Member

Amendment 30, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, deals with the word “reasonably”. That word always brings him to mind whenever I hear it. The amendment would narrow the circumstances in which the Secretary of State could temporarily continue an existing franchise. Those circumstances are already very narrow: the power is available only where, in the Secretary of State’s opinion, it would not be “reasonably practicable” for the public sector operator to take over services when the existing franchise ends.