Member

New clause 46, which I also tabled, relates to a growth duty. I want to give local leaders the tools they need to do the job. As I have said before in this place, it is wrong to pigeonhole local transport authorities as the place of sticking-plaster solutions. Success lies in active local leaders embracing a network-wide approach. That will inevitably mean tough decisions and trade-offs. It will sometimes mean the choice to enhance one route over supporting another, such as by increasing the frequency of a well-used existing service, extending the operating hours of a commercially viable bus or adding some extra stops at either end of a route. Given that we are about to have in primary legislation more obligations on socially necessary services, we should balance that with a duty in legislation for the LTA to consider using some public money to grow and improve its existing local bus services, because in the round that is the way we get better buses.