CONCESSIONARY FARE SCHEMES

HC Deb 17 May 1978 vol 950 cc611-51

"(1) All those county councils who have under this Act to prepare and publish an annual public passenger transport plan shall include in the plan, whenever it is published or republished, the following matters relating to travel concession schemes (meaning schemes for the reduction of waiver of fares or charges on public passenger transport services in favour of special categories of persons).

(2) The matters to be included in the plan are:—

1. (a) an account of what (if any) travel concession schemes are operative in the county or planned for early introduction, being schemes which are wholly or partly financed, or the subject of financial contribution by the council themselves or by any of the district councils in the county;
2. (b) the nature and extent of the concessions available under those schemes;
3. (c) proposals for introducing new travel concession schemes such as are mentioned in paragraph (a) above, or for extending or improving existing schemes; and
4. (d) the reasons why (if it be the case) in any part of the county either no such schemes are operative or existing schemes are inadequate."

We may also take Amendment No. 2, in Clause 1, page 2, line 19 leave out 'section 2' and insert sections 2 and (Concessionary Fare Schemes).".

Mr. Farr

The clause calls for reports by local authorities on the extent to which they have implemented concessionary travel schemes under Section 138 of the Transport Act 1968. My hon. Friends and I feel that the time is probably right, 10 years after the 1968 Act was put on the statute book, for the Secretary of State to show a greater interest in the activity or inactivity of local authorities in this respect. Economic conditions until this year necessitated the Government's banning any new or improved schemes for concessionary travel for a certain period. Happily, this year these restrictions have been withdrawn, and in my view it is up to the Government to take a far more positive interest in what is happening over the structure of concessionary fares throughout the country.

The House had the benefit of a short debate on the subject of concessionary travel on 3rd March—

Mr. Adley

A very good debate.

Mr. Farr

As is said by my hon. Friend, who took a prominent part, it was an excellent debate. The Minister was good enough to recognise when he wound up the debate how unfair the present unequal availability of concessionary travel could be to pensioners, the disabled and the blind.

In my own constituency in Leicester shire in a space of five or six miles there are three different types of concessionary travel available. In the Harborough District Council area there is none, although I understand that a scheme is being proposed. In the Oadby and Wigston District Council area next door a pensioner is entitled to £3 a year by way of free travel. In the city of Leicester, also next door, a pensioner is entitled to free travel anywhere for just 2p.

All the pensioners, the disabled and the blind are treated in the same way for pensions, allowances and other payments in these areas. They receive similar weekly payments. Yet the weekly expenditure on transport alone for someone living in the Harborough District Council area, for instance, where no concessions are available, can be excessive. This area, like many others in the country, is composed of a town and a large number of small or large communities living in villages often with no shops, or very few. It is more often than not necessary for the pensioner to travel by bus to shop and to collect his pension.

Since the debate in March the position has become more and more aggravated in many country areas by an accelerated closure of rural sub-post offices, partly occasioned, I believe, by the Post Office's pursuing a rather aggressive economic policy, which has had the effect of closing many sub-post offices and forcing pensioners and others dependent upon them to go by public transport to towns to collect their pensions.

What happens to someone who lives in one of a dozen or 15 little communities in my constituency who wants to go into the city of Leicester to shop? There are no shops, post offices or facilities in many of these areas. To travel from some of these little communities, only five or six miles from the centre of the city of Leicester, to shop, one has to pay a return bus fare of no less than 90p. That is the full fare. It is thus the pensioners who live in communities outside towns and shopping centres who are the hardest hit, in two specific ways.

First, they are hit by being furthest away from shops and so on. The journey is longer and more expensive. Secondly, it is often the rural or semi-rural areas where the need is greatest that at present have least help by way of concessionary travel schemes sponsored by the local authorities.

I should like to quote briefly from the Minister's speech on 3rd March, when he referred to the applicability of concessionary travel fares nationally and said: A good deal of the debate concentrated on the main dissatisfaction among hon. Members, namely, the large variations throughout the country. There are some areas with very good schemes and other areas with no schemes at all or poor schemes. A figure of £86 million is spent in England and Wales on travel concessionary schemes for the elderly, the blind and the disabled in the current year, and no less than 70 per cent. of that sum is expended in the metropolitan area of the Greater London Council."—[Official Report, 3rd March 1978; Vol. 945, c. 925.] That extract from the Minister's speech discloses the sort of inequality which is causing a good deal of dissatisfaction generally throughout the country.

Despite what I take to be the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) sitting here on my right, I shall not weary the House by quoting lengthy extracts from my own speech on that occasion—worthy of attention though I may think them to be—but I shall dwell on developments since then. I have received a great deal of correspondence from all over the country from people who have been concerned and have themselves made so far vain efforts to achieve some measure of equality or recognition by the councils in their areas that action should be taken.

I have a large file of letters, but I shall refer to only two or three. Mr Leslie Sharp, for example, a county councillor in the Isle of Wight, has written to tell me that he has prevailed on his Member of Parliament to support a concessionary fare scheme for the Isle of Wight, where there is not one at the moment. Mr. Peters, the secretary of the Surrey Association of Trades Councils, registered with the TUC, has expressed his full support for a scheme of concessionary fares for the aged on a half-price basis.

10.45 p.m.

I have had many letters from North Wales. In particular, a Mrs. Margaret Hutchinson tells me that she was forcibly struck by the fact that, when she had two elderly pensioner friends from Yorkshire to stay with her, they not only had the privilege of free travel at their home in Yorkshire but were given in addition £1 worth of free tokens to spend on local buses wherever they were on holiday. That struck her forcefully because where she lives in North Wales no concessionary fare scheme exists.

Mr. John Ellis

Those are impressive facts. What is the political complexion of the council which gives those munificent conditions? Is it Labour?

Mr. Adley

Party politics is all that interests the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Farr

I could not possibly say. I know that the two friends came from Yorkshire.

Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw)

We can guess.

Mr. Farr

I have had letters on similar lines from Glamorgan and other parts of Wales. Letters have come also from Essex, Devon and Milton Keynes.

In our view on these Benches, New Clause No. 7 offers the very least that Parliament should do. It would cost the Government nothing. Indeed, it would be only a gesture. At least, the Government should recognise the importance of the subject, and our hope in putting this thought before the House tonight is that the Government of the day will before long think seriously about making further advances.

By accepting the clause, the Government would incur no cost but they would give practical expression to the good will which, if I may say so, the Minister indicated on 3rd March. But some of us wish to go further. We want the Government to think along the lines of requiring a national minimum half-price scheme in the not-too-distant future for the disabled, the blind and the elderly.

I am delighted to see my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) with us again. I rejoice to see that he is making a rapid recovery from the accident which upset and detained him in hospital for some time. He is an authority on the problems in his constituency and in adjacent constituencies. If he seeks to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am sure that he will describe the special problems in his constituency where the local authority, with the best will in the world, cannot afford a reasonable and effective concessionary fares scheme.

Mr. John Ellis

Vote catching.

Mr. Farr

I should like to think that before too long the House will turn its attention to the possibility of the Government of the day establishing a special fund to assist those local authorities which have not the ability to raise a great deal of money from their rates to finance a scheme providing a minimum of half-price travel.

Mr. Ashton

New Clause No. 10, standing in my name and the names of some of my hon. Friends, is also to be considered with New Clause No. 7.

I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), who has family connections with my constituency, because he has a creditable record on concessions to pensioners for television licences, fares and other worthwhile schemes. Unfortunately, he was a bit devious by not stating the political complexions of the district and county councils which refuse to implement such schemes for pensioners.

