Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [HL]

My Lords, as chairmanof the Local Government Association, I seek clarification from the noble Lord, Lord Davies. We very much support the Bill and the concessionary fares scheme. We believe that it is beneficial and desirable. It was effectively administered by local authorities in the change from half to full fare in April 2006 and we look forward to the 2008 national scheme. There is an issue of payment and the issue of principle. In introducing a free concessionary fare scheme, we assume—I feel sure—that the Government were not saying simply that it would be free as you get on the bus but you pay the extra through your council tax. However, in places such as Tewkesbury, a 9 per cent increase in council tax above the cap is being talked about because of the pressure of payment on concessionary fares. We are also seeing the pressure in places such as Newcastle. The first point of principle was that adopted by the Deputy Prime Minister and the local government Minister in his Statement to the other place in November 2005, when he introduced the ““new burdens”” mechanism. That stated clearly that spending departments would pay the full cost of new legislation. First, can we have a recommitment from the Minister to that principle of what the Government called the new burdens policy? Secondly, we assume that that covers both the revenue cost and the capital start-up cost. We then come to the point introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and my noble friend Lord Hanningfield about distribution. That is not easy and we are not seeing consistency across the country. Because we cannot judge demand and do not know what the inflation costs of the bus fares will be—at the moment, they are rising at about 10 per cent a year—we believe that in the first instance, perhaps in the first two years, the best mechanism is simply a reimbursement scheme; the automatic repayment to local authorities on costs that are verified by their independent external auditors. That would be fair. After two years, when we understand the distribution and the demand across the country, we could change back to a block-grant scheme. Will the Minister confirm who will administer this? I think that the Bill still leaves room for this to be administered either nationally or regionally and locally because of the Government’s commitment to devolving. Will the Minister confirm that it will be administered locally? Finally, some very effective working groups have been set up between the Local Government Association and the Department for Transport, and the Local Government Association has pressed for the mechanisms and the procedures to be known soon. We did ask early in 2007 whether we could know those so we could get on and plan for the new scheme, to which, as I say, we very much look forward.