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Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, we will take motions Nos. 24 to 29 together.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118 (6)),
That the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2008 (S.I., 2008, No. 3085), dated 2 December 2008, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3 December, be approved.
That the Rules of the Supreme Court (Northern Ireland) (Amendment No. 3) 2008 (S.R. (N.I.), 2008, No. 479), dated 2 December 2008, a copy of which was laid before this House on 3 December, be approved.
That the draft Local Government (Structural Changes) (Areas and Membership of Public Bodies in Bedfordshire and Cheshire) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 17 November, in the previous Session of Parliament, be approved.
Companies
That the draft Companies (Trading Disclosures) (Amendment) Regulations 2008, which were laid before this House on 6 November, in the previous Session of Parliament, be approved.
That the draft Companies (Disclosure of Address) Regulations 2008, which were laid before this House on 18 November, in the previous Session of Parliament, be approved.
That the draft Postponement of Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 2009, which was laid before this House on 10 December, be approved.—( Ian Lucas.)
Adjournment (February)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 25),
That this House, at its rising on Thursday 12 February, do adjourn till Monday 23 February.—( Ian Lucas.)
Committees
That Mr Kevan Jones be discharged from the Administration Committee and Mr Stephen Hepburn be added.—( Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)
That Ms Dawn Butler be discharged from the Children, Schools and Families Committee and Derek Twigg be added.—( Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.)
Concessionary Bus Fares
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—( Ian Lucas.)
10.56 pm
David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): In April last year, the Government introduced a scheme that was welcomed in all parts of the House. The national bus concessionary fare scheme means that everyone over 60 and people with certain disabilities are now able to travel on local buses for free in any part of the country, not just where they live. The Government provided £212 million in a special grant to pay for the scheme, money which eventually finds its way into the coffers of the bus companies.
The dispute is not so much about the objective of the scheme, which many people across the country have benefited from, including Members of this House. There are still some problems to be ironed out: for example, campaigners for deaf-blind people point out that it makes no sense to charge a disabled person nothing to travel, but to charge full fare for their helper, without whom they could not travel. However, such difficulties aside, this is a well-intentioned scheme and there is no dispute about its objectives. The dispute is about the route that the £212 million goes on via local councils to the bus companies, and the serious problem that some councils are paying out to bus companies vastly more than the Government are paying to them, whereas other councils are making a handy profit out of the scheme and are diverting the money allocated to them for it to general purposes.
There were already concessionary fare schemes around the country before April, and there has been controversy over their funding, because some councils say that the amounts of money allocated to them for the previous schemes were insufficient and that this underfunding has been carried over into the new scheme. It is difficult to assess those claims, because the central funding used to be wrapped up in a very obscure way in the general grant central Government pay to local government, although I suspect councils would have something to say about that. I do not, however, want to spend time tonight on that old controversy. I want to concentrate solely on the financial effects of the new scheme that came in last April. Because it has been funded by a special grant, its effects are clear.
The problem with the new system is that its starting point is that a local authority pays for the bus journeys not of its residents, but of anyone who gets on a bus within its district. That simple rule has produced two serious anomalies that are having a devastating effect on the finances of a number of district councils, including that of Cambridge, which I represent. The first anomaly, and the most obvious, is that districts that are tourist attractions end up paying for the bus journeys of visitors. If every district of the country was equally likely to attract tourists from every other district, there would be no problem.
Mr. Andrew Smith (Oxford, East) (Lab):
I am pleased that Oxford and Cambridge can join forces on this issue. In Oxford, there is the serious problem of underfunding to the tune of almost £500,000 and rising. Although, as the hon. Gentleman says, the intention behind the concessionary scheme is wonderful, this
must be addressed by looking at the formula afresh in the interests of Cambridge, Oxford and other such authorities. I think that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), who is present, is nodding in agreement.
David Howarth: I am glad to be able to agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I am surrounded by Oxford Members, and I think I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) agreeing very strongly with the right hon. Gentleman’s comments.
Dr. Ian Gibson (Norwich, North) (Lab): May I bring the hon. Gentleman to more humble origins and a city such as Norwich, which is also a truly attractive area that brings people in from the county of Norfolk? Norwich City council is £1.5 million down as a result of this scheme, whereas the council next door is £800,000 up. That is because a calculation is made on the basis of the people who come into Norwich and the council has to pay for it. I am sure there are other examples, but people are being disadvantaged in Norwich because the fact that people get off buses there means that the council has to pay—it is completely unfair.
