Byers backs plan to go it alone on the buses; Give Merseytravel extra powers, says ex-minister.

Byline: BY ROB MERRICK Political Correspondent

EX-TRANSPORT Secretary Stephen Byers has thrown his weight behind Merseyside's bid for "London-style" powers to decide bus routes and fares.

The former Cabinet minister joined a new Commons campaign to allow England's big cities to take back responsibilities controversially handed to private bus operators 20 years ago.

For years, the Department for Transport (Dft) has refused to re-regulate buses outside London, insisting local authorities must for "quality partnerships" with the bus firms.

Mr Byers, who ran the Dft for a year after the 2001 election, is the most high-profile figure to back the campaign by backbench Labour MPs to rein in private operators.

And his intervention is significant because Mr Byers is an "ultra-Blairite", traditionally hostile to any policy that can be attacked as "Old Labour".

The former Transport Secretary yesterday put his name to a backbench Bill to "gain for the rest of metropolitan England what London already has".

Although the Bill has no chance of becoming law because of a lack of Parliamentary time, it increases pressure on the Dft to rethink its hostility to re-re gulation.

And it comes just days after Merseytravel's plans to control the bus network - to prevent passengers being "at the mercy of the bus companies" - were delivered to the department.

Under Merseytravel's plans, operators would only be allowed to work on routes that meet a strict set of criteria it lays down.

That criteria would include stipulating frequency of service, age of vehicle and specifications within it, and limit timetable changes to an absolute minimum.

Since bus deregulation in 1986, operators have been able to launch routes and change their timetables with just 56 days' notice.

The Passenger Transport Authorities (Regulation) Bill, which is spearheaded by former agriculture minister Nick Brown, would greatly strengthen the regulatory role of the PTAs in regions such as Merseyside.

They - rather than bus companies - would receive direct grants from the Dft and would be allowed to form partnerships with neighbouring authorities within "travel-to-work" areas.

Mr Brown said deregulation meant the Government's drive to increase bus use had - outside London - been a miserable failure.

Instead of increasing bus use, the aims of the private operators were to cut costs, reduce services and seek more lucrative subsidy.

An elected Northwest assembly was promised the power to choose bus operators and routes, but a planned referendum was axed two years ago.

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Stephen Byers