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Pensioner Travel (Tyne and Wear)

My right hon. Friend makes a valid request. The Government’s approach is to examine the budget of Nexus, the transport executive in the region, to see how we can ensure that the transport concessions that are made—for example, for the student scheme, for the schoolchildren’s scheme, and for the existing concessionary scheme—benefit from the allocation of Government money. We have to ensure that that scheme is legal and that it is fair to other authorities that are arguing that they are losing out. I have to say that none of the authorities that is benefiting from the allocation of money have written to me thanking me for it. My right hon. Friend makes a serious point. We must ensure that we allocate the money through formula grant in a fair way and recognise the needs of the particular transport authority. That is why we are examining the way in which we can distribute money through the formula grant and other possible interventions. We want to ensure that my right hon. Friend’s scheme for students, which has led to improvements in the stay-on rate for further education when compared with other areas, continues, and that student and school student travel for buses in his area is maintained and improved. How do we ensure that the unintended consequences of formula distribution of grant do not militate against the social benefits of the schemes that are currently in place for his constituents? That is our task, and the reason for genuinely congratulating him on raising the issue. In developing the approach to grant distribution that we have now adopted, we had the benefit of extensive consultation, both in the official level settlement working group, in which my right hon. Friend participated, and in full consultation, especially involving local government, last summer on the range of our proposals for grant distribution. The papers that the Association of North East Councils, which was mentioned earlier, brought to the settlement working group attempted to estimate the cost of moving from an authority’s current position to a free-fare scheme. Inevitably, they could only be estimates. As I have explained, we could not base formula grant distribution only on those measurements. Instead, we suggested that we should re-weight the existing formula, known as the lower tier environmental, protective and cultural services formula to reflect the characteristics of areas where take-up of free bus travel is likely to be higher. Indeed, in the period between the announcement of the concessionary scheme in March and the consultation process in July and through to December, we took on board the points that my right hon. Friend made and the representations of others. That led to a significant increase in the money to Tyne and Wear. We consulted on that in the summer of 2005 and, as part of the consultation, we exemplified the change in the EPCS formula. It is important to stress that the majority of responses to the consultation supported the change to the district level EPCS formula. I have to be fair to other local authorities in the area— The motion having been made after Ten o’clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order.