Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point—I intend to make exactly the same one later. From my experience as a local councillor, I remember the standards fund for, for example, education. We were expected as a local authority to introduce new measures and we were funded for three years. The funding was taken away but we were expected to continue with those measures. The implications for the local authority’s finances were clear. Let me consider the 2006 scheme, which was the forerunner of the 2008 scheme that the Bill introduces. The 2006 concessionary travel scheme made concessionary travel available to eligible persons on eligible services in local travel concessionary areas. The Government stated that they had made enough money available to local authorities to fund that scheme fully. Early last year, I contacted 15 local authorities to ascertain whether, according to their estimates and calculations, the Government had introduced that funding. When we phoned, for example, Brighton and Hove council, it said that the central Government grant that it is due to receive is considerably less than the consultants’ forecast of the new concession’s cost.