Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [Lords]

I have a slight sense of déjà vu because some years ago, perhaps even before Ministers had thought about a concessionary scheme for England, I, like all my Conservative colleagues in the Welsh Assembly, defended and supported wholeheartedly the initiation of such a scheme in Wales. We supported it then and we support it now because the Conservative party has always believed that the public have the right to choose to use safe, efficient and reliable forms of public transport. While large amounts of tax are raised from car fuel, the public are unfortunately not given the proper choice of catching buses instead. They deserve such a choice and the situation needs to be reversed. This scheme is good for everyone, not just the over-60s who will be entitled to a bus pass. If demand for bus services increases, especially in rural areas, it is likely that more services will be laid on. The scheme is thus good for anyone who wishes to use public transport. It is good for car users, too, because if more people use buses, roads will be less congested. If the scheme is properly managed, we will have a win-win-win situation for all those who use transport to get from A to B, which is virtually all of us. The key factor is whether the scheme is properly managed. Several unexpected problems arose after the scheme was introduced in Wales. Many people will be aware of the market town of Chepstow, which is on the border of my constituency. Chepstow itself is in Wales, in the county of Monmouthshire. However, part of Chepstow is on the English side of the border. Pensioners who live in the Welsh part of Chepstow in the constituency of Monmouth receive a free bus pass that they may use to travel as far as Hereford, which, of course, is in England—Owain Glyndwr did not get quite that far. However, people who live in Tidenham, which is just across the river and somewhat on the outskirts of Chepstow, cannot get hold of a free bus pass to travel into the towns in Wales in which many of them do their shopping. They will not be able to do so after the introduction of the scheme under the Bill because the cross-border problems have not been sorted out. When the Minister considers funding, I hope that one of her first actions will be to try to ensure that a scheme is introduced whereby people can use their passes throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. As an unashamed Unionist, I am disappointed that people will be restricted to their constituent nations, rather than be able to exercise their right to travel the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. They have paid their taxes over the years for such a right. The scheme in Wales gave rise not just to cross-border issues, but to enormous problems involving the allocation of funding, many of which have been mentioned today. Some local authorities have received more funding than they might have been expected to get, whereas other received less. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) eloquently set out the way in which such funding inequalities can arise. I am a bit of a cynic, and I have suggested before that formulas have sometimes been used in a particular way, quite deliberately, to benefit certain local authorities at the expense of others for political reasons. I have certainly seen that happen in Wales and I want to ensure that people in England are protected from that. What can possibly be unfair about suggesting that Ministers look at the formula in two years’ time to ensure that everything is being done in an equitable manner? If nothing else, that will protect existing bus services, and protect people from inordinate rises in council tax, such as those that have taken place over the past 10 years. As I have said before—I will repeat it quite a few times in the years ahead—council tax has risen by 184 per cent. over the past 10 years in Monmouthshire. Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon talked about a doubling of council tax, but my constituents would have been absolutely delighted if their council tax had merely doubled. Many of them are struggling to pay their mortgages. Many other problems have arisen in Wales as unexpected consequences of the Act. In some areas, a sort of impromptu park-and-ride scheme has developed; people drive into towns—often, I am told, in their Mercedes-Benz—and park on outlying streets, and then use the local bus service to ride into town. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a free country, and everyone would support people’s right to do that. However, it means that the local authority to which those people apply for their concessionary pass ends up getting lots of funding, while the local authority that pays for them to use the buses does not. That is one example of the sort of iniquity that could arise in the funding formula. We need to make sure that the Government are aware of all those problems, and the many others that are likely to arise, and we need to ensure that they have the means with which to deal with them. If they fail to deal with the problems, there will be a reduction in services, which is what all of us are fighting against. There is also the issue of rural areas. Many rural areas have to subsidise all or most of the bus routes that are in place. I believe that all rural areas are grossly disadvantaged by virtually every funding formula used by the Government. I am sorry to have to say it, and perhaps the Minister will like to argue the point, but I see that as very much a political decision. For example, in the county of Monmouthshire, the funding formula that is used to fund local government generally used to take proper account of sparsity, and that is absolutely right, because of course it always costs more to deliver services in a rural area, where there are much greater distances for buses, or any other services, to travel. The last funding formula change reduced much of the weighting that was given to take account of sparsity. It also resulted in sparsity being calculated with reference to how long it takes to get from A to B, not by road, but as the crow flies. That meant that many isolated rural communities were counted almost as part of urban conurbations under the formula, and the local authority lost out as a result. That sort of subtle change, which most people could not be expected to pick up on, has been deliberately used to disadvantage rural areas. We do not want the same thing to happen with the formula used for allocating money for transport. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon—the Front-Bench spokesman for transport—has not suggested that there is anything wrong with the scheme; he merely suggested that it would be wise of the Government to consult the Local Government Association in two years’ time to make sure that the money is being allocated in a fair and reasonable fashion. It puzzles me that anyone would argue that that is not the wise and sensible thing to do. I say again that it could prevent bus services from being cut, prevent council taxes from rising, and ensure that local authorities are listened to, in a system in which there is accountability. That is why all those in the House who care about supporting bus services should support new clause 3 this afternoon.