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Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [HL]

I am grateful to both noble Lords who have spoken. I agree about the importance of access to transport in reducing social exclusion and the Government are committed strongly to these objectives. That is why we are spending £1 billion a year on statutory concessionary travel to improve the mobility and well-being of older and disabled people. The Committee will recognise that we have already delivered significant improvements in this respect, but we are not in a position to commit further funding to concessionary travel beyond that which is established as the basis of the Bill. In any case, until the extension of the national bus concession has been evaluated, both in its effectiveness for the categories we are discussing and the efficiency of the scheme, we do not think we should at this stage take the scheme further. We can only intelligently do that once the impact of the national scheme has been fully considered and evaluated. The Transport Act 2000 sets out the groups of people to whom travel concessions must be provided by law. In addition, under the Transport Act 1985, local authorities have the discretion to offer travel concessions to other groups. As I emphasised earlier in our discussions, the Bill preserves the flexibility of local authorities to offer concessions to any groupor individual, at their discretion, based on the assessment of the benefits of doing so. There is also a corresponding power to include new categories of people to benefit from the new national scheme. We believe the ability to extend the concession on the basis of local and national need is the most appropriate way to proceed, not by an amendment to the Bill as proposed in Amendment No. 10. I am also obliged to ask the noble Baroness to withdraw Amendment No. 16 which would require the Secretary of State to issue guidance to local authorities as to the definition of whether a person is a disabled person. Given that the Government are not presently in a position to extend the eligibility for the national concession, it is not necessary to require the Secretary of State to issue such guidance. He wouldof course continue to issue guidance as required. Guidance exists at the present time and we retain that capacity. Such an extension would increase the scope of the scheme in ways which, for obvious reasons, as I have indicated, we are not prepared to contemplate at the present time. Of course, as resources become available, we recognise that we must have in place legislation which enables us to enhance what already exists. The Bill preserves that in its entirety. It creates a scope for the Secretary of State to act if necessary, and preserves the rightof local authorities to enhance and extend definitions of beneficiaries as they see fit. On that basis, I believe the Bill meets the broad objectives of the amendments. The Government are not in a position at this stage to accept the specific requirements of the amendments.