Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend raises a couple of points that I shall come back to later. There are several anomalies in the distribution of this money and nowhere else in the country has suffered to the extent of Tyne and Wear. Meanwhile, because of the method of distribution, some authorities with lower public transport usage than Tyne and Wear will once more gain from the funding formula as my hon. Friend has just pointed out. Indeed, funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be found from this cache of money despite the fact that they already have fully funded schemes. My hon. Friend is right to point out that the Scilly Isles will receive a share, even though they do not have any bus services at all. The distribution of this money is therefore a nonsense and I hope that Ministers will accept that it has to be corrected. Ministers could correct the problem if they devised a system whereby funding went directly to the concessionary travel authorities through a specific grant. We could have a ring-fenced grant to transport authorities, with 75 per cent. allocated for the running of the scheme and 25 per cent. held back in a contingency to provide additional resources where the formula does not fully reflect the cost of concessionary journeys in any particular area. That would iron out many of the anomalies that we face today. The opportunity must also be taken to correct through the Bill the funding anomalies relating to Tyne and Wear, which I cannot stress too strongly. It is grossly unfair that Tyne and Wear should be put in the position in which it finds itself, so I ask the Minister to give an assurance in her wind-up speech that the acknowledged underfunding of Tyne and Wear will be addressed and that revised arrangements will be made for the distribution of funding in future. If she cannot give that assurance, will she then acknowledge that the introduction of the national scheme will leave Tyne and Wear at a severe disadvantage; that cuts in services and concessions to young people will have to continue; that the area will be denied the level playing field it needs when the scheme begins in 2008; and that we shall also be denied the Secretary of State’s comment earlier that this should be looked at as a floor rather than a ceiling, which will mean little to Tyne and Wear unless the funding formula is corrected?