HC Deb 18 February 1971 vol 811 cc2291-300

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.…[Mr. Fortescue.]

11.31 p.m.

Dr. John Gilbert (Dudley)

I rise to raise the subject of the need for the Government to encourage local authorities to use their powers in relation to concessionary fares. The debate takes place in the context of some rather discouraging exchanges in which the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, for whose presence I am grateful, participated at Question Time yesterday. It is no part of my purpose tonight to engage in recriminations about the past. I hope that something genuinely constructive will come out of the debate tonight.

Before I turn to the rôle which the Government might usefully play in this matter, I will discuss the problem in the round, because it is important to realise that we are dealing with a social problem of considerable and increasing magnitude. Above all, we are talking about human loneliness. We are not talking about handing out indiscriminate luxuries from a welfare State bonanza to those who do not need them. We are talking about assisting old people, blind people and disabled people to get out and about as much as their health permits, to enable them to do their shopping satisfactorily in the town centres of the community in which they live, and to enable them to visit their children and grandchildren who have so often—and this is particularly true in my constituency—moved away from an old council estate, where the grandparents were born and have lived all their lives, to a more modern estate some miles away but still in the same borough.

Bus fares, as is no secret in the House, are going up and up and up. In the area served by the Midland Red they will soon have gone un three times—drastic increases—in the space of a year or so. It has reached the point where taking a bus from one part of the county borough of Dudley to the shopping centre and back again is becoming quite beyond the means of old people who do not have private resources.

As I am sure the Under-Secretary of State will make clear before long, the position is that each local authority can make its own determination as to how it spends its money in these matters. In the exchanges at Question Time yesterday it was suggested that it was the in-discriminatory nature of concessionary fares, where they existed, that led to resentment among those who are unable because of physical incapacity to take advantage of them. This far from my experience.

Nobody in my constituency has complained that he or she does not want a concessionary bus fare scheme because they personally would not benefit from it. I will not draw attention to the hon. Gentleman who raised this point, because those sentiments are unworthy of the House. What undoubtedly leads to resentment is where one local authority runs such a scheme and another in a contiguous area does not. In the West Midlands conurbations on the western side Walsall, Warley, Wolverhampton and Birmingham all have schemes of varying degrees of generosity. My own Borough of Dudley does not, nor does the Borough of Stourbridge, but one never expects very much of Stourbridge. It must be one of the worst local authorities in the country. But one expects something better from the County Borough of Dudley.

The situation in the Coseley part of Dudley is that many old people have to shop in Wolverhampton but cannot get the benefit of concessionary fare schemes of this sort, whereas those across the county boundary border in Wolverhampton are enabled to take advantage of the scheme there. Apart from the question of shopping, there are also old people's social clubs which draw members from old people from either side of a local authority boundary. There is a great resentment when old people on one side of the border enjoy concessionary fares whereas old people on the other side of the border have no such scheme. There is no reason that such situations need exist. The powers exist for local authorities to introduce these schemes and they have existed for a long time.

In the area with which I am concerned agreements have already been negotiated between the Passenger Transport Authority and the relevant bus companies. It is notable that other boroughs have enough confidence in the generosity and readiness of their ratepayers to foot the bill on behalf of their older and less fortunate fellow citizens.

When accusations have been made that the local authorities of Dudley and Stourbridge are dragging their feet, the excuse has been given that schemes which have been negotiated with the P.T.A. have been unfair to the local authorities and cost too much. This is no reason for not introducing them, because the schemes contain provision for renegotiation. After a scheme has been operating for a year or so, it can always be discovered by an adequate audit whether the arrangements have been fair to both sides. It is simply a question of a community's determination to do its best to look after its old people's comfort, and in some cases necessity in regard to shopping, in their declining years.

Even more distressing is the situation of the disabled and the blind. The number of such people affected is mercifully small though probably far more than official statistics reveal. The cost of such schemes for old and handicapped people is therefore commensurately low. The attitude of councils which have failed to introduce schemes to assist the handicapped and the blind is even more incomprehensible. It will cost a small fraction of a penny rate.

In the County Borough of Dudley a scheme for the blind was negotiated 11 long months ago. One stalling device after another has been gone through to prevent this being introduced. This is where the Government could give a lead. They could easily send out a circular to local authorities expressing in enthusiastic terms support for such schemes and the general desirability of their being introduced.

There are precedents for a regional approach to problems of this sort. In the S.E.L.N.E.C. area, as I understand it, a great many local authorities have got together to introduce a uniform scheme of concessionary bus fares. As a result, all the local jealousies and unhappiness have been eliminated. But looking again at the wider matters concerned, the economic costs—if we have to talk about it in those terms—of introducing these schemes are negligible.

In the first place, they all operate at off-peak periods. There are no extra wages to be paid to the bus crews; there is no extra petrol to be used as the buses are running anyway; there is virtually no increase in running costs; and for all practical purposes there is no increase in administrative costs. It is simply a question of making transfer payments. There are no extra demands on the nation's economic resources.

