The
Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr. Sadiq
Khan): It is a pleasure to get off the mark with you in
the Chair, Mr. Bercow. I thank my hon. Friends and hon.
Members for their kind words during
the discussion of this statutory instrument. Notwithstanding the fact
that he prayed against the statutory instrument, may I also note the
way that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington began his remarks,
the tenor of his comments and the legitimate questions that he posed? I
will try and respond to all of them. If I do not, he can intervene, or
I can intervene when he winds up.
Touching on
the previous contribution, I was deliberately trying not to be party
political about this—
The
Chairman: Order. For purposes of clarification, may I just
advise the Minister of State that he is winding up? The hon. Member for
Manchester, Withington may seek to intervene on him, but the last
speech is that of the Minister of State.
Mr.
Khan: That is useful for both of us. When I get back I
will give a slap on the wrist to my official who said that the hon.
Gentleman would wind up.
Let
us be clear: the statutory instrument and concessions we are talking
about are new. The £1 billion we are discussing and the
clarification we are seeking relate to a new £1 billion. Given
the lecturing we have had from some hon. Members, it is worth bearing
that in mind when it comes to discussing the clarification we are
making in this statutory instrument in 2009. I am proud of the
Government’s record on concessionary travel. While I am happy to
deal with questions that people may have, I frankly do not need
lectures from hon. Members about our making buses accessible to the
disabled or elderly—people who would otherwise not be able to
use the buses on a concessionary fare.
I am
disappointed at the way in which minor technical changes to facilitate
the better functioning of this scheme—as alluded to by the hon.
Member for Wimbledon—have been misrepresented to the public by
the media and some others. It has caused confusion and consternation
among some concessionaires, who fear their concession is being
significantly eroded. That is absolutely not the case and
concessionaires deserve better than to be alarmed in this
way.
Mr.
Leech: I understand the Minister’s concern about
the representation by the press, but that could have been avoided had
we had the debate under the affirmative rather than the negative
procedure in the first place. The Minister—not the current
Minister—would then have had the opportunity to clarify those
concerns and give reassurances at that
time.
Mr.
Khan: I am happy to discuss the process, but perhaps I
could tell the hon. Gentleman via you, Mr. Bercow, that we
consulted with operators, local authorities and the public and it was
only after a national newspaper published an article that some
Opposition Members expressed concern. I will deal with the hon.
Gentleman’s points, and will comment on the article
later. Since
April 2008, older people and eligible disabled people have been able to
use off-peak local buses free of charge anywhere in England. That
extension built on the Government’s previous achievements of
introducing the first mandatory concession of half-price local travel
in 2000 and improving that to free local off-peak bus travel in 2006.
The criteria for which services are included within the mandatory
concession had remained unchanged
since they were introduced in 2002, when the mandatory concession was
for half-price travel only within a concessionaire’s local
authority. The
considerable improvement in the level of the mandatory concession since
2002, which I remind Opposition Members is all down to the achievements
of this Government, has brought the question of which services should
be included in the mandatory concession under greater scrutiny.
Following the introduction of the new national concession, the time was
right to revisit the eligibility criteria to ensure that they were the
most suitable for a concession which is now worth more than £1
billion of new money per year in reimbursement.
The
message that we got—we got it—from operators and local
authorities who are responsible for administering the concession at a
local level was that while the existing criteria remained appropriate
for the vast majority of services, there was some ambiguity at the
margins that could be unhelpful when assessing a small number of
services. That has been alluded to by the hon. Member for Bosworth.
