§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ 1.52 p.m.
§ Mr. Bob Brown (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am grateful to the House for giving me the opportunity to move the Second Reading of this Bill, and in so doing I cannot but reiterate what I said when I was given leave to introduce the Bill and pay another tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short). My right hon. Friend persisted for many years, in face of objections from right hon. Gentlemen opposite who blocked his Travel Concessions Bill for a long time. He had to wait until 1964 and the return of a Labour Government to see an injustice, particularly for the old folk, put right. I sincerely hope that right hon. and hon. Members opposite will not wish to object to my Bill today.
There is no doubt that many thousands of old and disabled people who benefited from the Travel Concessions Act, 1964, are extremely grateful for the concessions which it made possible. However, like many good Acts of Parliament, that Measure has revealed anomalies in operation. Although it has been a great boon to many thousands of old-age pensioners and disabled people, it is operating unfairly against thousands of others, and this is what the present Bill would put right.
I give the House an example. In my constituency, every qualified disabled person or old person—the qualifying age is 60 for a woman and 65 for a man—now enjoys the benefit of concessions granted by the Newcastle City Council. Across the road, however, still within the boundaries of my constituency, there live about 4,000 qualified people within the area of the Newburn Urban District Council. That figure can only be an estimate because it is impossible to get accurate figures, but I assume that there are about 4,000 people there who, if they lived on the other side of the road within the City of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. would benefit from concessions under the 1964 Act. 903 The area of Newburn District Council is served by Newcastle Corporation transport and by private transport operators operating along the same route. The local authority service is augmented by a private service. Because of the terms of the 1964 Act, however, the local council is precluded from paying any subsidy in respect of a private bus operator, so that people living on a route which is served entirely by a private operator are precluded for ever as the Act stands. One of the Clauses of my Bill would put that anomaly right.
To illustrate the second anomaly, I again use the example of the Newburn area. The council can pay a subsidy for corporation transport in respect of that part of a journey within the boundaries of the urban district. A qualified person, on reaching the boundary of the Newcastle City Council has to pay the full fare. This is a ridiculous state of affairs, and, as I said in my Ten Minute Rule speech, it is being used as a peg on which local authorities can hang their hat and evade acceptance of their responsibility to provide the concessions which the 1964 Act empowers them to give.
The same applies to the Newbiggin Hall estate. Although this is not in my constituency, I feel some moral responsibility for the 500 or so old folk living there because every one of them was formerly resident in the City of Newcastle, and many of them were, indeed, resident within my own constituency. These people take it badly that, as a result of the city council's redevelopment proposals, they are compelled to move outside the city boundaries so that, after having enjoyed travel concessions there for about two and a half years, they are now deprived of them. This takes some explaining to elderly people, and they feel strongly about it.
I am grateful for the support I have had from the Newbiggin Hall Labour Party on this matter. If I had received the same goodwill from the Castle Ward Rural District Council, which administers the estate, the plight of the old folk of Newbiggin Hall would have been greatly improved. I take a poor view of a rural district council which delegates to its clerk the duty of making excuses for its failure to offer concessions 904 to its elderly people living on the Newbiggin Hall estate, using the medium of the correspondence columns of the local Press to do so. Unfortunately, the clerk simply has not understood the existing law. He wrote a letter to the Newcastle Evening Chronicle saying that if the council provided concessions to these old people of Newbiggin Hall estate, they would have to pay an increased fare. Clearly he does not understand the Act, because the Act lays it down clearly that concessions can be made consisting of free travel or anything between free travel and the full fare. Surely if the administrators of the Newbiggin Hall estate—that is, the Castle Ward Rural District Council—were to give the concession of free fares there would be no question at all of the old folk on the estate having to pay more.
If I may be so bold as to hope that I shall have the support of my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, may I point out that any amending legislation is made much more difficult by the type of agreement which at present operates between the private bus company operators and local authority operators. There is the anomalous situation in which along the same route one can have a corporation transport undertaking operating and two private bus operators and on that route there can be two different forms of agreement between the local authority undertaking and the private bus operator. I appeal to local authorities who run their services in conjunction with private operators to get down to the job of establishing a common operating agreement throughout the country, because I am certain that it would make it much easier for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to get on to amending legislation quickly if local authorities nationally achieved a common operating agreement.
I do not want to repeat at great length any of the points which I made when I first introduced the Bill. While I have specifically mentioned old-age pensioners, the present Act makes no reference to old-age pensioners. It refers to men over 65 years of age and women over 60 years of age as being qualified persons under the Act. Nevertheless, all of us in considering the matter have old-age pensioners in mind, because, by and large, 905 these are the people who experience hardship when they are moved from the centre of a city, where they have spent all their lives, where they have brought up their families and where they have seen their grandchildren grow up and are put like expendable material five, six, seven or eight miles from the city centre. Moreover, instead of having to pay the bus fares to which they were accustomed in the city, say 2d. or 3d., they are faced with fares of Is. 6d. or perhaps ls. 10d. if they want to get back into the area where they have lived all their lives and of which they feel a part. These are the people for whom I make a particular plea.