I must apologise to the House for the fact that New Clause No. 10 and Amendment No. 2 do not go far enough, but they are bound by the Money Resolution. To keep within the bounds of order, it was necessary to table them as they stand as opposed to blunt directives to the Government to bring in totally free or at least half-fare bus passes for pensioners everywhere.

I do not have to remind my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who has a good record in this respect, that the Labour Party manifesto on which the Government were elected stated: Further measures will be introduced to … expand the system of free and concessionary fares for old people, the blind and the disabled. The hon. Member for Harborough did not point out that it is predominantly Tory-controlled councils which refuse to bring in any scheme whatever or, alternatively, which bring in miserly token schemes of £4 or £5 a year because they are under pressure being situated near big cities.

There are 56 districts which have no concessionary fare schemes. Of those, 19 are Conservative-controlled, and the rest are independent. We know from experience that independent councils in rural areas invariably favour a Tory rather than a Labour policy.

Mr. Adley

Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House in answer to whose question it was that he solicited that information and whether any one of those local authorities runs its own transport undertaking?

Mr. Ashton

The question of running their own transport undertakings is irrelevant.

Mr. Adley

Is it?

Mr. Ashton

In many instances schemes have been negotiated with districts or counties which do not run their own bus services. A concessionary scheme can be implemented if there is the will. I shall come to the financial angle later.

Every Member will, I know, have to rely on quoting his own area. In my area, the Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City situation is a downright disgrace. Before local government reorganisation in 1974, it was apparent that many cities under Labour control had concessionary fares systems. Those cities were then incorporated into county councils. Because the vast majority of the population live in Nottinghamshire compared with Nottingham City, where pensioners travel relatively short distances, and as two-thirds of the population in the county council, including the city environs, were covered by some kind of scheme, frankly, the councillors in the city, elected by the city, could not give a damn about the furthest part of the county. I am sorry to say that these comments applied to Labour as well as to Conservative councillors.

We all know that where a county has within it a large city, that city provides the majority of the councillors and pensioners, and there is little chance for the councillors from the rural part of the county to enforce their views. The county of Nottinghamshire obtains a massive part of its income from the pits and power stations, with industries in rural areas such as Bassetlaw, and gladly takes two-thirds of the rates from that area, but provides nothing in the way of help to facilitate rural transport for pensioners.

11.0 p.m.

Because the districts in those areas have a scattered population, which means that pensioners have to travel a fair distance, the district council has a very heavy burden to bear. The time has come when concessionary fares must be the responsibility of the county council rather than the district council, because the county council has the higher income and the ability to take on that burden.

The structure of county councils provides for transport committees, whereas district councils do not possess such committees. The subject is often covered by some other committee. Too often the Tory county councils—and the majority of them now are Tory—dodge their responsibilities and do not introduce schemes. I cannot understand why they do not bring in such schemes. In most of the rural areas the voters are Tory, and one would think that a Tory county council would do something for their Tory voters in the rural areas. But for some reason they do not, even though the provision would be grant-aided.

There is the stupid position where pensioners in rural villages obtain free prescriptions from their doctors but cannot get to the chemist to change that prescription for medicine because they cannot afford the 50p fare to get there. If they go to evening surgery, they find they canot get home afterwards because there is no bus. For example, if they catch the bus from the mining village of Elkesley into Retford to see the doctor, they cannot get back again. Ordinary people have to take a day off work to see the doctor because there are no buses to take them to the evening surgeries.

When I give lifts to young people in my constituency, they say "How did you do your courting, Mr. Ashton?" I tell them "I used to get on the bus". They then say "Well, why don't you provide some buses for us? We have to walk ten miles after seeing our girl friends home." I know that is not related to concessionary fares, but that is the position in rural areas in which rural transport is far worse than it was at the turn of the century. Although one would expect county councils to be putting enormous pressure on the Government to obtain these concessions, we know that they do not press these matters.

Furthermore, one sees empty buses in which seats could be occupied by pensioners. It is surely not beyond the wit and imagination of county councillors to allocate some of those empty seats to pensioners, or to bring in some sort of scheme where the empty seats could be filled by the device of charging half fares for pensioners.

It is often said by Tory Members that pensioners predominate in the county areas. It is said that South coast councils cannot afford these schemes because of the high proportion of pensioners. There is another side to the coin. What about those areas where there is a predominance of children? Those councils could equally take the view "We have many children in our cities and only half fares for them. We cannot afford such provision, so the children must pay full fare." But nobody would dream of taking such a view. Places with many children accept their responsibilities. It is places with a lot of pensioners which do not.

Instead, a pathetic substitution is practised, as has happened in Nottingham. To dodge its responsibilities, with a great fanfare the county council introduced a community bus. On Monday it runs from village A to village B, on Tuesday from village C to village D and on Wednesday it goes to the local hospital. The service is handed out rather in the same way as years ago the squire would provide a donkey to take an old woman to hospital. And people still have to pay. They do not even get that free. It is just a gimmick.

It is time the county councils were shown up. The hon. Member for Harborough says that the plans should be produced one year after the Bill is enacted. We say that it should be done on 29th April. Councils would then have to state exactly what they were doing in their areas. The public must be made aware that councils can get a Government grant of 61 per cent. towards these concessionary fares—that they have to pay only 39p in the pound.

Are these councils so penny-pinching, so determined to keep the rates down at any cost that they want pensioners to walk two or three miles to the nearest shops or to pay the fare out of their own pockets? I cannot understand the mentality even from a Conservative point of view. If a pensioner can ride free to the shops he has 50p more to spend at the Tory shopkeeper's. I should think Tory shopkeepers would favour these concessions, and would even pay willingly from the rates to provide it. But it is the Tory shopkeepers, who are often the Tory county councillors and district councillors, who are most against it.

Tory Members would do pensioners a favour if they got this across to their own party. I have tried to do so in Bassetlaw. It is Tory councils which are failing to implement this concession. Let us get that clearly on the record.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies (Thanet, West)

It is a pleasure to speak in a debate on a subject which can probably be treated in a non-party way. Both new clauses are simple and I hope that both will be accepted. New Clause No. 7 has a great advantage because a report setting out what local authorities are doing will make it plain not just which local authorities are acting and what they are doing but also their difficulties and the need for some wider system as a matter of national policy. New Clause No. 10 would also be an advantage because it also tries to state the objectives. A statement of what is being done will also show what is not being done.

In the long run, however, a national policy is essential. It is plain that we need a national policy. When one lives in the South-East of England, or in any of the counties near London, one appreciates immediately the immense difference in the counties concerned which cannot afford to operate the scheme which the GLC is able to give. Anyone who knows the general picture knows that the advantages which the GLC is able to give to old-age pensioners, the disabled and the blind, both on the Underground and on the buses, enables those people to get an advantage which is immense.

The great problem of the old, the disabled and the elderly today is loneliness. The one problem which this House can help to solve at a stroke is the problem of loneliness. The problem of loneliness is the problem of not being able to get out to see one's friends or relatives, not being able to get down to the local club, the OAP or the centres, not to be able to get out to get the medicine one needs or not to be able to get out to meet the obligations that one has.

That is the grave problem which has made this picture change. The Conservative Party—it is a perfectly fair criticism to level against it—has always been against subsidies. It has been against subsidies on tobacco for the old. It has been against the subsidy of giving free television, free telephones and matters of that kind. That opposition is based on the very simple principle that such people ought to be given good pensions which are better than those in the general standard of living. The Conservative Party has accepted that as a principle. At the same time, it has recognised that it ought not too easily to draw a line about giving subsidies to old people.

