar representation would be set up in the areas selected by the committee to design the projects. A short Bill would also be introduced, when an opportunity presented itself, which would allow the effects of a modified licensing system to be tested under controlled conditions in the selected areas. This, my Lords, is the Bill we have before us today. Its provisions will allow various ways to be explored of permitting and, indeed, encouraging innovation of a kind that is not possible at the moment, without wrecking existing services that still have a vital part to play.
The steering committee is already well forward in its work on the four areas it selected—in North Yorkshire, Devon, South Ayrshire and Dyfed—and experiments will be starting on the ground this summer. The experimenters are looking at the problems of the selected areas on a broad basis. It is clear that in practice some of the experimental schemes will be within the present law, and others outside it. This is where this Bill will assist. Broadly, it will enable the Secretary of State to designate experimental areas within which the county council (or the corresponding authority in Scotland) would be able to issue authorisations for a limited period for certain transport arrangements by privately-owned cars or minibuses, or by commercially-owned cars.
Clause 1 defines an experimental area as any area designated in accordance with its provisions within which the requirements of the Road Traffic Act 1960 on public service vehicle licensing may be modified. The Secretary of State may designate the whole or part of a county 1517 council or corresponding area by means of an order which will be effective for an initial period of two years and which can be renewed. Before making an order the Secretary of State must consult the local authority, the bus industry and other bodies that seem appropriate, and the order is subject to annulment by either House of Parliament.
Clause 2 sets out the powers of the local authority concerned to grant authorisations, either general or special, for the use of certain vehicles for hire or reward within the designated area. A general authorisation applies to private vehicles generally or to certain sizes of private vehicles; a special authorisation applies to a specified private or commercial vehicle and is issued to a specified person. Special provision is made where there are contiguous designated areas to allow authorities to issue permits that apply in more than one area. The approval of the Secretary of State is required to the grant of authorisations, and where vehicles are used in pursuance of authorisations they are to be treated as not being public service vehicles.
Clause 3 deals with the short title, interpretation and extent of the Bill when enacted, which is not to extend to Northern Ireland. The Schedule, dealing with the attachment of conditions and various procedural matters, is applied to authorisations issued under Clause 2. Certain limiting conditions have to be attached to every general authorisation—which is granted by resolution of the local authority. In the case of special authorisations, the issuing authority has power to attach conditions relating to a range of matters including who may operate the vehicle, routes, timetables, stops, charges and so on. The local authority concerned has to have regard to considerations of safety in relation to authorisations and there are provisions for revocation.
Perhaps, my Lords, I might refer to one or two points arising on the provisions of the Bill. It may be of interest to mention some of the kinds of transport arrangements it is envisaged could be made under authorisations. The general authorisation is essentially to enable contributions to petrol costs et cetera to be made by people taking advantage of good neighbour arrangements for lifts, made over the fence.
1518 The special authorisation would permit various more organised arrangements to be made. These could include social car schemes, run by the WRVS, for example; many noble Lords will be aware of existing schemes of this kind, but because of the effect of the present law no fares may be charged, so, in practice, they can be run only to the extent that the cost can be met by the local authority. Offers to give lifts regularly in cars could be advertised, and money could be accepted—not with the idea of making something out of it, but simply to avoid the feeling, we have been assured many people have, that there is something not quite right about accepting lifts regularly and making no return.
The commercial vehicles would be able to carry passengers who regularly shared the cost of hiring; hire-cars would be able to operate on loosely defined routes and be hailed by passengers paying separate fares. And private minibuses with up to 12 passenger seats could be used to provide regular routes to, say, a hospital or a market town that was not served by ordinary public transport.
Commercial minibuses could not be used under authorisations. They are a different proposition altogether. If there is a need which a professional minibus operator can meet with a 12-seater, and which is not catered for by existing services, he can apply for a permit under Section 30 of the Transport Act 1968. This is an alternative to a road service licence and is dealt with under a streamlined procedure. But the operator does have to have a PSV licence—which should not be difficult for any reputable and competent professional to obtain. The essential point here is that the Bill is not intended to provide short cuts for people who want to be in the business of carrying passengers. This is a perfectly proper aim, but the licensing system is there to regulate professional activities with buses, and it should be used. It may be somewhat tiresome for those who dislike form-filling, but that is another matter.