§ 2.4 p.m.
§ Mr. David Winnick (Croydon, South)I begin by offering my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown) on his splendid initiative in bringing the Bill forward. My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport should make it clear in the debate that the Government are willing to accept the Bill because I believe—and this view is shared by my hon. Friends—that the Bill is necessary not only in the provinces but also in the Greater London area.
I want to speak, in particular, about the Greater London area. For some time people concerned with the welfare of the elderly and the retired in the Greater London area, in the London boroughs, have been trying to devise some machinery whereby elderly retired people could have reduced fares on London Transport buses. A number of London boroughs have taken this matter up with the London Transport organisation but—and this is one of the reasons why I am making this speech—I am afraid that, so far at least, there has been no concession on the part of London Transport. In the Greater London area it is virtually impossible for retired people to get reduced fares on London's buses or trains, and that is why I am in favour of the Bill.
If it is impossible for London Transport to make this concession, obviously a change in the law is needed. The Act which came into operation shortly after the Labour Government entered office was excellent in so far as it allowed local authorities which run their own 906 transport undertakings to introduce this form of reduced fare, but that does not alter the fact that not only in places mentioned by my hon. Friend but also in the Greater London area where local authorities are not responsible for running London Transport this concession does not apply.
I remember that a year or so ago, when I was a member of the Council of the London Borough of Brent, we made representations to London Transport. My hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) will support me in what I am saying. In all fairness to London Transport, they said that they would supply tickets in bulk which could be received by the local authority at a discount of 10 per cent., but basically this does not solve the problem, which can be solved only by elderly people being granted reduced fares on London Transport. The view of the Borough of Brent was that it would be extremely difficult to arrange this from an administrative point of view.
Obviously there is a need for new machinery and therefore a need for an extension of the existing Act. Sometimes the argument is advanced that what is required is that elderly retired people should have a fair income and that they should not need this sort of concession. It is argued that this is not the way to deal with the problem. I should be the last to argue that retired people should not have an adequate income, and I am pleased with the progress which has been made since the present Government came into office, with the substantial increase in pensions and the social security minimum which came into operation last November. But I do not accept the argument put forward by some people because I feel that it will be a long time—and most of us are realistic enough to appreciate this—before the majority of elderly people are anywhere near the sort of income that we should like them to have.
That will be a long-term operation, and in the meantime I am in favour of making the kind of concession which makes life easier and more tolerable for the elderly and retired. We have a situation in parts of the country, and certainly in Croydon, where elderly people find it virtually impossible, because of the fare, to visit their relatives 907 and friends six or 10 miles away. They cannot afford what to them is a substantial fare. For example, New Addington, a part of my constituency, is six or eight miles from the central part of Croydon, and the fare from New Addington to the centre of Croydon is 1s. 6d.—3s. for the return journey. It is virtually impossible for many of my constituents living in New Addington to travel to Croydon frequently, let alone to travel further away than the London Borough of Croydon. So there is a need and a great justification for some kind of machinery whereby the present Act could be extended to cover the Greater London area.
In the last few months I have received quite a number of letters from retired people and from various branches of the old-age pensioners' association pressing me to support this sort of Measure. I am certain that the feelings of retired people in many parts of the country are the same as those of people who live in my constituency.
I am willing to concede the point—and I hope my hon. Friend will not mind my saying this—that the Bill which he has introduced may not be the ideal solution for the Greater London area. What I said at the beginning is quite valid, that if the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary feel that the Bill is not the solution, I hope that the Government will take up the Measure and will introduce an extension to the existing Act within the next six months. A number of hon. Members have raised this matter and the Minister has replied. I do not have the quotation from HANSARD, but she replied stating that the matter is in hand and that she is urgently reviewing the position. That is fair enough, and I expect great things from my right hon. Friend after her great victory yesterday. She has been active in other matters. At the same time I hope that there will not be a long delay before the Government make up their minds and before an extension to the existing Act is introduced.
I conclude by saying that there is no doubt that there is a need to extend the Act either by the Government taking up the Measure or by the present Bill becoming law. Elderly retired people in all parts of the country should be able to 908 receive some assistance, during off-peak hours with their travelling. This is only right and just. I therefore give my hon. Friend my full support.
§ 2.12 p.m.
