§ Mr. LivseyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will take steps to enable the National Assembly for Wales to establish passenger transport authorities under the terms of the Transport Bill. [125471]
§ Mr. HillWe made our position clear in our response1 to the 2nd Report of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee (HC287) "The Transport Bill and its impact on Wales". In particular we said that:
The possibility of creating new Passenger Transport Authority areas was considered at the time of the Transport White Paper. We rejected it then, partly because no group of authorities seemed to have a very strong case for establishing a PTA and partly because, although PTAs have a good track record in co-ordinating and developing public transport, they have no roads responsibilities, and this can create problems in fully integrating transport in their areas.Local authorities outside the PTAs already work closely together in developing transport strategies for their areas, as the Local Transport Plans for England submitted to the DETR last summer have shown. A number have submitted joint plans for their combined areas, and we are confident that this co-operation will continue. We are not persuaded of the argument to bring forward primary legislation to enable the establishment of one or more PTAs in Wales.1 Response published as the 5th Special Report of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee (HC497) "The Transport Bill and its Impact on Wales".