Some of your Lordships may wonder what the connection is between this Bill and one introduced recently in another place whose title has a similar ring. They deal with different aspects of the same complex of issues. The Passenger Vehicles (Educational and Other Purposes) Bill, introduced by a Private Member in 1519 another place, is concerned with a separate problem, that of disentangling from licensing a whole range of activities which voluntary bodies have built up, using minibuses, in blissful ignorance of their implications in licensing terms. It is not concerned with bus licensing as a whole, as the framework for public transport. As the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Transport said during the Second Reading of the other Bill last Friday, the two Bills do not conflict; there is room for both. The Government are tackling the larger problems of licensing pragmatically with the intention of seeing, with the aid of the Bill before us, what happens on the ground under modified licensing arrangements in experimental areas before deciding how to proceed for the country as a whole.
My Lords, it will be apparent from what I have said earlier that the ground has been well prepared for both the idea of experiments and for the Bill. The kinds of provision that it embodies have been discussed in detail by all the interests involved through the medium of the steering committee. It would be untrue to suggest that they were united in their views on every aspect of these; some members were concerned that its scope might be too wide, others that it was too narrow. But I think it is true to say that all the interests understand the need to explore the various possibilities that are opened up by a measure of this kind and are keen to see the results that will flow from the experiments to be undertaken with its assistance.
My Lords, I must stress this final point. The Bill is not a blueprint for general changes to the licensing system. It is a genuine attempt to probe and explore, to assemble as a result some hard evidence about what can be done and with what effect, in a field where there are views aplenty, but few facts and not a great deal of agreement. We hope that the provisions of the Bill can be applied on the ground by the late summer and that interim conclusions can begin to be drawn by this time next year. I believe the Bill will prove to be a measure that will repay the effort devoted to it, and I commend it to your Lordships' House.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Baroness Stedman.)
1520§ 8.47 p.m.
§ Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTONMy Lords, not for the first time, I have to thank the noble Baroness for introducing a measure to us and explaining it. This time I can only say that although she has done her best with this problem, we on these Benches do not consider it a good enough best because the question with which we are dealing today is about the availability of transport in rural areas and it is a matter of great and increasing concern to a large number of people. Basic mobility is absolutely essential for any modern community, and although 70 per cent, of families in rural areas now possess motorcars and although it is reasonable to consider public transport in rural areas as ancillary to the motor car, there remains and will always remain a substantial minority of people without ready access to cars who will be dependent on public transport for transport to essential services. The problem is becoming more serious in one crucial aspect. I refer to the contraction of services in rural areas: to the closure of village post offices and the increasing tendency for country doctors to move into shared practices in market towns; and both of these examples particularly affect the elderly who are, of course, least likely to have ready access to a motor car.
At the same time, it is clear that traditional public transport does not easily adapt itself to rural areas. In the first place, public transport deals most adequately with regular flows and long distances; and also the increasing burden of the wage bill places traditional public services under increasing strain in areas where possible revenue is inadequate to support the services. I give an example. Last year, Oxfordshire County Council decided, in these difficult times, that it was necessary for them to subject the National Bus Company's request for revenue support to somewhat closer scrutiny. In doing so, they discovered that they were being asked to pay £330,000 per annum to support 18 rural bus services which carried a total of 75 persons per day. In other words, it would have been cheaper to buy all those 75 people a car.
Your Lordships will hardly be surprised to learn that support for these services was promptly discontinued. However, although such expenditure is indeed 1521 wholly disproportionate, it is still necessary to make other arrangements for these 75 persons and their equivalents in rural areas all over the country. And that there are many such persons, no one who has any contact with any rural community can possibly doubt.
In view of the seriousness of this problem, a casual observer might well ask why am I not hastening to compliment the Government for bringing forward this Bill. He might see my failure to do so as ungenerous or ungracious. But I am afraid that I cannot discover in myself much enthusiasm for this measure before your Lordships today. I am, alas! only confirmed in this view by the noble Baroness's remarks, from which it would appear that her right honourable friend has been so busy consulting, that he has only just woken up to the fact that there is an urgency as regards rural transport.
