Member

What my noble friend Lord Effingham is suggesting is a very relevant exercise. The Government are changing the bus fare cap from £2 to £3. I think everyone would agree that it is a significant change—a 50% uplift—and my noble friend is calling for a proper study of that. It would give us a case study of what is happening in the next few months, in real time. If we do not take advantage of such opportunities, where we see dramatic shifts in fare levels that we can time and study before and after, we will not learn what we want to know about the effect of fares on passenger demand. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, suggests that it is not a priority for passengers and that there are other, more important things. He has experience and he may be right, but other studies may show that it really is determinative. This is one thing that the Minister should agree to, because we could all learn a great deal from it, and these difficult discussions for politicians would be very much better informed.