But, most remarkable of all, is that the bus companies now want to introduce these schemes—which have been painstakingly negotiated over months in the past in an attempt to get local authorities and bus companies to live up to their responsibilities to old people and to the blind and the handicapped—off their own bat for the general public. In fact, the Midland Red is applying to the Traffic Commissioners in Birmingham this month, in order to introduce off-peak fare discounts for the general public. The general manager was quoted in The Times of 16th December last as saying: We hope the general public will respond and take advantage of the incentives to avoid wholesale reduction of services or later abandonment of the reduced fares. In other words, here we have the general manager of the biggest bus company in the area pleading with the general public to use concessionary bus fare schemes that he is hoping to introduce for everybody. So it is not just a question of common humanity; it is good business, too.

The Government should investigate these schemes. They should have a look at all of them and see whether local authority objections that some are rigged to bring the bus company too high a return are justified. We should have an impartial body to review schemes which have been negotiated to see whether they are fair to both sides. If an impartial referee says that a bus company is trying to get too much, then the responsibility will be clear. On the other hand, if an impartial referee says that a scheme is fair to the local authority, then it is quite clear where the responsibility lies.

In July, 1970, one of my first questions on becoming a Member of this House was to request one of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues to publish a survey of all local authority concessionary fare schemes now in operation, disclosing specifically the length of time they had been available, the nature of the concessions in each scheme, the number of persons to whom the concessions extended and the effect on the rates in each case. As one might imagine, I had a negative and unencouraging answer. I hope that the Government will be prepared to think again and let us have enough information to enable a considered view to be taken of such schemes that are in the process of being introduced.

I should have liked to say this evening that this is really a case for national legislation. However, I realise that the rules of an Adjournment debate prevent me from advocating that course which, in my view, is the only effective one that will bring unimaginative, dilatory and indifferent local authorities to a long overdue realisation of their social responsibilities.

11.45 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

This is the second debate about buses that we have had this week, both of them at a late hour, and I understand that there is to be yet another on Monday. The task of replying to all three has fallen to me, and perhaps it is not inappropriate to say that, in preparing myself, I visited Birmingham last Monday and opened a bus drivers' school belonging to the passenger transport authority in which the hon. Gentleman is interested. While there, I drove a double-decker bus, under the guidance of one of the instructors, and learned a good deal about the bus industry.

I was extremely impressed by the need for both skill and resourcefulness on the part of those who operate these great buses in heavy traffic. The public often complains about the bus industry, about the irregularity of some of its services and the impatient attitude of a very small minority of drivers and platform staff. But I pay tribute to the overwhelming majority of those who work on our buses and do a difficult and important job very well.

Dr. Gilbert

Hear, hear.

Mr. Griffiths

The background to this debate and to the hon. Gentleman's complaint, of course, is higher fares. He is right to point out that many elderly and disabled people living on small fixed incomes are disturbed by the rapid increase in the cost of their bus tickets. In the Midlands, there have been some very sharp increases over the last year. It was generally a very bad year for the whole of the bus industry. Midland Red, for example, has had three substantial jumps: in January and July of last year, and at the start of next week. Similarly, in the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority, there have been two substantial increases: one last March and the other only six weeks ago.

Against that background, I am not surprised that bus passengers complain. They complain in my constituency, too. But it is no good trying to hide the reasons why this cost escalation is happening and why both bus passengers and bus companies are getting hurt in the process The reason is inflation. It is the inflation that the hon. Gentleman's Government launched during their years in power.

Dr. Gilbert

Oh, come!

Mr. Griffiths

Nearly three-quarters of the cost of bus operations is wages. And busmen's wages last year rose very steeply. This is the main reason, though not the only one, why fares had to go up and why the hon. Gentleman's constituents are complaining.

The other reasons are a decline in passenger traffic, due in part, I accept, to higher fares but mainly due to the increased use of motor cars, and a series of imposts laid upon the struggling bus industry not by the present Government but by the last Government, who now have the crust, in the person of the hon. Gentleman, to complain about the consequences of their own foolish policies. The increases in taxation which we hope to right, the restrictions on drivers' hours which we intend to relax, and the rigidities of the 1968 Transport Act, parts of which we are discarding in the interests of relieving bus transport of unnecessary interference, are the sources of the cost inflation which is now crippling many bus companies and producing the situation about which the hon. Gentleman complains.

Midland Red is the example in the hon. Gentleman's area. In 1970, the company's revenue fell by more than £500,000, and its expenditure rose by £750.000. Its estimated operating surplus of £572,000 became an actual loss of £669,000. No company, private or public, can go on at that rate. So I must tell the hon. Gentleman directly that, if fare concessions are to be found, they cannot come from the bus companies. Instead, the hon. Gentleman looks for this extra help from elsewhere, and he does not mind whether it comes from the Government or from the local authorities.

The Government for their part are already helping. We are helping by relief to the bus companies on their fuel tax, by a 25 per cent. grant to buy new one-man buses, by paying half of any Section 34 grant made to rural buses. All these Government measures help to keep down the rocketing rise in fares.