Although we on this side of the House will lend the Bill our support, and will join with the Government in passing it into law, I cannot refrain from regretting that the Government should have taken so long to do so little. Consider, my Lords: we are being asked to approve a Bill permitting experiments in these selected four rural areas. But we have had experiments in rural transport for at least 10 years. I saw some of the papers and reports concerned with these experiments when I was at the Department of the Environment, and I can assure your Lordships that they were both voluminous and comprehensive. I am sure that they have not got any less so in the past three years, however much dust may have settled on them.
It is nonsense to suggest that we need further information or further experiments. Indeed, I submit that those living in rural areas would be thoroughly justified in strongly resenting the implication of "experiment". The countryside is a living community, not a laboratory, and those living in the countryside want basic mobility not test tube transport. There is something demeaning about the whole notion of experiments, especially when the process, as I say, has been going on for 10 years and seems endless. The noble Baroness said that this was not a blueprint but an effort to probe, and in a year's time she is hoping for interim conclusions only. My Lords, I ask you! 1522 The early experiments were necessary; but, like any experimental phase, it should have been brought to an end as quickly as possible. The Government's failure to do so and persistence in regarding the transport problems of the countryside as a fit subject for casual "guinea-piggery" is deplorable, and the patronising implications of all this will not be lost on those living in rural areas.
Also, as I have said, there have been experiments for 10 years past. These, such as the very successful rural bus experiment at Holt in Norfolk, took place under various provisions which essentially relaxed the 1960 Road Traffic Act. Were further experiments necessary—and, my Lords, I for one would be most sceptical about this necessity, and would take a great deal of convincing—the Government ought, first, to have said why, and what they expected to learn from them; and secondly, why a separate Bill is necessary.
However, I would adhere to the view taken by my right honourable friend the then Minister of Transport in 1973, that we had all the experimental data we could possibly require, and that we could therefore proceed to legislate in a definite manner, and to construct a new framework for rural transport. We did this, quite simply, in four clauses of our 1973 Road Traffic Bill, which would have enabled the relaxation of the public service vehicle licensing requirements in rural areas, so as to permit the development of minibus services, to regularise the position of vehicles owned by charitable and voluntary organisations; and, in short, to remove the dead hand of the licensing system from rural transport all over the country, not just in four selected areas.
My Lords, we must remember that the Traffic Commissioners licensing system dates from a 1930 Act, based on a Royal Commission of 1928. The world has moved on since 1928 and 1930: in particular, as regards transport, the intervening years have seen the steady erosion of traditional services. Whereas in 1930 the Traffic Commissioners were introduced to bring a modicum of order to a booming bus industry, and to ensure that in the full flood of innovation and competition, safety and maintenance standards were not neglected, there is no likelihood today of such an on-rush of new entrants to the bus 1523 industry as to jeopardise such standards; least of all would this be a problem in rural areas, where indeed traditional bus services are seriously threatened. It is indeed our view on this side of the House that the Traffic Commissioners system as a whole is now in need of a full re-evaluation. In a rapidly changing world, it is hardly surprising that an administrative arrangement which has lasted for 50 years now requires rescrutiny.
But there is no need to re-scrutinise the licensing system in rural areas; it should simply be relaxed in the manner envisaged in our 1973 Bill. As I said in this House during our debate last year on the Transport Consultation Document, the position of rural transport is a prime example of the weaknesses of our present approach to transport policy. We concentrate on systems, we subsidise systems, our policy is frequently influenced by the representations of lobbies representing such systems. But the user of transport, the customer, wants a service, not a system; and this is above all true in rural areas, where traditional transport systems are wholly inappropriate; but where the licensing system prevents innovation, stifles new developments and stops, for instance, the garage owner who happens to have a minibus from making a small amount of money and help his neighbours at the same time by running a bus service on a part-time basis.
