My Lords, I shall now speak to Amendments 4 to 6, 15, 19, 21, 63, 64 and 66 in this group, which all deal with emissions from buses.
As I recognised during our debates in Committee, buses have a huge part to play in solving some of the country’s air quality problems and challenges and combating global warming. I share the desire of many noble Lords for low-emission buses to be adopted more widely, and I thank those noble Lords with whom I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue in more detail. I undertook in Committee to consider how the Bill could best achieve this outcome.
Amendments 4, 15 and 64 in my name make it explicit that emission standards can be specified as standards in partnership schemes or included in local service contracts in the context of franchising. Emission standards can be included in the schemes, thus giving local transport authorities flexibility to determine an approach that best suits their area.
I also wish to ensure—as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, urged me to do in Committee—that all local transport authorities that use the new powers properly consider the potential to achieve better environmental outcomes. The draft guidance, which was circulated last week, achieves this and provides important information about how the tools in the Bill link up with other government initiatives in this area.
I turn to the other amendments in the group. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, tabled Amendments 5, 21 and 63, which have a similar effect to my amendments. I therefore hope that, on reflecting on the government amendments, she will be minded not to press hers.
Amendments 6, 19 and 66, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would require all advanced quality partnership, franchising and enhanced partnership schemes to prescribe specifications previously used for the department’s low-emission bus scheme. These amendments sit somewhat uneasily with the devolutionary nature of the Bill. They would in part tie the hands of authorities looking to implement franchising, advanced quality partnerships or enhanced partnerships, requiring them to specify higher standards for vehicles than in other parts of the country—whether they have an air quality issue to address or not.
It is our view that this centralist approach would bring unnecessary additional costs that could make the difference between schemes being economically viable or not. The likely consequence is that many local transport authorities will simply not pursue the schemes at all.
I believe that this is an important issue—I know that that sentiment is shared across the House—but the Bill needs to strike the right balance between giving authorities the right tools for the job and not being overly prescriptive about how improvements are to be achieved. That is the objective of Amendments 4, 15 and 64, and I beg to move.