Dr. Gilbert

On a point of order. As the Minister has not addressed a single word to the subject, may I ask whether he is in order in proceeding, or can he roam as wide as he likes.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I have no control over what the Minister says at all.

Mr. Griffiths

If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, when I have sketched in the background I shall come to his problem; but it is fare concessions with which he is mainly concerned.

Local authorities all over the country not only have all the powers which they need to give concessions—but they are well aware that they have them, and an increasing number are using them.

These powers are contained in the Travel Concessions Acts, the Transport Act 1968, and the Transport (London) Act, 1969. They are available to help men over 65 and women over 60, the blind and the disabled, on the services of any bus operator.

In the Midlands area generally Midland Red wrote in August last year to the 98 local authorities giving details of two kinds of schemes for local authorities to adopt if they wished to give concessions.

One of these schemes is based on tickets. Under this scheme the local authorities would purchase a series of tickets from the company valued at 2p each for distribution in amounts which would be at the local authority's discretion. These tickets could be used in off peak periods and all day at the weekends.

The other kind of Midland Red scheme is based on passes. Under this scheme the local authorities would purchase passes allowing travel at children's fares during off-peak hours. The passes have varying upper fares limits which restricts the length of a journey which pensioners could undertake at the concessionary rates. I do not know how many Midland authorities have so far introduced schemes.

Dr. Gilbert

Why not find out?

Mr. Griffiths

I do not know, because there is no requirement on them whatsoever to notify the Secretary of State.

Dr. Gilbert

Why not?

Mr. Griffiths

I shall give the hon. Gentleman two or three examples. The first concerns the tickets scheme. The Bedworth Urban District Council introduced a scheme costing £6,000 on 1st January, 1970. The Wellington Borough Council introduced one on 1st October of last year at a cost of £4,680. The Shrewsbury Borough Council introduced a scheme costing £7,300 which also began on 1st October.

The second series of examples concerns passes. The Rugby Rural District Council introduced a scheme costing £8,100. The Rugby Borough Council is preparing to introduce a scheme based on 6p passes on 1st April this year, and it has purchased 5,000 passes at a cost of £17,875.

I now come to the Dudley area which the hon. Gentleman has seen fit to attack in this House where the Council is not able to answer back. The West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive is offering a scheme in the Dudley area whereby local authorities would pay for passes purchased from the P.T.E. for the elderly, the blind and the disabled. The passes will allow pensioners to travel at children's fares on any journey in the area on W.M.P.T.E. and Midland Red buses during off peak hours, though that is to exclude Saturdays. The blind and the disabled would be able to travel free at any time.

So far I am told that 11 local authorities in the Dudley area have entered into the schemes. I understand that the Dudley C.B.C. have not yet entered the scheme now offered by the P.T.E., but I am told that it is due to consider the subject again on 2nd March. This is council's business. It would be wholly wrong for me to try to influence it one way or the other in any decision which it makes. That is the heart of the matter.

The power to make fare concessions is a local power. Local authorities have many powers and duties in many fields besides transport, and they have many different human calls on their resources. Inevitably, there have to be priorities. Those priorities, rightly, are for the local authorites to settle themselves, according to their own local assessment of the most pressing social needs. The Government should not seek to influence them. This Government will certainly not pressure local authorities to spend their own money in ways which they do not wish to do. On the contrary, it is our policy to devolve more, not less, responsibility, away from Whitehall to the local level.

The hon. Gentleman produced a number of interesting arguments, but it was his conclusions which interested me. After the mountain had moved, all that he suggested was that we should introduce a circular and find an impartial referee. We have produced two circulars on this matter, the first shortly after the concession powers were first given and then a second explaining how the financing was to be arranged, but the circulars made plain to the local authorities, to the local Press and to all those concerned, the existence of the scheme and how it could be operated.

The suggestion apparently is that my Department should now issue a further circular. I do not believe that local authorities are anywhere near as blind to the circulars issued by the Government as the hon. Gentleman suggests. I have not the slightest doubt that Dudley C.B.C., and all the local authorities in that area, are perfectly well aware of their powers, and, moreover, as freely elected and responsible people, are perfectly capable of making the appropriate decision in the circumstances of their own localities. I believe that it is better that we should leave it to them to judge and not seek from this House to impose upon them duties which they may be able better to judge than we can here.

I have been asked whether we will publish lists of the schemes which are in operation in the OFFICIAL REPORT. We cannot do this, because, under the law which the hon. Gentleman's own party introduced, local authorities are under no obligation to report to us on the use which they make of their powers. This is perfectly understandable, since the powers and the schemes are entirely theirs, and the Secretary of State could not and would not seek to call for reports in those circumstances.

If the hon. Gentleman wishes locally to advocate concessions, let him do so. I have no doubt that he has. But I must ask him to accept that, in the judgment of this Government, it is wisest and most humane to leave to those locally elected councils the judgment of what is best for their particular circumstances.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at three minutes to Twelve o'clock.