§ Mr. Tony Gardner (Rushcliffe)I should also like to add my support to the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) must have been referring to me when he raised the argument about the general financial position of pensioners. I was one of those who had grave doubts about the kind of concessions which the 1964 Act provided. There is a grave danger, in looking merely for concessions, that we may overlook the main intention, which is to provide all retired people, and indeed anyone else who falls by the wayside in our community, with a reasonable standard of living. I am sure the House would agree that it is important in a free society not merely that people should have this standard of living, but that they should have freedom of choice in the way in which they make use of what is available to them.
Two things have made me change my mind and have caused me to support the Bill. The first is that the 1964 Act clearly is operating unfairly between one group of retired people and another. Secondly, we are coming to realise, even more so today than in 1964, how very rapidly the whole urban scene is changing. We are seeing very quickly the break-up of old communities. We are seeing people drifting apart, moving out into new communities, perhaps in one local authority area, outside the city boundaries, and going into new towns.
Like my hon. Friend, I represent, to some extent, a fringe area, an area which covers two district authorities, but bordering on a very large city. The kind of problems to which he referred affect my own constituency, particularly in the urban disctrict of Beeston and Stapleford. We had exactly the same kind of problem with the Nottingham City transport department which provides concessions side-by-side with private operators. I hope therefore that we can get this kind of concession going.
I am more and more disturbed at the way in which our community is drifting apart. We have to travel much further, not only to work but also to visit friends 909 and relatives, to visit places of entertainment, and to places of worship. It is quite a problem for the vast majority if us. We are now becoming much more mobile. More and more of us own motor cars and think nothing of travelling long distances to work, to entertainment, and to visit our friends.
But there is this very important and substantial minority in our community, the elderly people. I was very impressed, during the election campaign last year, by the number of old people I met who were only too pleased to meet one simply because it was someone to talk to. Sometimes they had not seen their relatives for weeks, for months, or for years. This awful problem of loneliness would make any hon. Member, canvassing, in an election or between elections in surgeries and on general visits, almost weep. This is real suffering brought about simply because our communities are splitting up.
It is not only a question of providing these kind of facilities, but also of providing those vital facilities that elderly people make use of, such as visits to clinics and chiropodists. It was brought home to me in the last few weeks, when I took up with my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General the question of provision of sub-post office facilities on a large housing estate, the very large number of elderly people who had moved away from the centre of the town and who, although they were happy with their attractive new homes, were unhappy at being taken away from friends and relatives, and even more unhappy about the difficulty in drawing pensions and supplementary benefits, and about going to the chiropodist and clinics.
All these problems were made very much more difficult simply because my own local authority had engaged very sensibly in housing development and in providing special facilities for elderly people. But unfortunately those facilities were a long way away from the town centre.
We do not know what recommendations will be made by the Royal Commission on Local Government, or what the House will decide about local government when the recommendations are made. But clearly the problem of overlapping authorities and overlapping transport facilities will increase, and I hope that 910 my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will have some good news for us when he replies to the debate. I hope that if it is good news the House will enable the Bill to become law in the shortest possible time.
§ 2.18 p.m.
§ Mr. Laurence Pavitt (Willesden, West)There is a rightness in the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown) in that I am one of those hon. Members who can recall so well the excellent fight put up year after year by his colleague from Newcastle the present Postmaster-General, on the starting point of this Bill. I therefore congratulate him riot only on introducing a first-class Bill but on following the worthy traditions of that part of the world.
The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) expressed a point of view which is very prevalent in my constituency of Willesden, West, which is part of the London Borough of Brent. The Parliamentary Secretary will recall that he recently replied to me in connection with a deputation that I had received from the Stonebridge old-age pensioners' organisation. About 400 members were campaigning very vigorously, and I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for the helpful reply which he sent to me on that occasion.
Those of us who live in the Greater London area are not able at present to do as much as we would like to do. The London Borough of Brent endeavoured to take this matter as far as it possibly could with the London Transport Executive. It was able to do that only because it had at that time recently acquired autonomous powers following the London Government Bill. This would have been a matter for the Middlesex County Council. I am certain that a number of boroughs in the Greater London area are in the same position as my own, wanting to do more for their elderly people than they are at present able to do, and the Bill will enable them to go on with the kind of job they have in mind.
I would emphasise the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) on the subject of loneliness. I have a special interest in health matters, as the House knows. One of the great problems with elderly 911 people is breaking down the feeling that they want to withdraw into themselves, that they do not ant to go out because it becomes an effort and a burden. We can do what we like with social security, meals on wheels and other schemes to try to make their lives a little fuller and more in the present and less in the past, but loneliness is something for which we cannot legislate. We cannot give people company and friendship by passing an Act of Parliament.