My Lords, those of us who know the countryside will be aware that one can never underestimate country people's capacity for quiet, unspectacular improvision. After all, there is many a farmer and countryman living miles from a town who, as a matter of course, acts on many occasions as his own vet, his own motor mechanic, and his own plumber and decorator. This same gift for getting on with the job that needs to be done, and finding a way to do it with the tools that come to hand, holds the key to solving many—if not all—of the countryside's transport problems, if only we allow it to operate.
Our 1973 Bill would have done just that; but it was, alas! lost with so much else in February 1974. In the intervening years, the Government have done nothing in this field. In the face of protests from the countryside, of protests in this House 1524 and in the other place, successive Ministers have sat on their hands. They have resembled nothing so much as the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland who told Alice that he could do nothing for her. He could not do nothing straight away, then and there, but he hoped to do nothing very shortly. Why, then, have the Government neglected this problem? After all, it cannot be said that all their policies are dictated by cynical inaction—would that they were!
I am afraid that the answer lies, I suspect, in trade union pressure. In a debate in this House only last week, I had occasion to refer to trade union pressure; in that case, also, I referred to the origin of that pressure in demoralisation. I do not wish to broaden my remarks even further, but our transport industries are under attack; this Government have, I regret to say, consistently shown themselves to be unwilling to define sensible criteria for the allocation of scarce resources, at a time of economic crisis, and to be, alas! only too readily subject to political pressure, and only too aware of short-term political considerations, in the formulation of their transport policies.
It is, therefore, only too understandable that those in the transport industries should dig themselves in behind defensive networks; should abandon any notion of justifying their position by rational argument, and should seek only to exert political muscle and pressure. Everyone in transport is on the defensive: therefore it is only natural that the Transport and General Workers' Union should prefer a suspicious defence of the status quo than an open-handed acceptance of innovation.
But the purpose of easing licence restrictions is not to undermine traditional bus services—quite the opposite. If we succeed in regenerating public transport in rural areas, there will be more employment opportunities for busmen, not fewer, because although volunteer schemes are thoroughly desirable, especially as an expession of community concern for the less mobile, nothing can really replace the professional skills of a professional busman as the mainstay of the road passenger industry.
My Lords, we have here a shabby, tawdry little scenario. The Government cravenly bowed to pressure, and dropped 1525 a sound desirable measure of reform. After three years of mounting pressure and protest, they bring forward, in the most niggardly, grudging and belated fashion, an experiment. And even this experiment would not have been possible without the co-operation of my honourable and right honourable friends in another place, who have agreed to hold their Second Reading upstairs in Committee.
My Lords, I have on many occasions expressed my respect for the noble Baroness opposite; and I know that she is not responsible either for the delay or for the tawdry, half-hearted and half-baked naure of this Bill. But I hope that she will convey to her right honourable friend the Secretary of State our thoroughgoing dissatisfaction with the Bill's niggardly concession. I hope she will also tell him that our feelings will be more than echoed in rural areas. After all, people in the countryside understand wool. They know when it is being pulled over their eyes—but they might object less if it were cashmere or angora and not some shoddy piece of synthetic wool like this Bill.
§ 9.1 p.m.
§ The Earl of KIMBERLEYMy Lords, I should very much like to join with the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, for moving the Second Reading of this Bill tonight, and to say what a pleasure it is—it has happened frequently in the last few weeks—to have debates with her. I feel I should say here, perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek, that I wondered whether this Bill had come on so late at night because the Government had asked for the matter to be arranged in that way since they appear to be supporting private enterprise!
We on these Benches have for a long time called for a review of the working of the transport policy in this country. In another place, many pieces of legislation have been brought forward by my Party in an attempt to inject some life into the transport system of this country. But the restrictions that have been placed on rural transport by the traffic commissioners have done a great disservice to the rural communities at large. Nevertheless, we welcome this Bill and hope it will be seen as a beginning to the rationalisation of the system.