David Howarth: I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I shall get on to the details of the scheme later, but what he describes is not uncommon around the country. Paying for visitors has had enormous effects on not only Oxford, Cambridge and, to some extent, Norwich, but on Torbay and the Isle of Wight.
Mr. Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD): Is it not an unfair system that penalises areas that are successful tourist resorts? Such areas do not receive any extra money to help to promote them or to pay for the additional costs of tourism.
David Howarth: My hon. Friend is right; I shall come to the formula in a moment, because it does not properly reflect the costs being imposed on councils in such areas.
The second anomaly is less obvious, although the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) mentioned it, but it is just as damaging. In urban districts that are surrounded by suburban or rural districts, the pay-where-the-journey-starts rule means that if someone comes into town for a hospital appointment or a shopping trip, the council covering where they live pays only for their outward journey—the council covering the place where they go to hospital or shop pays for their journey home. Far more people travel from out of town into town for health care, for shopping and for entertainment than go from town in the opposite direction to the rural areas. The effect is that urban districts pay far more for the journeys of rural dwellers than rural districts pay for the journeys of town dwellers.
The situation can be even worse where there are park-and-ride schemes. In Cambridge, most of the park-and-ride sites are just within the city boundary. People from outside town drive just over the city boundary and park, and the city council then pays for both their journeys on the bus. Just to illustrate how arbitrary this can be, I should point out that a park-and-ride site in Cambridge is being moved less than a mile, from inside
Cambridge to south Cambridgeshire and that move alone will transfer about £30,000 a year between the two councils involved.
This second anomaly affects places where the district boundaries are drawn, as I think they largely should be, where town meets country. The result is large effects on places such as Norwich, Exeter, Chesterfield, and Cambridge.
David Howarth: And Oxford. The fact that both anomalies affect my constituency, as they do the constituency of the right hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), is largely why I am standing here tonight. The effect on the Cambridge City council’s budget is stark. The new scheme alone is costing the council, and thus my constituents, about £1 million a year. The council also thinks that a further £500,000 a year is appearing on its budget because of the old scheme, but I wish to concentrate on the new scheme alone.
Mr. Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. No buses come to the Isle of Wight, so people get there, jump on our buses and, thus, we pay for all of them. The Isle of Wight council is spending between £3 million and £5 million on the Government’s free travel. During a meeting with Ministers last week, Councillor Tim Hunter-Henderson pointed out that £1.7 million had been received in grant income and the relevant Minister pointed out the difficulty of identifying what grant had been paid out in respect of the scheme. There might be enough money in the scheme nationally, but it is impossible to get figures at a local level.
David Howarth: The hon. Gentleman might be right about the old scheme, but we have more accurate figures for the new scheme and I shall just set out the figures for Cambridge under the new scheme alone. Expenditure on concessionary fares since last April has increased by £1.6 million a year—177 per cent. The Government grant to Cambridge for the scheme assumed that the increase would be only 60 per cent. The Department described that grant as “generous”, but a better description would be “wholly inadequate”. The Department has got its predictions immensely wrong—by a factor of three—and it should put the situation right immediately.
That £1 million will not sound like much to the Minister, who is used to dealing in billions, but it is devastating to a small district council. It represents 15 per cent. of the money that the council raises in council tax in a year, but it cannot be recouped using council tax receipts, because it would put the council many times over the Government’s capping limit. On the spending side, it represents the loss of some 30 jobs, and the situation in other places is even worse.
Cambridge City council, like all public authorities, is having financial difficulties this year, but this is by far the biggest financial problem the council faces and it is of the Government’s making. In the long run, a £1 million deficit has to be paid for somehow, and that means service reductions, tax increases, increases in charges or all three.
The Government’s response has been to say five things, but they are wrong about all of them. First, the Government say that there is enough money in the
special grant overall. Some hon. Members may dispute that, but even if it is true, it is irrelevant to the question, which is about the distribution of the money between councils.
Secondly, the Government say that the grant formula already deals with the problem because it takes into account the number of overnight visitors and the amount of retail floor space in the district. But it is obvious from what has happened in practice that it has not done so enough. Nor has the formula taken into account all the relevant factors such as health care and the positioning of park-and-ride sites.