Mr. Ashton

This is a valid point. Is it not a fact that the benefit of a free bus pass is that it is inflation-proofed? If it was free 10 years ago and it is free today, it is inflation-proofed, whereas a better pension is not.

Mr. Rees-Davies

That is an argument that I want to develop. The problem today that has overtaken us is inflation. Those of us who believe—and I am one of them—that one should not try to give subsidies in this area are beginning to recognise that if we do not, we can create great injustice. At present inflation is such that if we do not assist in the area of transport—for the old people, the elderly, the disabled, the blind and others—we shall be unjust. We shall be unjust because there is no way in which we can match up the problem of inflation. We cannot index it in any way. We cannot say "Choose whether you will go to see the supplementary benefit people in Ramsgate or pay £1.30 to get from Birchington to Ramsgatc and back". We cannot say "You have also got to go to hospital, which will cost you another 80p there and back". We cannot say "It will cost you over £1 a week to go twice to the local over 60s club".

We cannot provide in the pension for such things. Because we cannot do so, I think we must change our attitudes. We must try to see whether we can do this by a direct subsidy in this one area. Therefore, I feel that we should change Conservative policy—because it is a change—and we should try to persuade the Labour Government to change their policy.

11.15 p.m.

Some 18 months ago, the right hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Irving) was with me in a debate on this very matter, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) as recently as 3rd March. We tried to persuade the Government to take the view that this was a Government responsibility. It is grossly unfair that the big cities with very large rateable value should be able easily to meet this problem, which other parts of the country cannot do easily. They can do it if they give it top priority, of course, but if 40 per cent of the rates is to be absorbed by such a scheme, to adopt the figure mentioned by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), it is still a very great task to ask people to pay a substantial increase in their rates to meet it. The hon. Member perhaps does not recognise that in my constituency more than 11,000 people out of a total of 90,000 are on supplementary benefit. Whereas originally I managed to persuade the council to introduce a scheme—and in the beginning it was extremely valuable because it covered about a quarter of the fare—it is now very difficult to bring it up to date and to inflation-proof it against the background of the rates which would have to be charged to do so.

I was a candidate in Nottingham some years ago. I know that the city could do this. However, the country districts round Nottingham might find it very difficult, from my recollection of those areas, because the power of the rates is in one area. In my own part of the country, the rates are insufficient to carry this.

I venture to suggest that the argument of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw needs to be taken a stage further. It needs to be taken not from the district council, which can do it if it wants, nor from the county council, but from the nation. We should aim—and, given the will of this House, I believe that it could be done—at saying that this is a matter where old-age pensioners, the disabled and the blind should be able to travel at half fare in off-peak periods. I think that they would accept that. There are many parts of the country where it can be a disadvantage to travel during peak hours, and most old people are perfectly happy to travel at times when the buses are relatively empty.

I think that this will come. I hope that my own party will adopt it, that the Labour Party will press it, and that it can be done across the Floor of the House as a benefit to all these people.

Mr. John Ellis

I do not want to take issue with the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies), because he spoke with great sincerity, and it is not for me to challenge him when he says as a Conservative that he believes that his party should change its policy. However, the pattern of Labour-controlled and Tory-controlled authorities is such that, without exception, all the authorities mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) are Tory or Independent-controlled. There is no Labour or Liberal-controlled authority mentioned in that list.

I think that if the Opposition are honest with themselves, they realise that they are in a very tight corner. We have all received letters from various parts of the country, and I can tell the House that in Scunthorpe there is a scheme for concessionary fares and that in Glanford, which is my more rural district and which is not Labour-controlled, there is a similar scheme, although it is not as good as Labour's scheme in Scunthorpe. In areas that are not far away, there are Tory councils with no concessionary fare scheme.

I do not agree that we need to pass both new clauses. New Clause No. 10 goes further and puts on more pressure. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and I would like to have put in more teeth by ordering authorities to prepare such schemes, but the Financial Resolution to the Bill prevents that.

We suggest that new or improved concessionary fare schemes should be at about half the cost of local fares. This means, in effect, half fares as a national standard, although some local authorities will do better than the minimum. I understand that the Government are to provide £30 million more and what they are planning for local authorities to spend on additional concessionary fares by the end of the decade will be enough to enable them all to introduce off-peak half fares for pensioners and will still allow those who already give more generous concessions to keep them. The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) quoted what people in Yorkshire do. It sounded to me like that good South Yorkshire authority that has led the field in this matter.

Mr. Farr

I have striven to avoid party politics. On this side of the House, we have been trying to secure the best deal we can for the disabled, the elderly and the blind. If the hon. Gentleman wants to bring in party politics, let me remind him that it was a Labour Government that was so inefficient that it was the only Government that has felt it necessary to instruct all local authorities to abandon improvement of concessionary fare schemes and not to introduce new schemes. It was only after considerable pressure from this side of the House that they raised the embargo this year. The hon. Gentleman should be a little careful and forget the party politics and think about the elderly people first.

Mr. Ellis

Hon. Members opposite do not like the truth when they hear it. What the hon. Gentleman says was true for a limited period, but before that time these schemes were running in the majority of Labour-controlled areas. The Opposition have been under pressure from constituents who have been asking why the neighbouring area, which is Labour-controlled, can have concessionary fares while their Tory-controlled area cannot. It has happened time and again and the Opposition Members have to get off the hook. I dealt softly with the hon. and learned Member for Thanes, West because he was honest enough to admit that he was trying to change Conservative policy and he hoped that the party would agree.

We are saying that, for the blind and handicapped, we hope that the Government take the view that they have special needs beyond the elderly. They may, for instance, need to travel further to find suitable work or to use public transport for very short journeys, when other people could walk, or to be escorted when they travel. For all these reasons, we hope that local authorities will introduce all-day concessions for the blind and the handicapped to enable them to get to work. Guide dogs and invalid chairs should be carried free, and where escorts are needed, their fares should be reduced.

Much more money is being given in this area. If I sound a little bitter about this, it is because I am bitter. The Government have already indicated in their transport policy that they are making help available in transport in many ways. If my own local authority wants to stand for election on the basis of keeping the rates down and cutting services, let it do so. In my local authority of Humberside money that has been voted by Parliament by way of the rate support grant to help with transport has been used to keep the rates down. These Conservative authorities that do such things have a great deal to answer for.

Conservative Members should call a party conference and get the Leader of the Opposition to make a speech along the lines of the Tory speeches that have been made tonight. That would be far more effective than putting down amendments to the Bill. It would have a singular effect on Tory-controlled authorities which never have brought in schemes, even when they could have done so, and are still lagging behind.

I hope that the word will go out tonight to those authorities that the Conservative Party has at last seen the error of its ways. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Thanet West who faced up to the problems. He said that he preferred to see people get a pension which would enable them to afford to go on the buses and have a living income as well. I also would like to see that happy day arrive. Of course we are starting to relate the pension to the cost of living, but it will be a long job. Increasingly in rural districts there are no bus services at all. Therefore, concessionary schemes make no difference to pensioners there, because there are no buses to use.

Where there are bus services we can encourage the Government and local authorities that have been backward in this respect to do something about it. It is in no mean spirit that we do this tonight. I have a particularly reactionary Tory-controlled authority in my area which is doing things that it will regret. Let the message go out to that area from the Opposition Benches tonight—and it would carry more weight than any words that I can say—that they have repented of their ways and that they are encouraging the implementation of these schemes as soon as possible.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith (Hertfordshire, East)

It is a privilege and a pleasure to have the opportunity to support the new clause that was moved so eloquently and persuasively by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr).