1526 There are one or two reservations to be made in welcoming the Bill. While we agree that the Government have taken a step in the right direction, it remains only a step and there are many more steps to be taken before we shall really enjoy a cheap, serviceable and fair system of transportation for people in both urban and rural communities. Our objections to the Bill centre around the essential vagueness of the whole conception. The Bill allows the Secretary of State to create these experimental areas when he wants to, where he wants to and if he wants to; and the decision therefore appears to lie entirely in Whitehall as to where the experimental areas are to be situated. Indeed, once a decision has been made, the Secretary of State, or perhaps the civil servants in Whitehall, will still have an absolute power over the local authority to revoke or rescind whatever transport decision has been taken in the local town hall. As the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, has said, that is rather like Alice in Wonderland. Surely, once a decision has been taken on where the experimental area is to be located, the town hall must be allowed to deal with its own bus routes and local transport problems without Whitehall constantly looking over its shoulder. The power of Central Government is already strong in local affairs and this Bill will only increase it. We on these Benches firmly believe that local transport decisions should be made in the town hall by the elected representatives of the people, and not by people in Whitehall, who are not elected by anybody and who very often remain completely inaccessible to everyone.
Therefore I repeat that we regret the power of Central Government in this Bill; but we also regard as ridiculous—I hate to use the word, but I think I must—the length of time which has been given to the experiment. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, said it should not be an experiment at all. I am inclined to go half-and-half and say that two years is far too short a time to allow for the working of such an experiment, because what entrepreneur has ever entered a market knowing that in two years' time there is a likelihood that the market might be closed to him? If five years were allowed, we would think that a much more sensible time limit to be given to the experiment, if experiment there has to be. Five years would allow the entrepreneur 1527 to put his roots down in the market and allow him some return on his capital outlay. Without extending the length of time given to the experiment there seems to be very little point in holding it in the first place, because it cannot possibly work. I do not think anyone would be prepared to lay out capital and effort over such a short period of time.
When this Bill goes to the Committee, as I hope it will, we shall seek to impress on the Government the importance of extending the experiment to areas which are not included in the Ministry of Transport's Press release dated 28th October 1976. If this Bill is designed to allow transport experiments to take place only in the four areas of Devon, North Yorkshire, South-West Wales and South Ayrshire, it is not good enough. We shall seek to commit the Secretary of State to creating a number of experimental areas within a time limit of this Bill's becoming law. We shall seek a reduction in the power of the civil servant in local matters, and we look forward to an extension of the experimental period from two to five years.
As I said at the beginning, my Lords, this Bill is a move in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go before we get a reasonable transport system in this country. Nevertheless, we welcome the Bill, and I personally sincerely hope that it will finally reach the Statute Book in a true and proper form.
§ 9.8 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORDMy Lords, I rise to address your Lordships on rural transport, as I have done on a number of occasions in the past, as the noble Baroness will remember. I have the feeling that we might at last be seeing some great creature awaking to a small glimmer of sunshine coming in the future. But from the way in which this Bill has been drafted and produced, it looks at the moment more as though those areas which are not included in North Yorkshire, Devon, South Ayrshire and Dyfed will for the next two years be rather like Bisto kids wandering down the road on bare feet, smelling the beautiful things that are happening next door to them.
I am glad to see a Bill like this. I am also glad to see the Bill which is now in 1528 another place, because this is another matter about which I have spoken to your Lordships earlier. But what really horrifies me—and here I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley—is this appalling situation where we have so much central control over rural transport. We are not dealing with thousands of people in congested areas. We are dealing with a number of individuals who are grouped together in isolated areas, or spread over miles of country. It is an impossible position when one reaches a stage where, every time one wants to go to one's market town, one should virtually go there at the consent of some civil servant who is situated in London, or even 50 or 60 miles away.
One of the things that we in the rural areas want to get rid of is the appalling grip of the Traffic Commissioners. Any time anybody wants to do anything, there is immediate opposition from the Traffic Commissioners, and the quicker we can relax their powers for the benefit of the rural areas, the better we shall be pleased. I do not wish to refer in detail to this Bill, because if it goes to Committee the time is coming when we shall have an opportunity to say more. The last remark which I should like to make is that, while giving a rather tepid bathwater welcome to this Bill, I can only look forward to 1978, when I hope we may see my noble friend's 1973 Bill which I trust will cure the trouble.
§ 9.11 p.m.
