Rebels snubbed
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The Government has a majority of nine on the committee which was expected to start work on Thursday and spent the morning discussing how often the committee should meet.
But when it gets down to serious business on Tuesday next week, the MPs should have available the report of the all-party transport select committee into the financing of public transport, which is expected to produce a damning report on the Government's plans.
The Government delayed the start of the committee stage to allow the report to be read, but it was not expected to be agreed by MPs until Wednesday this week.
It did decide to publish the evidence the same day, but printing difficulties means that the report should be available for Tuesday.
As CM went to press no amendments to the Bill had been put down. The leading Tory rebel, Wellingborough MP Peter Fry, said he believed there would be a lot of sensible amendments, He had been approached by a number of organisations including the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, Tyne and Wear County Council and also members of the House of Lords.
One problem was whether the amendments that he wanted to see would be discussed, depending on how long the Government would be prepared to let the committee stage run before introducing the guillotine.
He warned there could be considerable changes in the Lords.
The key issue was still the amount of money. Even stripping out London Regional Transport — the Government plans to cut subsidies from £200m to £69m — "a hell of a drop".
He believed that the Government would be unable to keep it down at that level.