Local Transport Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am rather heartened by the Minister’s reply. He has the most seductive way of saying no and not accepting one’s amendment. He said that the Government did not want to accept the amendment ““at this time”” and I took considerable comfort from that emphasis. He referred, quite rightly, to the duty in the legislation on local transport authorities to have regard to the needs of all disabled persons, as well as to elderly people and those with mobility difficulties. I took the point that asking the Government to lay down regulations for charging schemes for the whole country in the abstract when there are only two schemes in prospect was probably asking a lot. The noble Lord also drew attention to the power in the Transport Act 2000 to make regulations. He indicated that the Government would be open to representations at some future time, when it might be appropriate to make regulations. In particular I was heartened by the Minister’s positive reception to my suggestion that there should be some investigation of the impact on disabled people of charging schemes as they came along, and of course I have every confidence that disabled people and their organisations would be happy to co-operate in conducting such investigations. For all those reasons and on that basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.