I speak against the background of a strong constituency interest, which, over the past two years, has been evidenced by the seemly and salutary apparatus of our democratic institutions, by representations, both written and oral, by a substantial petition with many signatures, and by a deputation headed by no less a person than the Mayor of Broxbourne.

The nub of the matter is the discrepancy of treatment between people who are in similar circumstances and who live physically near each other but who are divided by the artificialities of local government boundaries. These artificial boundaries, together with the statutory framework which leaves the introduction of schemes and the fixing of the level of discretionary fares to the local authorities, have given rise to marked anomalies and consequent resentment.

11.30 p.m.

As the House knows, the scheme of the Transport Act 1968 in respect of travel concessions is that Section 138 (1) empowers local authorities to enter into arrangements for concessionary travel for the people specified in subsection (5). In essence they are men over 65 and women over 60—there is a certain amount of sex discrimination implicit there—and the blind and disabled. It is merely an enabling provision in that it gives a discretion to local authorities to enter into these arrangements. It does not compel them nor does it prescribe the range of the journeys to be covered nor the degree of fare concessions.

A reasonable degree of discretion in local authorities is a good thing. Of course, a balance has to be struck between the interests of pensioners in having the best scheme available and the interests of the general body of ratepayers in keeping public expenditure as low as is possible. There is much to be said in principle in a political democracy for these decisions being made locally. Indeed, so long as there is a statutory discretion we can hardly expect absolute uniformity of treatment.

The fact is that the variations set out here in the Bill are so wide and general as to constitute an anomalous and inequitable situation. Paragraph 107 of the White Paper "Transport Policy", Cmnd. 6836 says: The schemes in operation vary widely between areas. Of almost £80 million which local authorities in England and Wales currently spend on concessionary fares, 70 per cent. is spent in Greater London and the metropolitan areas where 38 per cent. of pensioners live. Such a discrepancy not only has no mathematical basis but it equally has no identifiable social or equitable considerations to justify it. This, as it happens, is particularly relevant in the case of the southern part of my constituency which abuts a Greater London area and where highly divergent schemes operate cheek by jowl.

In Hertfordshire the existing arrangements for concessionary bus permits were formulated and agreed by the county working party comprising representatives from the 10 district councils and the appropriate bus undertakings. The scheme which is, I believe, common to all districts in Hertfordshire, permits travel at half adult rate on journeys starting and finishing in Hertfordshire, up to a maximum adult fare of 50p. Journeys over 50p are charged at 25 per cent. less than the normal adult fare. Such an arrangement is in striking contrast to that operating for the people enjoying the benefit of the London scheme over the border, who have free bus travel, thereby adding to the 70 per cent. cost for the 38 per cent. pensioners referred to in the White Paper.

It is naturally difficult for the residents of Broxbourne to understand the niceties and nuances of these arrangements. All that they see—and naturally it hurts—is that they have to pay at least half price, even for journeys in Hertfordshire, and have no concessionary fares to assist them in travelling to London while, next door, their enviable and fortunate neighbours in Enfield travel free.

The anomaly is aggravated because of the out-county development which has taken place in Hertfordshire. For example, there is a Greater London council estate at Rosedale in the borough of Broxbourne. These Hertfordshire residents have only recently come from London. If they want to travel to London to revisit their friends in the neighbouring Greater London area they have to pay a substantial fare. The converse does not apply to Londoners visiting Hertfordshire.

I referred to the many representations that I have received. In February 1977 I advised a deputation from the borough of Broxbourne to contact the other district councils in Hertfordshire, and it did so. The result of the consultations is embodied in a letter from the Hertfordshire District Councils' Association to me dated 2nd May. In the letter it is stated: This branch has, on a number of occasions, considered this thorny question of concessionary bus fares with particular reference to the anomalies which exist in the county as between different bus operators and, as far as those councils whose districts abut on the GLC boundary are concerned, the particular problem of the GLC policy of free bus travel for aged pensioners. All approaches by this and other branches to the bus operators in an effort to normalise the situation have proved abortive, so it was with keen interest that we considered your suggested possibility of … Parliament amending the Transport Act 1968 so as to make free bus travel for pensioners and the disabled a national responsibility. You will be interested to learn that this was one of the few occasions when no dissenting voice was raised and the Association were unanimous in their support of the proposal. Can you therefore take up cudgels on our behalf and lend your support to our cause? I cannot do all that the Association asks within the framework of the Bill. That would, I understand, be outwith the Money Resolution and could not be encompassed by amendment to the Bill. It would not be in order to suggest that course. However, I can and do support the new clause of my hon. Friends and that of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton). Their content is modest enough, as hon. Members have been free to acknowledge. I can and do urge the Government to keep it within their thinking and to take action to implement their undertaking in paragraph 109 of the White Paper, and to guide local authorities to what they there call the more equitable and sensible arrangements referred to in the paragraph. I ask them to ensure that the resources to be made available, referred to by the Under-Secretary of State and reported in column 222 of Hansard of 1st March 1978 are directed to that end.

I am sure that the House and all the many persons affected will welcome action and guidance within the possibilities of the national economy that will improve the position for areas such as Hertfordshire and remove, or at any rate reduce, the patent anomalies and indefensible incongruities of our present position.

Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) speaks of the anomalies between areas where the level of provision is different. The anomaly is far harder between areas where there is some provision and areas where there is none at all. There are few people more distressed than pensioners who go into local post offices, as in my constituency, to find forms to complete to enable them to obtain bus tokens, who complete them and return them to the appropriate office only to find, because they live on the wrong side of the boundary and the post office concerned happens to serve two areas, that they are eligible for no concession. I am glad to say that that situation has been changing. There has been a change of heart by two of the district councils in my constituency.

I agree with a number of hon. Members—this is something that I have always felt—that a national scheme is the only reasonable way to handle the problem. I felt so from the early days of developing concessionary bus fares. It is not possible for rural local authorities to mount the sort of scheme that is possible in densely populated urban areas.

The needs of those in the rural areas tend to be greater because so often it is much further to the shops. In villages where there is no chemist's shop the villagers may have to travel 15 miles or 20 miles to obtain their prescriptions. Their needs are greater and the distances are far greater. In an area such as mine we are talking about subsidising not a 20p fare but a £2 fare. That is often what it costs to go to the nearest chemist and back again. The authorities concerned have less rate resources to pay for these facilities and a higher proportion of old-age pensioners than most other areas, so they undoubtedly start with a very much more difficult task.

Only a national scheme which uses evenly the resources available for this purpose could possibly enable any level of provision which is roughly equal.

I have said quite openly, and I stand by the view, that in the light of what is feasible in the rural areas, some of the urban schemes are undoubtely overgenerous. If it is not possible for someone in a rural area to travel to his nearest shopping centre at all, we are misusing resources if we enable provision for very extensive leisure travel in other areas. If we cannot find some measure of comparability in what we can make available to pensioners throughout the country, we simply should not be spreading resources as unevenly as we are.

Unless we undertake a national scheme—and I continue to press for this—we risk continuing a situation in which many authorities do not have schemes at all or have very inadequate schemes. Without a national scheme we are bound to have to be content with a great deal of unevenness. There is no way in which the rural areas can equal some of the best city schemes.

But even the disadvantages that I have described are no excuse for having no concessionary fares schemes at all. It has been a long, hard struggle in many areas to get anything done. It certainly has been in my constituency. The Alnwick District Council, since the relaxation of the Government restriction, has introduced a scheme which, although it is limited, I welcome. The Berwick District Council, only last week, at long last, decided that it was prepared to introduce a limited scheme. We are talking now about only a few pounds worth of tokens.

