Ministers defend process to establish quality deals

02 April 2008

Ministers have defended their proposed two-stage process for establishing quality contracts for bus services, as ‘necessary to ensure that contracts can work, without huge delays caused by judicial reviews’.

Local transport minister, Rosie Winterton, insisted that the draft Local Transport Bill would make quality contracts ‘a more realistic option,’ denying claims by local transport authorities and MPs that the process could be too onerous.

She claimed that having ‘a robust check’ on proposed contracts, to determine whether they are ‘consistent with policy, provide value-for-money and are in the wider public interest’ would prevent legal challenges. ‘If months are required to prepare a quality contract, it could take years for challenges under the judicial review process. We want to make it more difficult to go to judicial review, this is a belt-and-braces approach,’ Winterton said.

Proposals would need to go before an approvals board, and then, ‘because one could, if necessary, judicially review the approvals board, there is a further appeal’, to the transport tribunal, she said. But Labour MP Paul Truswell feared that, unless the Bill was amended, the Local Transport Act 2008 would represent ‘another false dawn’ for bus services, following the Transport Act 2000’s failure to usher in change.

The legislation would replace the 2000 Act’s ‘insuperable legal high-jump’ with ‘an interminable bureaucratic marathon’ of a three-tier appeal process.

Liberal Democrat shadow transport secretary, Norman Baker, pledged to table amendments, as he was ‘uncomfortable that there should be an approvals board and a referral to the transport tribunal and, in theory, the High Court after that’.

A spokesman for the Passenger Transport Executive Group said: ‘We appreciate the minister’s concern, but are confident that PTEs can demonstrate we’re making reasonable proposals. ‘Giving two quangos a role in the decisions can only increase the risk of judicial review. Nobody would suggest that unelected bodies should be able to reject the mayor of London’s proposals for buses, why should it be different for other large cities?’

The Tories voted against the Bill, claiming that quality contracts would ‘prevent free competition, undermining service quality’. Theresa Villiers, for the Conservatives, said that bus firms ‘have, in general, made a positive contribution’. Services had improved in London not because of regulation, she maintained, but because subsidy levels had increased.

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