Thirdly, the Government say that councils could get a better deal with the bus companies to reduce costs, but that argument does not work because even the councils that have achieved the best deals with the bus companies—for example, Exeter—still face massive deficits. In any case, the reimbursement rates in a two-tier area are negotiated not by the district council, which has to pay, but by the county council, which does not.
Fourthly, the Government say that the present scheme will last only three years and that next time they might transfer responsibility for it from district councils to county councils. That might help a little in some places, because there would be fewer problems caused by journeys across boundaries, but it would not stop the unevenness caused by tourism, which is uneven across the country at a county level as well as at a district level. The Isle of Wight is an extreme example of that issue. The Local Government Association points out that it is becoming clear in several areas that even if the grant were to be pooled at county level, there would still be shortfalls. Lancashire, for example, would still be £2 million short, and the deficits in the unitary authorities, such as Nottingham and Brighton, would be unchanged.
Paul Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD): My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. The financial evidence from all over England from councils run by all parties—this is not a party political issue—is that the Government have simply not provided enough money for the bus fare scheme. In Chesterfield alone, the underfunding is some £1.7 million, which is equal to a 40 per cent. increase in the council tax or 80 council staff who would have to be sacked by the end of February to set a budget for next year. Are my hon. Friend’s constituents as furious as mine at the devastating effect that the Government’s broken funding promises will have on local services? My constituents are even more furious that the Prime Minister recently found time for a publicity stunt on Chesterfield railway station, but could not find time to meet the council to talk about the appalling results of the underfunding of this Government policy.
David Howarth: My constituents certainly are furious, and they are not convinced by the Government’s argument that there might be a solution in two or three years’ time. That does not deal with the massive financial crisis in council budgets now.
Lastly, the Government have said that councils should get together and sort the distribution out among themselves. But how can that work? Are the councils that are making a tidy profit out of this scheme by receiving more than they pay out going to give up their ill-gotten gains voluntarily? I do not think so. The Government caused this mess and they should sort it out.
The total amount at stake across the country is, according to the LGA, about 10 per cent. of the total grant, but half of that is concentrated in just 10 authorities. At a time when the Government are saying that there should be a fiscal stimulus, and are throwing money like confetti at the banks—and at other Departments, such as the Ministry of Justice, which has just received a £550 million supplementary estimate—this does not seem like a big deal. It is, however, a big deal for the councils affected and for their residents and taxpayers.
11.9 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Clark): At the outset, I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) on securing the debate. I am beginning to quite enjoy my attendance at Adjournment debates, whether they are about rail fares or concessionary fares. Both are important.
I am proud of the Government’s record on concessionary travel. In 2000, for the first time, older and disabled people in England were guaranteed the same minimum concession regardless of where they lived, giving them half-price bus travel within their local authority area. From April 2006, we improved that statutory minimum concession from half-price fare to free local travel for those eligible at a cost of an additional £350 million, a sum provided by central Government that rises each year—this year, it is at £377 million—and goes in through the revenue support grant provisions. It was widely recognised at the time that the total sum of £350 million in 2006 was an adequate figure to cover the additional cost.
In addition, the Prime Minister announced that 11 million older and disabled people would be able to use off-peak local bus services free of charge anywhere in England from April 2008. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, we provided an additional £212 million to pay for that, which was distributed using a formula that reflects areas of likely demand, whether they are shopping destinations or tourist areas such as coastal towns. I shall deal further with the formula in a moment.
The funding is additional funding. I noted that the hon. Gentleman said that we had provided £212 million to pay for the concessionary fares. No. Let me make it absolutely clear that there was already money in the revenue support grant mechanism and the formula grant provisions to local authorities. The £212 million was to reflect the additional cost of going from local free travel in local areas to free travel nationally in England.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab): I am sure that my hon. Friend will be surprised to know that my constituents are no better off than those of the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), although West Lancashire district council is a net gainer—it was and is a net gainer under both the old and new systems. The council is using the money and the surplus in the general rate fund and is forcing my constituents to choose between free rail and bus travel. It will not allow them to have both, but next door, in Merseyside, residents have that facility. The Government have given the money and the money is there, but it is being used for something else. My elderly residents are being forced to choose between bus and rail. It is not fair.
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