§ Baroness STEDMANMy Lords, I am grateful to those who have taken part, for the views which have been expressed today. I think it has been a very useful debate on what is admittedly a small but, I think, important measure—important because, if it is enacted, it will enable experiments to be carried out which hitherto have been impossible because they have been outside the law. We are now enabled to make experiments of this kind and still keep within the law.
I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray, that mobility is one of the prime necessities, particularly for people living in rural areas. But we have gone over that ground time and time again, and now that we are trying to get something off the ground I should have thought it might have been given a little warmer welcome than it had from him today, as an indication that we are trying 1529 to do something. We accept that there is an urgent need for rural transport, but what we also accept is that we want to get it right when we start on these experiments. When there is a scheme over the whole country, we want to know that we have the right scheme and the right kind of ideas to work on, because needs vary from area to area and these experiments will show the type of use that is best fitted for the different areas. I really attribute the noble Lord's despondent attitude to the lateness of the hour and a surfeit of patents before we got on to road transport.
The noble Lord certainly carried the debate very much wider than the bounds of this Bill, and I do not propose to follow him into all his details and byways. But I am afraid that, as I remember it, his memories of the ill-fated licensing provision in the 1973 Bill are perhaps a little too rosy. If he would carry his mind back to the ifs and buts that were festooned around its provisions, and the promise of his right honourable friend to introduce even more conditions, he might well agree that perhaps his right honourable friend was not so much frustrated as saved by the 1974 Election.
The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, welcomed the Bill and I am grateful for his support so far as it goes. We are certainly not trying to override the powers and duties of local authorities, and anything that we do will be carried out in the fullest consultation with them. We will also, of course, be open to suggestions from those which we have not approached. I am sure that after consultations, if the right kind of suggestion is made to my right honourable friend and they have a need, they have the means and they have the right kind of area in which experiments could be carried out, there will be no problems whatsoever about that. The whole programme of experiments is under local Working Parties who are bringing together the National Bus Company, the independent operators, the bus crews, the local authorities and, above all, the local voluntary bodies who are doing so much of this work at the moment and who are not able to get any help with their costs.
The noble Lord also suggested that our time scale was too short. Again we had the same problems when we held consultations at national level, to which I 1530 referred in my opening speech. Some people thought that we were taking too long a time while others thought that we were taking too short a time. The same problem has been identified in this House tonight. Perhaps I confused noble Lords by referring specifically to the four areas to which the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, referred. These are the four areas where we have done some ground work on the experiments; they can get off the ground fairly quickly.
A number of points have been raised by noble Lords which no doubt we shall be discussing in much greater detail when we come to the Committee stage. However, I should like to stress again that the object of enabling these further experiments to be carried out is to obtain evidence on the extent to which licensing changes of the kind that this Bill permits will help in a particular situation and what, if any, might be their effects on the existing licensed services. That might then automatically lead on to the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, that perhaps the licensing system itself will need to be looked at in more detail at some future date.
The Bill, I repeat, is not a blueprint for general changes to the licensing system and I make no apology for repeating that assertion; it needs to be clearly understood if misconceptions about the Government's aims are to be avoided. We are acutely aware of the difficulties and conflicts that bedevil the field of passenger transport and of the frustration that so many people feel because of their limited mobility and, in some cases, because of their complete lack of mobility in some areas of the country. During the Second Reading debate on the minibus Bill last Friday in another place reference was made to an elderly man who had not been outside his own house for seven years until a local voluntary body came along and revolutionised his whole existence. These are the kind of things that we can do when we are able to achieve a better rural transport system. I have no doubt that that story can be matched by hundreds of others and by stories known to Members of your Lordships' House. That is one specialised area of transport which the minibus Bill will be tackling, with Government support.
1531 The broader problems of transport for the public at large call for an examination of other solutions. The transport policy review is concerned with the major issues of subsidies, the organisation of the bus industry, and so on. Licensing must also be reviewed to see how far it is still apposite to current situations. But if the review is not to be conducted entirely on a hypothetical basis, then we need to try out the various possibilities and to collect the evidence from the results. That is what the Bill will help us to do and I look forward to its speedy passage through this House.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.