Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [Lords]

I am happy to consider the bus industry today and the future of public transport provision. When the Government get things wrong, as they frequently do, we will hold them to account. When they get things right, as with the Bill, we will support them in doing so. The introduction of a national scheme for concessionary bus fares for the old and disabled will be welcomed by people all around England. The extension of the scheme that the Government introduced two years ago in a blaze of glory ahead of the general election was essential. The first effort to extend free bus passes nationwide proved to be rather more limited than the headlines suggested, with travel limited to borough boundaries, which was not much use to people whose local shops, local hospital or the services that they needed to access were just across a borough boundary. I hope the Bill will remove such anomalies for the future. As ever, the devil is in the detail. Although the Bill has cross-party support, there are important points that have been raised on both sides of the House as to exactly how it will be put into practice and what the consequences will be. There are still areas of concern that need to be addressed by the Minister who is to wind up the debate. On funding, an issue raised by the Secretary of State, there are still aspects of the Government’s plans that remain unclear. The Under-Secretary has informed us on a number of occasions that from April 2008 the Government will be providing around £1 billion a year in total to fund concessionary travel. When she replies, may we have a little more explanation of how that is made up? The £350 million that was made available for local concessionary travel in 2006 has been topped up by £250 million as part of this package, making a total of £600 million today, but where does the extra £400 million come from and how will it be delivered? If the detailed work is being done now on the way in which the funding will be allocated, how can Ministers be sure that the £250 million figure is sufficient to meet all of the needs? Can they provide assurances that it will be enough to cover the costs of the scheme? The experience under the fares scheme introduced in April last year is that they did not get it right the first time round. We have already heard from some hon. Members how the 2006 scheme has affected their areas, but I will pick up on a couple of examples. During the recent Government consultation on the 2007-08 local government finance settlement, the Government received representations from 23 local authorities and local authority groups on the amount of funding for concessionary fares being insufficient to meet the costs of the scheme. We heard about the major issue in the north-east from the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland). The introduction of the scheme cost Tyne and Wear £5.4 million in the last financial year. It had to make £3.4 million-worth of cuts because the Government had underestimated the take-up of the scheme. There was a 24 per cent. rise in child concessionary fares, a 50 per cent. rise in the cost of teen travel tickets for 16 to 18-year-olds in further education, and the scrapping of 11 subsidised bus routes providing services to areas that benefited from no other forms of public transport. There is a similar situation at the other end of the country. In Christchurch, roughly 6 per cent. of the population is over the age of 60, the highest percentage of any local authority area in England or Wales. With the introduction of the 2006 local concessionary scheme, the Government increased the council’s grant figure by £237,000, while its total budget for concessionary fares was £395,000, including £20,000 of its own money. However, the take-up was even greater than anticipated, and 69 per cent. of those eligible have been issued with a pass. The £395,000 budget has been overspent by almost 100 per cent., equivalent to an 11 per cent. increase in the borough’s 2006-07 council tax. There is no point in giving our pensioners free bus travel if they just have to pay the bills through their council tax instead. It is not just local authorities that have had problems with the funding of the local concessionary scheme. Sixty appeals have been lodged with the Department for Transport by bus companies since the start of the local concessionary scheme, 45 of which remain unresolved. It is essential that the Government not only clarify exactly how much is being spent, how it will be broken down and how and where it will be allocated, but confirm and prove that they have sufficiently allowed for take-up in excess of expectation. How the money is allocated will be just as important as how much there will be. The Government have used the normal local authority grant to support the 2006 scheme of local concessionary bus fares. The local authority in which a concessionary journey begins will have to compensate the bus operator. However, if the Government reimburse local authorities according to their resident over-60 population, areas with large numbers of elderly visitors will end up with a large financial burden for which they will not be adequately compensated. Again, I hope that the Under-Secretary will address that when she replies, because it is a particular problem for holiday resorts that attract a large number of elderly visitors. If towns such as Brighton, Cleethorpes or Poole have a disproportionate number of elderly visitors, inevitably they will end up footing the bill for a much higher level of bus usage than will have been provided for under the grant that they receive. How do Ministers plan to address that issue? Let me touch on a number of issues related to the scope of the scheme. The Secretary of State will be aware of the pressure coming from a variety of sources to provide concessionary fares on other transport systems as well, such as trains and ferries. I am particularly aware of the representations being made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) about his constituents. I understand the problems that the Government would face in funding such an extended scheme, but when the Under-Secretary replies will she brief the House about the work that was done on the scope of the scheme and what assessments were carried out on the viability and costs of extending it to cover other local transport systems, such as trams and ferry links? In particular, can the Minister tell the House what assessment the Government have carried out of the cost of extending the scheme to cover community transport? Ministers will be aware of the valuable work done by our community transport sector. An underlying principle behind the Bill must be to help tackle social exclusion, but the reality is that some of the most socially excluded in the country are those who, for whatever reason, are unable to use public transport and for whom innovative community transport schemes are their only lifeline to the wider world. The truth is that the Government have decided to exclude community transport from the scheme. Will the Minister explain her approach to that issue?