Clause 1 - Eligibility for travel concessions: age
Travel Concessions (Eligibility) Bill [Lords]
10:45 am
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I have great pleasure in speaking to the four amendments that I have tabled, which form a logical set that is clear and straightforward. I hope that the Government will be able to accept them or, if not, that they will provide clear answers about how local authorities can be fully reimbursed for the costs of the travel concession scheme under the Bill.
In the past, there has been too much of a pattern of placing additional duties and burdens on local authorities without their being fully reimbursed for those obligations. I hope that the Committee will not impose another burden on local authorities. I emphasise that we welcome what is being done, but I want local authorities to be reimbursed.
The amendments are in a logical order. Amendment No. 6 would provide for the appropriate Minister to
``publish each year a breakdown of the cost of travel concession schemes by local authority area.''
That is pretty straightforward. We want to know what the scheme is costing each local authority area. Once that has been done, we want the Minister to publish each year when the revenue support grant is announced the proportion of revenue support grant for each local authority being allocated to meet the costs of the scheme. We want to know what cost each local authority has incurred and what amount the Government have reimbursed to them. That will enable us to see clearly whether each local authority has been fully reimbursed.
Next, we want the Minister in question to consult local authorities about the methodology for compensating them when there is a shortfall or surplus and we want to ensure that the methodology is correct. Finally, we want the Minister to ensure that the methodology fully compensates local authorities. On the face of it, that is a pretty straightforward request. We know, just for the record, that bus companies are to be fully reimbursed. The amendments in no way touch on that matter. The amendments are concerned purely with how the Government will reimburse local authorities.
The Government already spend £571 million on concessionary schemes of one form or another under the Transport Act 1985. The measure will cost the Government about £50 million. As the hon. Member for Bath said, the original calculation was for about £47 million. The Bill will affect 1 million men aged 60 to 64 who cannot use the concession scheme at present. Of those 1 million men, it is calculated that 147,000 are still at work, of whom 10 per cent. are in the disabled category. There are probably 127,000 men who travel regularly to work, which is particularly important for some local authorities.
The Bill will place an extra burden on authorities that deal with large numbers of commuters. I mentioned the matter on Second Reading, but I do not think that we received a full reply from the Minister. We need to cover the so-called generation factor in our discussion of the amendments. It is easy to calculate for retired people and disabled people who have a normal weekly journey pattern, but it may be less easy to calculate the effect of the Bill on local authorities dealing with large numbers of commuters.
On Second Reading, the Minister for Transport brushed us aside—I do not mean that in a critical sense—