Speeches by Berry.

“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I will speak primarily about my amendments 29 to 31, but I will also say a few words about clause 31. Amendment 29 would amend clause 30(1), which concerns the guidance for stopping places for bus stops. It is a very good clause, but my amendment woul…”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.”

“This cruel mistake of a Bill must fall today. The reasons in the amendment tabled by the Green party stand, and with my colleagues I will vote to stop it on Second Reading and support the reasoned amendment tabled by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). The proposals are a mess, the timetable is breaknec…”

“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish the right to breathe clean air; to require the Secretary of State to achieve and maintain clean air in England; to make provision about environmental targets and minimum standards in relation to clean air; to make provision about the powers, duties and …”

“The shadow Minister was looking at me while making those points, and I agree that our parties have very different philosophies on this issue. The circumstances that he has just described as “cosy” relationships that are improper, are ones that I characterised earlier as public money being invested in building up a mark…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Desmond. I am delighted to present a number of amendments to clause 13. The clause should be in the Bill; I can clearly see why we would want to directly award a contract to an incumbent to keep an existing contract going. This seems to me to be the ideal pla…”

“I beg to move amendment 34, in clause 13, page 8, line 5, after “operators” insert— “or local government bus companies”. This amendment, along with Amendments 35, 36 and 37, would mean that franchising authorities may directly award public services contracts to local government bus companies.”

“I just want to give an example in which “may” is more appropriate. Proposed new subsection (5A)(a) and (b) talk about a local service that is provided. If a local transport authority is building out a planned network and, in the very near future, a service will be introduced in an area, it may want to prevent disruptio…”

“Amendment 46 would remove the requirement for the service not to have an adverse effect on local services. Bearing in mind what the shadow Minister said about the impossibility of commercial viability for some rural services or non-radial routes in cities, is it correct that the amendment would allow commercial entitie…”

“I do not. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.”

“Oh, apologies.”

“On a point of clarification, clause 14 adds proposed new subsection (15)(b) to section 138A of the Transport Act. The measure is quite specific that a current service is envisaged—it refers to a service “if cancelled”. Amendment 38 would respond to that by making sure that recently cancelled services were covered. Such…”

“I am pleased to move an amendment that both I and Liberal Democrat colleagues had the idea of. The Liberal Democrats have withdrawn their version of the amendment, but we are essentially aiming at the same thing: to be specific in proposed new section 138A of the 2000 Act by specifically naming healthcare services, sch…”

“I beg to move amendment 39, in clause 14, page 9, line 32, after “activities,” insert— “(iv) health care services, or (v) schools and other educational institutes,”. This amendment would include services which enable people to access health or educational services in the definition of ‘socially necessary local services…”

“I do not; I just hope that the Government realise what I was trying to do. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Clause 14 Socially necessary local services”

“I very much appreciate that my amendments would do different things from clause 13, and I also appreciate that the Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023 provide the ability to make a direct award to an internal operator at other times. However, I worry that if we do not make sure that we have that ab…”

“For clarity, the intention behind my amendments is not to allow for incumbent operators that are local government bus companies to be added to the Bill; it is to ensure, completely separately, that any local bus company at any time, or an incumbent operator, can be given a direct award.”

“To clarify, amendment 72 is not my amendment.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. This is not my first Public Bill Committee, but I will certainly benefit from your guidance on the particulars of the proceedings. In general, I am a big fan of the Bill. I am a bus person at heart. Wherever I go in the country, I make a point of taking the bus…”

“On the proscription of Palestine Action, I remind the Minister that there are number of recent examples of juries finding defendants, in cases similar to the Brize Norton incident, not guilty based on a necessity defence, as people believed they were acting from a desire to prevent war crimes. Given those juries were c…”