Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [Lords]

This is clearly an excellent Bill that commands the support of the whole House. I hope that it will benefit those who receive the specific benefits of the Bill, as well as being a turning point in the recovery of our bus networks, which must be a wider object of policy for every Member of Parliament. I admired the skill shown by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) in giving his colleagues little holiday projects, although I hope that his example will not be taken up too widely in the House. He was correct to say that the heart of the matter is how the extra benefits will be paid for. He was also right to draw attention to variations across the country, which have a clear root. Car ownership, pensioner incomes and the density of bus networks all vary across the country, and those factors produce a dramatic variation in the financial consequences of the concessions being offered to pensioners. That variation affects Tyne and Wear very particularly. Car ownership in the county is probably the lowest outside London in mainland Britain. Pensioner incomes are among the lowest in the country and the density of bus networks is therefore greater than anywhere outside London. The effect of the offer of concessions is therefore much greater than in other areas. Nexus, the passenger transport executive in Tyne and Wear, has told me that the number of bus trips per year per head of population is 186 in London, 124 in Tyne and Wear, 109 across the generality of the metropolitan counties and only 33 in the rest of England. However, I acknowledge the force of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Ms Barlow) that there are areas outside the metropolitan counties that have dense bus networks and high take-up of concessionary passes.