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Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for taking the time to go through the points that I have made. I appreciate, as I am sure local authorities will, what he said about ensuring that the scheme is fully funded. Ultimately, we need a scheme that works for the passengers, that local authorities can afford to provide and that provides bus operators with a commercial opportunity. We need to recognise that, because this new scheme is being built on a scheme that was amended only a few months ago, and we are to a certain extent working on assumptions that may need to be reviewed if the scheme is to remain sustainable. I am very keen to avoid the results of this scheme being added to the long list of matters on which local authorities are taking issue with central government, so that it does not become part of the annual ritual of local authorities saying, ““This is where we are short of money””, and the Government saying, ““No, you are fine. Look, we have given you X amount of money””. Although that may be quite good for scoring debating points, it would not achieve very many bus journeys if local authorities ended up cutting services, which is usually what happens when they are short of money. I will stick with my assertion that Blackpool is a honey pot, not least because my revered leader comes from Blackpool and I am sure there must be extra brownie points to be stored up through mentioning it. Nevertheless, the local authority there is as concerned as others are about this element of the Bill. I fear that there are a lot of problems with that concept. Finally, like the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, I am normally against ring-fencing, but there are occasions on which we must at least consider it. The noble Lord and I feel that this is different because we are now moving to a national scheme. If we were starting from a blank piece of paper, I imagine that the Government would introduce and run the scheme nationally. It would probably not be administered by local authorities in any event. Where local government is in effect acting as an agent for a central government scheme, as it is here, that makes us feel less sensitive about the notion of ring-fencing, because it does not restrict the scope of what a local authority can do. It is simply a mechanism to ensure that the funding is adequate.