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Concessionary Bus Travel Bill [HL]

I do not want to disagree at all with my noble friend, but taking the example of Essex, 90 per cent of all journeys will still be made within the county, whether to the shops or to hospital. It would be lovely for people to take advantage of the scheme and go to Aberdeen or wherever, and hopefully many will do so, but most of these journeys—millions of them—will be within the local authority. This is something that should be administered locally rather than nationally. Governments—I am not talking about any particular government—do not have a good record in delivering local services; local government has a much better record than when those services are nationalised. This scheme will work much better if it is delivered locally. I do not know where the figure of 291 comes in, but it seems to be a lot. At Second Reading we looked at reducing the numbers in the counties, for example, by using the county as the transport agency rather than all the districts as well. There could be a way of simplifying that number. I spend my life doing this all the time. Local government can deliver this scheme rather better than setting up some national administration to do it, but I agree that we need reserve powers. Will the Minister slightly expand on the figure of 291 because it sounds like a lot of authorities? I am not certain how that works out. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, talked about the problems of money going to districts and counties having to get it back again. That mechanism probably needs to be simplified. Sorry to expand this topic, but as we are in Committee it is good idea to try and get some of these answers for further debate later on.