That problem would most likely become more significant over time unless
greater clarity could be given. As requested, we therefore chose to
look again at the eligibility criteria for bus services, with a view to
making improvements to provide greater clarity. I welcome the comments
by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, who accepted in principle the idea of
the concessionary fares and understood why clarity might be a good
thing, notwithstanding his questions, which I will come to in
a while. After a full public consultation, and working in conjunction
with a working group consisting of representatives from operators and
local authorities, we have made those
improvements. Let
me be clear: the mandatory national bus concession is intended to
improve the social inclusion of older and eligible disabled people in
England. To respond to an earlier comment, I am afraid that that rules
you out, Mr. Bercow, from any extension that anyone would
like to bring in relation to the scheme. The intention was to provide
free travel on eligible local bus services and the order does that by
providing improved access to services and amenities, but it was never
intended to provide free travel on all types of public passenger
service. The
working group identified five types of service—referred to by
Opposition Members—that could be considered to be outside the
spirit of the mandatory concession, but regarding which there was a
potential for confusion when applying the existing eligibility
criteria. To clarify, the instrument specifically excludes those five
types of service from the concession. They are, first, services on
which the majority of seats can be reserved in advance of travel. That
exclusion makes it clear that long-distance inter-city services such as
coaches are not included in the mandatory bus concession. The second
type are services that are intended to run for less than six
consecutive weeks, such as shuttle buses for special events and the
Christmas example given by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington,
which I will refer to in a while. The third type are services operating
primarily for the purposes of tourism or because of the historical
interest of the vehicle, such as open-top sightseeing services. An
example of the confusion experienced by local authorities is the fact
that the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington accepted that they
should be excluded and the hon. Member for Wimbledon asked questions
about whether they should be excluded. That demonstrates why we need to
clarify this.
Stephen
Hammond: I am not suggesting necessarily that they should
not be excluded; I am just asking for clarity that there are no
unintended consequences of the phrase, “purposes of
tourism”.
Mr.
Khan: I shall return to that point in a moment.
The fourth
example is bus substitution services, which are commonly know as rail
replacement services. I think that the hon. Member for Manchester,
Withington accepted our conclusion on this matter, and the hon. Member
for Wimbledon also asked a question relating to it.
The fifth
exclusion is services for which the fare charged by the operator has a
special amenity element typified by a much higher fare than that for a
comparable local service—the park-and-ride example was mentioned
by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington.
It is clear
that, in general, none of those services can be considered a typical
local bus service, so it is only right that, to dispel all doubt, they
should be excluded explicitly from the mandatory concession. There is
also a discretionary concession, which I shall come to in a while. The
hon. Members for Manchester, Withington and for Bosworth referred to
their own wonderful local authorities—wonderful in their eyes,
but that wonderfulness will be demonstrated by whether they are able to
fill any gaps in the discretionary element. However, in keeping with
the fact that these are mandatory concessions with a statutory minimum,
such local authorities can offer, on a discretionary basis,
concessionary travel on any service affected by these
changes.
The amount of
funding provided by central Government is not affected by these
changes. This year, my Department will pay a grant of £217
million purely for the cost of extending the concession, and total
funding is now about £1 billion per year. Although it is
important for the concession to have clarity in such circumstances, the
impact on passengers will be minimal. The hon. Member for Manchester,
Withington is genuinely concerned about the number of passengers
affected by the clarity that we are seeking to provide, but we estimate
that less than 0.01 per cent. of concessionary journeys will be
affected by these
changes. I
shall address some specific questions raised by hon. Members. I would
like to make it absolutely clear that the local bus concession was
never intended to include, and never has included, long-distance
inter-city coach services. Indeed, since 2003 there has been a separate
concession for coach travel where participating operators are
reimbursed so as to be left no better or worse off for offering
half-price tickets to concessionary passholders. That concession is
wholly unaffected by the changes to the bus concession and the coach
concession subsidy.
Some reports
have implied that, before 1 April 2009, the local bus concession gave
free travel on all coach services and that the new criteria had, by
stealth, removed this generous benefit, but that is absolutely not the
case. The article that referred to that was read by some
concessionaires, and they thought it might be true. In fact, however,
under the original criteria, some sections of coach
services—where stops are close together—could be
construed as qualifying for the mandatory bus concession, while the
rest of the service was ineligible. That caused confusion for
concessionaires and considerable problems for operators. By explicitly
excluding services on which over half the seats can be reserved in
advance
of travel, we have made it clear that inter-city coach services are not
part of the mandatory local bus concession. That should remove any
doubt. Although not
specifically mentioned in the exclusions, concerns have been expressed
that the changes could create a blanket exclusion for park-and-ride
services. That is absolutely not the case. No distinct set of bus
services are designated as park-and-ride services. Instead, a wide
range of car parking arrangements and bus services can be administered
in a number of different ways by local authorities. In some cases, we
are aware that the car parking fee is included as part of the bus fare.