Again, I recognise the limitations, and I welcome the step that they have taken. But I lament the amount of time that they have left it before reaching this stage. I must report that when they first considered this matter they managed to devise a scheme which would have necessitated a 50 per cent. increase in the total borough rates and so horrified themselves that they went away for weeks longer to try to think of something cheaper. But they have now come up with a scheme which is a reasonable start.

But I have found throughout many of these discussions, and it is apparent in many other areas—there is no getting away from this fact—that the principal opponents of schemes of this kind have been Conservative councillors, Conservative-dominated councils and Conservative-controlled councils. There is no point in hiding the fact.

I respect the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies), who made the point quite clear that he was engaged in a hard battle to change the attitudes of his party. I hope that he is invited to speak on many platforms at Conservative local government conferences so that he can get his point across with the fairness and sincerity with which he put it across tonight.

The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) never told us whether the Harborough District Council, which is Conservative-controlled, will be introducing a concessionary fares scheme or would be more likely to do so as a result of the new clause. If it takes the new clause to make it introduce a concessionary fares scheme, what on earth are we doing asking a Labour Government to put some kind of pressure on Conservative-controlled district councils to introduce such schemes?

Mr. Farr

I rather assumed, wrongly as it happens, that the hon. Member had read the proceedings on 3rd March. They were not very long. They lasted for only an hour. I did not repeat to the House the speech that I made then, but I explained exactly then—I have with me a copy of Hansard for that date if the hon. Member wants to read it—the position of the Harborough District Council.

Mr. Beith

Is it going to introduce a scheme now? The hon. Member could have given us the one simple fact. Will the Harborough District Council introduce a concessionary fares scheme? Is it more likely that it will introduce such a scheme if the Labour Government are breathing down its neck? If it takes that, I am prepared to go along with it.

Mr. Farr

The hon. Member requests further information which he can obtain from Hansard for 3rd March. I always thought that he was up to date on these matters. In that debate I made it quite clear that the Harborough District Council has introduced a concessionary fares scheme.

Mr. Beith

I am delighted to hear it. But there is an awful lot more on the list which have still to do so. It will take a long time for the hon. Member's persuasive powers to get round all his colleagues.

The reason I make this point is that it simply is not reasonable for Conservative Members to pose as the saviours of the blind, the disabled and the old-age pensioners unless they have first persuaded their own district councillors to take the necessary action. Frankly, it has not taken a new clause of the kind that is now before us to persuade the district councils in my constituency, on which most of the councillors are Conservatives, to do this. It has taken a lot of arguments and battling, in which a lot of people have tried to persuade them. I do not think that a new clause of this kind will make very much difference.

11.45 p.m.

In any case, we have already had a major report on the progress—and lack of progress—on concessionary fare schemes in different areas. It is a useful document, and much of it has been quoted by hon. Members tonight.

The only way in which we shall have such schemes in most of the areas is by hard persuasion. If Conservative Members who are now trying to persuade the Government assume that task good luck to them. I would support them. But they should be as honest as the hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West. I do not believe that a Labour Government breathing down their local Conservative councillors' necks will make the difference.

I wish that we were not going about this in this way. I recognise that for any rural district councils the limitations are great, the opportunities are few and that they cannot achieve the same level of provision. But let us be honest about who has been providing such schemes and who has not.

Mr. Adley

As those hon. Members who attended the debate on 3rd March will know and as the Minister kindly has said, this matter has almost obsessed me for a long time, not only because some authorities have schemes and some do not—although I should be happy to deal with that—but because of the whole philosophy behind the assumption that it is the responsibility of local government to fund the travel arrangements of those who are old or sick.

We must discuss that matter in this debate because the future of a national scheme will depend on accepting a simple proposition—that the 55 million people in the United Kingdom will, if they live long enough, become old age pensioners, and they will all be entitled to an old-age pension. I want the Government to accept that when people become old they should be entitled to concessionary fares.

The hon. Members for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) and Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) can see tonight's argument only in party political terms. But this argument should be examined in a totally different way on the basis of the responsibility of the transport operators.

Bournemouth has never had a Labour council. But Bournemouth pensioners have as good a concessionary fare scheme as the pensioners of Nottingham and Sheffield and any other place. When the hon. Member for Bassetlaw answered my intervention he implied that a local authority which ran its own transport undertaking was no different from a local authority which did not. With politeness I say to him that he does not seem to have studied the finances and politics—not party politics—of concessionary fare schemes as carefully as he might have done.

Mr. Ashton

We asked whether the fare scheme in Bournemouth was free, as it is Sheffield and Nottingham. If it is not, it is not as good. Many areas, including the fringe areas of Sheffield, have independent companies running the buses but such fares are still free.

Mr. Adley

The hon. Member has made his speech. I intend to make mine. I am trying to be constructive and to put forward proposals.

I want to examine the role of a transport operator. There is an organisation called the National Bus Company which, together with the municipal authorities which run their own bus services in England and Wales, accounts for about 80 per cent. of the stage carriage services. In the National Bus Company we have the basis of a national concessionary fare scheme.

There are two other nationalised transport undertakings which run fares schemes of various sorts throughout their systems. They are British Rail and British Airways. British Rail has introduced a concessionary fares scheme that is more than self-financing. It is available to any pensioner. For £7 a pensioner can buy reduced rate travel covering the entire length of the rail system from Penzance to Thurso.

Like most other major air lines, British Airways has a scheme for its staff. It is in no way like the rail scheme for pensioners. It provides for reduced fares and is operated on the same principle as the British Rail scheme, a principle that I am advocating should be adopted by the National Bus Company.

That principle is that if an organisation is obliged to operate a transport service and it has empty seats, it is a matter of marketing and not of politics to find a method of putting bottoms on those seats. I regret that until recently the NBC seemed consistently to have expressed the view that not only was it not its responsibility to introduce any form of reduced rate fares for pensioners throughout its system but that it would be a practical impossibility.

The NBC maintains that it cannot operate a national scheme, but it operates a national scheme of concessionary fares for its staff and ex-staff. I have no objection whatever—I am delighted—that the NBC operates such a scheme for staff and ex-staff. But it cannot have the argument both ways. If it can run a scheme for ex-bus conductors in Derbyshire, surely it can offer a national scheme for pensioners throughout the system.

After prodding by a number of people, the NBC has begun half-heartedly to introduce some form of concessionary fares in areas where there is none. It is worth considering the cost of these schemes. The British Rail scheme, covering the network from Penzance to Thurso, costs £7 per annum. The NBC recently introduced an experimental scheme in Salisbury which gives half fares on the buses in and around the Salisbury area. That costs £21.60 per annum. That does not seem in any way comparable with British Rail's scheme.

Mr. Beith

Like the hon. Member I am interested in the kind of schemes that the NBC has tried. The only scheme that I know has been tried that is comparable to the British Rail scheme was tried on the Isle of Wight. The cost was around £4 or £5 a year. But that had to be underwritten by the county council to the tune of about £4,000. Does he think that the NBC is not pursuing this matter hard or enough, or is a scheme not feasible on that basis?

Mr. Adley

Geographically the Isle of Wight is the nearest place to my constituency. I am very familiar with the NBC scheme that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Frankly, I do not believe that the NBC has marketed, publicised or operated the scheme sufficiently well. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) quoted a letter from someone in the Isle of Wight who claimed that there was no such scheme. There is such a scheme, however. That is a classic case of where someone on the island does not even know that the scheme exists.

