Lord Moylan (Con)

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will be grateful to the Minister and acknowledge his decision to accept the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. In relation to this group, I gave notice to the Minister that there were two questions I was going to ask him, so that I could hear what he had to say at the Dispatch Box before we decided our attitude to these amendments. He has dealt with the first one already. It is very important that he has stated at the Dispatch Box that the measure is to apply to all local bus services, whether franchised, privately operated or run by a local authority bus company that is directly owned and a subsidiary, and that there is nothing here that discriminates against or disadvantages private bus companies. I have heard what the Minister says and I am grateful and glad to be able to note that. My second was more in the nature of a question, and it is a very important consideration. We have a bus manufacturing industry in this country. We make quite a lot of buses and we are quite good at it. We employ a reasonable number of people in the manufacture of buses. When all buses are going to be zero emission, what assurances do we have that British industry will be in a position to make zero-emission buses in the numbers required, and that the outcome of this measure will not be a flooding of Britain with Chinese or other buses made overseas, to the detriment of good British jobs and businesses? Understanding the department’s view on where this path is taking us in relation to manufacturing and employment is increasingly to the fore in the minds of people considering the net-zero journey, if I may call it that. So the views of the Minister and the department on that will be of crucial importance to us.