Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords. I do not have a great deal to add to my reservations on the previous amendment. The Bill is about expanding the geographical scope of concessionary travel, not adding new eligible groups, although I recognise the force of the presentation of the noble Lord, Lord Low. The noble Lord is right that this is a more marginal cost than the previous amendment, but our estimate amounted to about £10 million a year for carers. The term ““companion”” could of course be interpreted very widely, and our estimate of £10 million was in the context of a rather narrower concept of carer than that, heightening the importance of getting definitions right. We would also have to be fair about applications, with a robust system for assessing whether a disabled person required the assistance of a companion to travel on public transport services—otherwise, it could be wide open to extravagant claims. Who would qualify as an accompanying carer—a nominated person as specified on their pass, or a considerate and helpful fellow passenger? We would have to answer a lot of questions before we had a robust scheme in place. The noble Lord says that it will not cost too much. These matters never cost a great deal, although millions are millions. The noble Lord will recognise that it is unfair to say that Wales already has this. One of the sublime beauties of devolution is that countries will move at a different pace. If we say that devolution develops a fast engine at the front and everybody just hooks their wagon to it, that would reduce a great deal of our decision-making; we would just be following what has been done elsewhere, sometimes at quite considerable cost. I will not have that, particularly as local authorities have the power to be more extensive in their definitions. If they choose to do so, it would not then be fair to say that the whole nation must automatically follow suit. We have circumscribed these matters with relative powers by legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Low, will therefore recognise that the Bill generates substantial costs in extending concessionary travel across England. England is bound to be much more expensive than Wales because of its population and area. By the same token, it is much more expensive to do this in Scotland. There are large costs involved in this Bill, and there are therefore bound to be reservations about extending categories when the Bill is largely concerned with extending the concession to England. I hear what the noble Lord has said. I am certainly prepared to discuss this matter with him further—I cannot imagine that I would talk with him about the previous issue without him putting the case for this matter at some stage. I shall be prepared for that eventuality, and we shall see how those discussions work out. As it stands, however, I have some difficulty with the amendment, and hope that the noble Lord will at least withdraw it for today.