In such circumstances, that would be an example of a special amenity
element, and the service would not be eligible for mandatory
concessionary travel. However, many examples of bus services with no
amenity element can be considered park-and-ride services. The bus
service would therefore be included in the mandatory
concession.
The new
arrangements clarify which services should be included and give local
authorities the freedom and flexibility to make the most appropriate
arrangements for their park-and-ride services, without undue
constraints from the mandatory bus concession. Local authorities should
not be forced, by way of a concession for free local bus travel, to pay
for free parking if they do not wish. That was never the intention of
the bus concession, and the changes make that
clear.
Stephen
Hammond: Will the Minister make absolutely clear what he
just said? Did he say that the measure does not necessarily intend to
exclude park-and-ride services, and that if there is an element of free
ride included in the car parking charge, it would be excluded from the
mandatory scheme, but if there was no element of bus ride fee in the
car parking charge, it would not necessarily be excluded from the
scheme? Does he think that that is over-complex? Will it lead to some
unscrupulous council somewhere saying, “We’re not going
to have any element of the ride fee in there so you can use the
concession”?
Mr.
Khan: I hope not. The hon. Gentleman always boasts that
the local authorities concerned tend to be Tory local authorities, but
I hope they are not that greedy. He understands the difference
correctly.
Mr.
Leech: Will the Minister assure us that he will keep the
issue of park and ride under review? There is potential for
skulduggery, and I am keen for the Government to keep an eye on things
to ensure that local people are not missing out as a result of the
order.
Mr.
Khan: There is a delicious irony in this: the hon. Member
for Bosworth criticises us for returning to the matter a few years
after reviewing it, but the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington asks
us to keep it under review. Of course I will keep the matter under
review, notwithstanding the wrath of the hon. Member for Bosworth,
because it is important that parliamentarians do so.
In answer to
the specific questions asked by the hon. Member for Manchester,
Withington, local authorities can choose to include temporary
park-and-ride schemes in their discretionary schemes if they were
included in the past. Funding is not affected.
The estimate
in the impact assessment accompanying the order, to which the hon.
Gentleman referred in his opening, is that the total cost of
reimbursement for coach trips is around £70,000 per year, with
administrative savings of about £80,000. He asked whether they
are the best estimates. They come to about 22,500 trips per year, which
is still way below 0.01 per cent. of the total number of trips that the
concessionary schemes cover. We are talking about a very small element
of the scheme.
The
hon. Gentleman also asked about parking, and the hon. Member for
Wimbledon asked about complexity. Given that complexity, we are trying
to exclude certain matters for the sake of clarity. A local authority
could offer a local concession so that a passenger pays only for the
parking, but as I am sure the hon. Member for Wimbledon agrees, it is
too complex to have a national law for that. Local authorities are best
placed to deal with the matter. I hope the many Tory authorities to
which I referred will not, to use a word that was used before, engage
in skulduggery to try to find a way around the order and
profiteer.
Stephen
Hammond: Clearly it will not be a Conservative authority
that does that. In the unfortunate instance in a few years’ time
that there are Labour authorities again in the country, it might
happen.
The Minister
has just tried to tell me that a national rule would be too complex.
The rule that he has dictated, if my understanding is correct, leaves
extraordinary complexity for local authorities. Is the Minister right
to assure me that my understanding is correct? Does he mean to exclude
the whole element of the scheme?
Mr.
Khan: No. Proposed new article 4(1)(e) of the Travel
Concessions (Eligible Services) Order 2002 makes it clear
that “the
fare for the service includes a special amenity
element.” If
car parking is part of the bus fare, the service is out of the
concession. If the bus fare is included in the car parking fee, the bus
is free
anyway. My
right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South intervened on the hon.
Member for Wimbledon to talk about the problems in Norfolk. The hon.
Gentleman’s point was that £1 billion is the right amount
for the country. My right hon. Friend will know that that is one cut
the Tories are not making, which is good. The issue is the distribution
of the money in different parts of the country. He will be pleased to
know that we are reviewing the allocation of the £1 billion
because there have been winners and losers.
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