§ Mr. Terry Davisasked the Secretary of State for Transport who are the 32 bus operators in Birmingham mentioned by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Hampshire, North-West (Mr. Mitchell), during the debate on Second Reading of the Transport Bill, Official Report, 12 February, column 256.
§ Mr. David MitchellI regret that I was mistaken when, during the debate on Second Reading of the Transport Bill, I referred to the Birmingham area in order to illustrate that concessionary fare schemes involving a large number of operators could work without using tokens. I should have referred to Derbyshire, where some 28 operators participate in a pass-based scheme. I have written to the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) to apologise for this error.