The hon. Gentleman's intervention brings me directly to my next point—the role of the county councils. It is a very cosy arrangement for the National Bus Company to expect county councils and district councils to pay from the rates for a scheme for money to be paid to the company, not to provide extra services or more frequent services, or to extend its services, but merely to pay it a subsidy from the rates. It is a fact of life that in some small local authority areas the costs of providing a scheme are exorbitant.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough mentioned the debate of 3rd March. Many hon. Members have to be here tonight, and as they have nothing better to do they have come into the Chamber. It is a pity some of them were not here on 3rd March. I do not like quoting my own speeches, but I want to read what I said about the position in Christchurch and Bournemouth, two completely separate local authority areas: If Christchurch, for example, introduced a scheme with the same travel opportunities as are available in Bournemouth, the town clerk estimates that the cost would be £100,000 on the district rates. A small district council like this would be faced with a huge burden—in fact, it is estimated at 12 per cent. of the total district rates. Hon. Members should understand why local authorities like Christchurch cannot afford to introduce a comprehensive scheme, much as I regret it."—[Official Report, 3rd March 1978; Vol. 945; c. 923.] I finish on the point with which I started. I agree with the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and a number of other speakers that we must recognise that, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) said, there can be few more frustrating or unhappy experiences for a pensioner than to stand on the corner and see an empty bus go by, not being able to afford to get on it.

The job of the House is to see that people are treated in the same way and given equality of opportunity. I want equality of opportunity for pensioners to travel on the buses, and I look to the National Bus Company as the company which should, in return for its near monopoly, be required to introduce a scheme.

I agree with the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed that the NBC does not have a particularly good marketing track record. When I represented a Bristol constituency, from which I was redistributed some years ago, I was there when the M32 opened. I suggested to the Bristol Bus Company, which is part of NBC, that it should introduce a new bus service from Downend in my constituency into the centre of the city of Bristol, using the motorway. I was told "Nobody would use it". It took me a year to persuade the NBC to try an experiment. I had a meeting with the NBC this morning, and at lunchtime I met a former general manager of the Bristol Bus Company. He told me "I think you would like to know that that bus service is still operating and has been a great success".

It should not be necessary for Members of Parliament to plead with the NBC to introduce a new bus service because the Member can see the potential and the NBC cannot. Rather than spending time worrying about ways of pushing district councils or county councils into paying more or less rates to one scheme or another, we should take the bull by the horns and recognise that with the NBC and the municipal authorities we have an inbuilt machinery to introduce without delay a national scheme for pensioners.

12 midnight

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk (Ormskirk)

I support New Clause No. 10 put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and others of my hon. Friends, and I support also those Tory Members here tonight who are asking for increased public expenditure in the full knowledge that that is the only way they will get a concessionary fare scheme, faced as they are by Tory-controlled county councils which do not in present circumstances give the kind of concessions which are available under other authorities.

I urge my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to go further than the proposals outlined in either of the new clauses. I understand that my hon. Friends who prepared their new clause had a problem in that they wanted to go further but were precluded from so doing by the Money Resolution. If we are to tackle the problems which have been discussed tonight and which I encounter in my constituency, we must have a national uniform concessionary travel scheme.

I shall illustrate the case by examples from my constituency. In the town of Ormskirk itself, pensioners and the disabled receive £20 worth of tokens per year as a travel concession. For those who live in the remoter parts of the constituency, that means that they can make only 12 free journeys a year using their tokens. In effect, this discriminates against those who most need help, those living in the remoter areas, since those who live within the environs of the town itself can make considerably more journeys a year on their £20 concession.

But there is an even more marked discrimination between those who live in the town of Ormskirk and those who reside in the area covered by the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive. Five miles down the road from the homes of those who have tokens to the value of £20 a year, which, as I say, in some cases enables them to make only 12 free journeys a year, I have other constituents fortunate enough to live under a Labour authority who have totally free travel within the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive area. Thus, someone living in Kirkby can go as far as Chester, across Merseyside, across Liverpool and across the Wirral, totally free, and making as many journeys as he wants to make in any given period. But if he were to go north and travel five miles to Ormskirk, he would come to the Lancashire county boundary where the free travel concession ends and would have to pay.

There are such anomalies and injustices within areas and between adjoining areas—not just between Cheshire and Lancashire, between Merseyside and Lancashire and so on, but even within quite small areas. Naturally, therefore, there is a great feeling of resentment and frustration among those of my constituents living in Ormskirk who may be able to make only 12 free journeys a year when they see others of my constituents in Kirkby who have unlimited free travel.

There is a genuine need here to be tackled, and it can be met properly only if the Government are prepared to accept the responsibility and not pass the buck to the local authorities—certainly not to the Tory authorities which, in the main, are not prepared to implement the attractive concessions which are available elsewhere in the country. The Government themselves should decide that as a basic minimum they will establish a national uniform pattern.

I accept that that may involve an increase in public expenditure. But many of the public utilities which we are now urging to provide free travel concessions to pensioners and the disabled would otherwise have their vehicles empty. On the 10 o'clock news tonight there was an announcement by British Rail that it will provide free travel anywhere in the country to any pensioners who pay £7 for the travel pass. British Rail went on to say, almost in an apologetic tone, that it will not cost anyone anything because the trains would be running anyway.

That is precisely the point that my pensioner and disabled constituents in Ormskirk make to me when they cannot use the buses because of the limited amount made available to them, and the same kind of point is made by my other constituents in Kirkby who have unlimited free travel in the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive area but cannot travel free just a few miles to other parts of my area.

I urge upon the Secretary of State the need not only to take on board the sentiments behind these two new clauses but to announce an early date that there will be a national uniform scheme of free travel for pensioners and the disabled introduced, funded and backed by the Government themselves.

Mr. Tony Durant (Reading, North)

I intervene to support the new clause.

The hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) came late to the debate. Therefore, I do not think that I should take up the points that he made. However, the theme that he was pushing, with which I agree, was that we must move towards a national scheme. That atmosphere seems to pervade both sides of the House. I think that will be the only way to deal with this matter.

As the deputy leader of a council, I was involved in introducing a concessionary fares scheme. That was and always had been a Conservative-controlled local authority. There were only six Labour Members. They were anxious about the expenditure. But we forced the scheme through because we were well in control. That was nearly eight years ago. Let us get it clear that not all the baddies are Conservatives and that all the goodies are Labour Members. Some of us believe in this idea just as much as do Labour Members.

Having said that we introduced the scheme, I should point out that the urban district council had difficulties with the rural bus services of London Transport which was run by the then London County Council, now the Greater London Council, which was controlled by the Labour Party. The LCC was not too keen on the scheme. We had quite an involved battle to get the scheme introduced. The Aldershot and District Bus Company was quite happy to co-operate, but the London Country Bus Service was not prepared to co-operate. Therefore, we had to introduce a voucher scheme. I believe that problem has now been ironed out.

I now represent part of Reading, which has a remarkably good public bus service. Indeed, it was one of the first authorities to introduce bus lanes. We have a dynamic transport manager. We also have a free bus concession service for old-age pensioners. I am not making a special plea. Reading already has this service. I make the point that we must introduce a national scheme.

I wish to bring in the question of the National Bus Company. The Alder Valley bus service, which is part of the National Bus Company, provides a ghastly service. We have had a tremendous row on our local radio station because there are so many cancellations on this National Bus service. In fact, it could not get any information for the morning service to inform people which buses were cancelled. We should look at that element of the National Bus Company because it is in a bad state. Indeed, it is admitted by the NBC to be one of its worst elements.

