My Lords, I shall address Amendments 85 and 86 tabled in my name. Once again these amendments are an attempt to firm up the Bill by ensuring that enhanced partnerships take into account the list of factors specified on page 39, which at the moment suggests that they “may specify” those factors. The list includes such fundamental things as tickets and entitlement to travel. We believe that enhanced partnerships have to take these into account. We are saying not that problems have to be solved in a particular way but that enhanced partnerships must take account of this. We are not prescribing the solutions.
Amendment 86 specifies that emission levels must be included in the factors that vehicles must meet and that disabled access arrangements must be taken into account. We have raised these issues before. Once again, this is a very basic reference to simple principles that really need to be taken into account in a Bill that will become an Act in 2016 and will probably suit the industry for the next 20 or 30 years, as the previous Act did. If we want to look ahead, we have to look at the society we are serving to ensure that the factors that are so important, such as emission levels, are considered in every circumstance, not just by the best operators and the most thoughtful local authorities.