However, what my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne, West has done is the next best thing—facilitating the ways in which loneliness can be broken down. On that ground alone I hope not only that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will give us good news about the Bill but that the whole House will applaud its intention, and that hon. Members will seek not only to pass the Bill but to do all they can in their constituencies and work to further the intentions that my hon. Friend has had in promoting the Bill.
§ 2.21 p.m.
§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler)I intervene to give the Government's view on the Bill put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West (Mr. Bob Brown) before the House comes to a decision on the Second Reading. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this Bill on Second Reading. He is in the strong tradition of those from the North-East Coast who, in this House, have agitated for the granting of travel concessions, as I shall mention in the course of giving a little history about the background to the Bill.
The history of the legislation on travel concessions is interesting. Many municipal undertakings have built up over many years a strong tradition of granting free travel or reduced fares to various classes of travellers on their municipal buses, not only children but old-age pensioners, the blind, the disabled, and others. When we examine the history, we find that this practice went undisputed until 1955 when it was successfully challenged in the courts in a case against Birmingham Corporation as having insufficient authority in law. It was because of that decision that all municipal 912 authority concessions were placed in jeopardy.
Then my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short), the present Postmaster-General, 12 years ago introduced his first Private Member's Bill. At that time it would, if passed, have secured for all local authorities the powers to grant these concessions on municipal transport which they had until that case thought that they could grant. But the Government of that day were prepared to go only so far as to confirm the powers of the municipal authorities for the concessions that they were then granting, and my right hon. Friend's Bill, with the then Government's support, passed in that form to become the Travel Concessions Act, 1955.
I am very glad to say that this by no means satisfied many Labour and progressive authorities which wished to see an extension of the powers to grant concessionary fares. Thus, one of the first acts of the present Government when they came to power in October, 1964, was to introduce a Bill which restored to local authorities their freedom to arrange for these concessions on municipal transport. That Bill was very quickly passed, and became, I think the first Act of Parliament under the present Government, the Travel Concessions Act, 1964.
However, I agree with my hon. Friend that experience since 1964 has shown that some local authorities are still placed in an anomalous position and are not able to give the concessions that they want to grant. Some of these difficulties arise because the concessions, as matters stand, cannot be arranged on non-municipal buses. This, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) will know, also affects those which are nationalised buses, and, therefore, includes London Transport. Some of these difficulties arise in the granting of concessions on municipal buses. This is because of the way in which the present Acts are drafted.
In, for example, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area there are examples of these kinds of difficulty both in the fringe areas and where there are non-municipal buses.
For these reasons, my right hon. Friend last year put in hand a full-scale review 913 of the position under the Travel Concessions Act, 1964. She circularised all the local authority and bus operator associations in order to collect information about how existing travel concession schemes were working, what they were costing and what sort of anomalies were existing, and she asked for their views on what powers the local authorities considered they needed and what classes of persons should be the beneficiaries under any extension of the powers to grant travel concessions.
My right hon. Friend has received very helpful replies from the local authority associations. It is clear to us that there are a number of points to be considered: first of all, in connection with the present powers, which are not, I am afraid, free from ambiguity under the present laws; and, secondly, in connection with the proposition that the powers should be extended to non-municipal transport. There are a number of problems, for example, where municipal and non-municipal services are linked in a certain way so as to prevent the granting of concessions on municipal buses; where municipal and non-municipal services operate in an area but the concessions can be given only on the municipal services; and, of course, in the areas which are served by non-municipal transport. So it will be appreciated that when we get outside the realm of municipal transport undertakings, we are in a much wider field in terms of the kinds of local authority, the kinds of transport operator, and the kinds of service provided.
My right hon. Friend has felt that reviews and consultations have been essential in order to deal with this matter since the Travel Concession Acts are 914 somewhat complex and the powers under them rest with the local authorities to exercise. We lay down no view nationally as to what concessions they grant. These are permissive powers that are put in the hands of the local authorities. My right hon. Friend has now received the comprehensive background information that she needed, and she is considering this to ascertain what amending legislation on a national basis may be necessary, to remove the anomalies and to meet the quite understandable demands that the power to grant concessionary facilities should be extended.
I would tell my hon. Friend that the Minister is not yet ready to put forward any definite proposals, but I can assure the House that in the very near future she will be making a statement on the subject. We appreciate very seriously the difficulties which my hon. Friend is seeking to remedy in his Bill. Therefore, on behalf of the Government I can state that we are in full sympathy with the objects of the Bill—on Second Reading it is the principles of the Bill that we are discussing—which my hon. Friend has presented, though I must, of course, reserve the position of my right hon. Friend on the detailed matters which would be discussed in Committee and which will undoubtedly be the subject of a statement by her in the near future. On that basis, I advise the House that we find my hen. Friend's objectives perfectly acceptable.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Bill accordingly read a Second time.
§ Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).