The hon. Member for Ormskirk referred to British Rail. I think that he should listen to what I have to say. I had to stomach what he said, so perhaps he will stomach what I have to say. He said that British Rail had announced a £7 voucher scheme to enable old-age pensioners to travel to any part of the country at discount fares.

The National Bus Company, writing to me on 3rd April, states that it has introduced what it calls "National Wander-bus": At a cost of £2 .40 for a full day, the ticket does afford good value for money especially if journeys are well planned in advance. Apparently one can travel 200 miles. This timid attempt, which should be looked at and streamlined, is a beginning.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) and I have been pressing such a scheme at various meetings that we have had with the NBC, so perhaps there has been some blinding light.

Mr. Adley

As my hon. Friend rightly said, he and I have been pressing the NBC to do this, amongst other things, for a long time. It has taken it three years to draw together the component parts of its organisation to produce this "National Wanderbus" scheme. Is not that some indication why some of us feel that the NBC could do with a little more persuasion by the Government as regards its responsibility in this matter?

Mr. Durant

I am grateful for that intervention. It is at least a start that they are recognising that they can do something to use their bus services to a greater extent. Labour Members who are making political capital out of Tory councils should examine their own transport policy as set out in Command 6836 issued in June 1977, which contains the following passage: One reason for the wide differences between areas is the advice which the Government itself felt obliged to give local authorities in England and Wales two years ago that, in current economic circumstances, they should not introduce new schemes or improve existing ones. That was the advice of a Labour Government to local authorities two years ago. Let us be clear that in the economic situation then prevailing, the Government rightly felt that it was not the time to go for a massive introduction of such provision. I am not criticising them for that, but am pointing out to Labour Back Benchers that their own Government had a part to play in all this.

I am very much in favour of this new clause. I think it is a reasonable attempt to take a further step in the right direction. Most of us have said that what we need is a national scheme. Let us hope that out of this clause will emerge a national scheme.

Mr. Skinner

There has been a good deal of hypocrisy from Tory Members about the introduction of concessionary fare schemes of whatever kind. The history of the two parties on this subject is clear. Throughout the post-war period any attempt to introduce concessionary fares for pensioners has been prompted by Labour councils assisted by Labour Governments.

I remind the House that it was the Tories who attacked the Birmingham City Council way back in the early 1960s, took the council to court and tried to stop it spending ratepayers' money in order to introduce a concessionary scheme. It was a Labour Government between 1964 and 1970 who introduced discretionary powers that allowed Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle and other areas to introduce these schemes.

The history is quite clear. Nobody can deny that in the last two or three years we have seen the Right-wing shift of the Tory Party on all these matters. When we consider attitudes by the Tories on public expenditure, I am amazed that some of these people have not consulted the Right-wing hatchet men on the Tory Front Bench. I wonder what the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), the Right-wing guru, thinks about this matter. Has he been consulted? Has the man who recently wrote the book "Centre Forward" been consulted? I am referring to the junior—or is it the senior?—Tory spokesman on education. I thought that the Tories were saying loud and clear that they want people to be able to use their money in whatever way they want and not to have it taken way from them in rates and taxes.

There has been a lot of hypocrisy in this debate. It should be made clear that if there is to be a national scheme introduced by any Government, the overwhelming chances are—in fact it is a certainty—that it will be introduced by a Labour Government.

I find it somewhat strange that the Tories in the rural seats, appear to be worried, but it must be the case. There has been an obvious swing to Labour in the urban areas where we usually manage to win most of the seats. But when I see the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) coming into a debate such as this, I wonder what is happening in Hertfordshire and whether the Tories there are getting worried and are trying to please the electorate by reading out a monologue from the Association of District Councils.

Sir D. Walker-Smith

The hon. Member, with his characteristic lack of courtesy, came very late into this debate. He came in during the course of my speech. If he had been here at the beginning, he would have heard me explain exactly what are the arrangements in Hertfordshire. The point I was making is that there are anomalies, and that was the whole point of my speech. I was not saying that there has been no action in Hertfordshire. There has been action of long standing, as the hon. Member would have known if he had been here to listen to my remarks.

12.15 a.m.

Mr. Skinner

I almost thought that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was going to chide his hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) because he had not introduced free weekends for pensioners at the expense of Holiday Inns Ltd.

I have to live in the area of a Tory-controlled county council. The Tories who control Derbyshire County Council, not content with refusing to introduce any concessionary scheme, proposed in their manifesto to get rid of the buses, so that no scheme could have been introduced. Their proposal was that the village squires, the vicars and other well-meaning, do-gooding types would pick up people in their cars from rural bus stops and take them to the main roads. Not content with that, the Tories in Derbyshire got rid of the consumer centres and refuse to spend all the money they got from the Department of Education and Science, for which I and others fought in the House and outside. That is the same council which lopped £100,000 off the police estimates left by the Labour group.

I do not want any lessons from Tories. It is pretty clear what they are up to. They are trying to cash in and kid the people and be all things to all men for the election that we are likely to have in October or whenever. It is clear that they are getting worried about what the polls are saying about the result of that election. So there is something pleasing about their attitude: it shows that they are getting scared.

Perhaps it is not possible to do exactly what we want to do immediately but New Clause No. 10 can be accepted as a stepping stone on the way to a free travel scheme for pensioners throughout the country. If it is possible, such a scheme cannot be introduced by the Leader of the Opposition and her friends. It can be done only by the Labour Government who will be elected this year or next to serve for a further period.

Mr. Fry

The contrast between this debate and the last has been marked—perhaps typified by the speech of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). In view of the good temper, understanding and open-mindedness one sees in transport debates, it is a refreshing change to see evidence of the closed mind of the hon. Member for Bolsover.

This has been a useful debate. I congratulate both my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) and the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) on their new clauses. It is a pity that there has been an attempt to make the debate party political. Even on the figures which have been produced by Labour Members, a total of 19 Conservative-controlled councils have no concessionary schemes. That is only a small percentage of all Conservative-controlled councils. In the light of the complexity of this matter, which is rather greater than some hon. Members have appreciated, that is nothing to be particularly ashamed of.

To those who have tried to make this a party political issue I would quote some sound common sense. The sound common sense comes from the Department of Transport's own circular which it issued on 13th January this year. Labour Members may be surprised at what their own Government had to say. The Secretaries of State"— there is environment as well as transport— do not consider that a mandatory national concessionary fares scheme would be appropriate". That is what the Government have said. Within the present public expenditure limits, a national scheme could only be achieved by reducing considerably the benefits that people get from the more generous schemes". Presumably some Labour Members want to see some people have less generous concessionary fare systems than they get at present. The circular makes the further point that it "would reduce local choice". It goes on to say: it must be for local authorities to make provision appropriate to local needs". I recall this afternoon, during the debate on car parks, the Secretary of State twitting us because we, apparently, were not in favour of giving a degree of local choice to local authorities. At least the Secretary of State is being consistent, and I hope that he will convince more of his hon. Friends on that score.

There is a second quotation to which Labour Members should listen: The Secretaries of State recognise that there may be areas (for example where bus services are scanty) where the provision of bus travel concessions may not be the roost effective way of helping the travel needs of elderly and handicapped people. Those two quotations are good sense. The Minister knows perfectly well that when I think the Government are talking good sense I usually say so. The fact that the Government have come out with those statements shows that they have delved a little deeper into what is quite a complicated issue. Of course there is dissatisfaction with the variety of schemes. One of the troubles is that no individual scheme is ever totally satisfactory. If it is a token scheme, it means that people have to make many regular journeys, perhaps to an elderly relative in hospital, and very soon use up the tokens. If it is a bus pass scheme, for which many people pay a certain amount of money, one of the disadvantages is that there is no monitoring of the schemes at all.

