Bus Services Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2016-11-23
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I do support this amendment; my noble friend has set out the need for this confidential safety reporting very clearly. I do not accept the comment from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that rail and air accidents are complex and therefore need confidential safety reporting but that road is quite simple—you have an accident and it is quite clear who caused it There is also a marine confidential reporting system, which noble Lords may know about. You could argue that you hit something or you hit another ship and it is clear what the cause was, but I think that it is a slightly simplistic argument. We are talking about a confidential reporting system that may include something that is wrong with the equipment—whether ship or aeroplane—that a person is operating. There may be something he or she feels that their employer should have done something about and has not. One likes to think that, with confidential reporting, that could be put right without employees’ putting their jobs at risk. That does not always happen but in other sectors such a provision is an incentive to report issues. I think the systems are exactly the same as between air, road, rail and marine. As my noble friend said, it is interesting to note that confidential reporting has worked well with the railways. Indeed, she has changed the amendment to reflect the situation that operates on the railways A few years ago, both the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I tried to get the Office of Rail and Road, as it is now called, to take responsibility for road safety on the trunk road network and the motorways in the same way as it does for the rail network. We argued that the conditions on the respective networks were much the same. That office had the expertise not just to say, when investigating an accident, that things could be done better, but to go into all the information, statistics and safety rules and bring in one consistent policy, at least for road and rail. I argue that air and marine are slightly different areas but road and rail are very similar land surface forms of transport I consider that the confidential reporting mechanism gives comfort to drivers and other staff employed on buses. They are mostly operated by one person, the driver, so we are talking about just drivers. I think that it would also give comfort to passengers. It is evident that most London bus services are extremely good. However, I think that other bus operators sometimes put their drivers under pressure to bend the rules, whether on drivers’ hours, speeding or not looking after their passengers properly. If confidential reporting were in place, people would have the ability to make complaints if they wished to do so. It would also give operators an incentive not to abuse the system and to improve the quality of journeys generally, which is what this whole Bill is about My noble friend said that bus operators in London have introduced confidential reporting. That is wonderful but there is no reason why London bus passengers or employees should be treated any differently from those in the rest of the country. Another reason for introducing this Bill is to bring the quality of services in other parts of the country in line with that of the service in London This is a good amendment which we have discussed several times at various stages. Frankly, if the Minister rejects it now, I would have to ask him whether the Government consider that bus accidents, bad driving by bus drivers or bad quality of bus services—buses are a form of public transport, as are rail, ferries or air transport—and the necessity of having good-quality, safe bus services are less important for buses than for other forms of transport, perhaps because not so many Members of your Lordships’ House travel by bus as by other forms of transport. I hope that is not the case. However, if the amendment were rejected, that would be my perception. As I say, this is a good amendment and I support it.