Often ratepayers' money may be quite unnecessarily transferred to the local bus company without any check as to whether it has been justified. Other areas have no scheme at all. I accept that that is particularly hard on those pensioners and the handicapped who live in those areas. But as has been pointed out very forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), it is very costly indeed to operate a scheme in many areas. If one asks most of the ratepayers in those areas, even some who might favour concessionary fares, the last thing they want is an increase in their rate burden.

I believe that to their credit the Government have recognised that this is a very complex matter. Whatever else the argument about concessionary fares, it has very little to do with transport economics. When one talks to any bus operator that is the first point that he makes. It has a lot to do with the realm of the Department of Health and Social Security. I take the point that it may well be therapeutic for the old-age pensioners of Merseyside, for example, to be able to ride round at off-peak times rather than to be at home. But when one realises that over 80 per cent. of the people travelling on the Merseyside passenger transport system are old-age pensioners going free, whatever else it is, it has nothing whatever to do with the running of the public transport system. It may have to do with social security.

Therefore, one of the questions to which the House should address itself is whether the answer is to continue to regard this matter as one of transport finance or whether we should consider transferring it to another part of the balance sheet.

Having accepted the financial limitations that there are, I should like to put forward the proposition that not all parts of the country are being reactionary. I can name one county, hardly Socialist controlled—the county of Surrey—which is trying to persuade and organise the district councils within its boundaries to co-operate together to have a coherent concessionary fare scheme. Much could be done on this basis of voluntary co-operation co-ordinated by the counties to achieve many of the objectives of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

I suggest that that is a useful way of proceeding because, if we go ahead with a national scheme, we shall automatically take away local decision-making. We shall also move into that very delicate area of the powers of various local authorities. The House will recall that the 1972 Local Government Act gave to the district councils the responsibility of introducing their own concessionary fare schemes. The impression given by the ADC is that any attempt suddenly to take it away would be resisted very strongly, because it would take away local initiative and responsibility.

One can also understand the problem of county councils. It is all very well with a district public undertaking, where the marginal cost of a seat on a bus in a city in the middle of a county is very little, to provide a high level of public transport at a concessionary rate. But, realising that there are many residents in such a county where there are no bus services at all, how far is it justified to tax those who get no benefit in order to over-provide?

I could not help thinking as the hon. Member for Berwick upon Tweed (Mr. Beith) was speaking that, typical of his party, he wanted it both ways. He wanted a national scheme, but at the same time he accepted that it was very difficult to produce a scheme which would be fair to people in both urban and rural areas. I suggest that those two factors will be very difficult to reconcile and that it would be far better to proceed by allowing local authorities to do the organising, leaving the financial side of it to the Government. It is on that basis that I believe that we should consider the overall national funding for some kind of concessionary fare scheme.

Mr. Beith

Despite all the difficulties, if the hon. Member gave me a sheet of paper and all the present resources devoted to bus subsidies, I am sure that I could devise a national scheme which was a great deal fairer than the present situation.

Mr. Fry

I am sure that the National Bus Company will be happy to employ the hon. Member after the General Election.

There is obviously widespread concern. The danger is that we could well increase the inequality between various sections of the community—those who would have, and those who would not. Any Government have to look closely at how to spend the money available to them, because 20 per cent. of our elderly people do not use buses and are unlikely to do so in the future. If we are to concentrate more money on only one part of the pensioner population, in equity we have to consider the case of the remainder.

Both these new clauses are worthy of consideration, and this is a matter to which the House will return in the future. But, as I said earlier, I find myself very much struck with the good sense of the Government's present position. If that is the position which the Under-Secretary of State intends to maintain, he will receive no criticisms from the Opposition.

It is obvious that there must be some movement to remove the many complaints and inequalities. I hope that the message will go out from this House to county councils and district councils alike that they should try to see whether within their areas they cannot get co-ordination and the removal of some of the inequalities.

Mr. Penhaligon

I hope that the Government will accept one of these new clauses. In my view, New Clause No. 10 is the better, but the acceptance of either could result in a useful additional power in areas where schemes exist already.

I listened to the general pressure for a national scheme. But it is inappropriate, because a scheme exists. If a county council or district council has no scheme and decides to introduce one, all that it has to do is put up its hand and it has one.

If parish councils run schemes, do they get help through the rate support grant system? In some very rural areas, the only unfair aspect of concessionary fare scheme is that there are a few areas that have no buses and it is unlikely that they will ever have buses again. It could be argued in some areas that parish councils could run schemes better than another authority. Would they get the same sort of help that district and county councils receive via the rate support grant system?

12.30 a.m.

Mr. Horam

I hope that the House will forgive me if I reply very briefly because many of the points have been covered and I do not want to go over the ground that we went over extensively on 3rd March.

The answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) is that parish councils do not get rate support grant help if they wish to introduce a scheme of their own.

I am glad that there is the beginning of all-party agreement on the need for concessionary fare schemes, but I must point out to the Opposition that the Labour Party has made the running on this for many years, both locally and nationally. The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) fairly pointed out that more than half the money spent on concessionary fares is spent in London. That is because London and other metropolitan areas have pioneered these schemes and that is because on the whole they have been Labour controlled. At the other extreme, the 56 district councils with no scheme include 19 that are nominally Conservative and the rest are controlled by independents. None is a Labour-controlled authority.

The Government have provided extra finance. In the current financial year, we are providing an extra £4 million for schemes and by the end of the decade we shall be providing an extra £30 million. We also sent a circular in January this year advocating for district councils a half-fare off-peak system. We want them all to level up to at least half-fare off-peak systems for the elderly.

In many cases, the blind and disabled have different needs. A blind person may be working and want to travel during peak hours as well as off-peak. We want councils to look closely at these categories to try to work out individual schemes that suit the needs of the disabled and the blind as well as looking into the needs of the elderly.

There has already been a considerable response to the circular. We know that 10 counties are considering introducing county-wide schemes. Of the 56 districts with no schemes, 14 have plans and another 16 are involved in preliminary discussions on their plans. Of the 200 or so districts with below average schemes, 26 are proposing to impove them and another 27 are looking at the possibility of doing so. We have achieved that progress since January.

I note what my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk), said about the need for a national scheme. I hope that they will have noticed the progress that we have made following the circular sent out in January. We are making rapid progress as a result of pressure from the Government.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harborough, whose interest in this matter is long standing, on tabling the new clause, because it has sparked off the debate, but the point that he makes in his new clause is subsumed in New Clause No. 10. That new clause means that the recording of schemes will not be a once-and-for-all exercise. It will have to be done every year. We need to keep the pressure on all the time so that schemes are improved and so that the public knows what is happening and it is brought to the attention of the public every year. In that respect the pressure exerted by my hon. Friend's new clause will be greater than that exerted by the hon. Member's new clause. For that reason my hon. Friend's new clause is preferred.

The other point was raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) who said that the biggest problems with these schemes were the discrepancies that exist between various areas. If these schemes are co-ordinated and looked at by the counties, at least those discrepancies can be ironed out within a county.

I hope that the House will agree to accept New Cause No. 10, and that the hon. Member for Harborough will withdraw h[...]s new clause.

Mr. Farr

I thank the Minister for his remarks. I recognise that the other new clause is an extension and improvement of my own, and I shall gladly withdraw it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.