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Concessionary Bus Fares

I am glad that the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Graham Stringer) has raised this subject today. He is right in commending the Government for what will be a much appreciated scheme. He is also right, however, to mention that there are some important questions about it. He has raised some of them previously and they are significant, so I hope that the Minister will give attention to them. I want to concentrate on a particular aspect of the scheme. Virtually all of my constituents have to travel out of the local authority area to get to a major shopping centre or a district hospital. Many of them also have to travel out of their area to visit their nearest local shopping centre or supermarket. Some of them even have to travel out of the local authority area to visit their GP. They will benefit greatly from the introduction of the scheme. Many of my constituents have to change buses, which means that they immediately forfeit even discretionary help on the rest of their journey, because they have completed the journey that started in their local authority area of origin, and they board a bus in a different such area. It is a nightmare for pensioners to get help under the present system, which relies heavily on discretionary arrangements whereby one local authority agrees to provide free travel for pensioners who travel in another local authority’s area. Such arrangements are limited and complicated. For many of my pensioners, therefore, 2008 will be a delight, because all of that will be swept away and they will have a national bus pass. However, that applies to only half of them. Unless the Minister acts, the other half will find April or May of next year an extremely disappointing time, because they will not benefit at all. The reason is that, when they visit their nearest city, district hospital, supermarket or in some cases their GP, they have to travel into Scotland. They will not get help unless there is interchangeability between the Scottish and English schemes. To the limited extent that they receive help at the moment it is because Berwick-upon-Tweed borough council gives some discretionary assistance for a limited number of journeys into Scotland, but not those on which one has to change buses. If some of the financial problems described by the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley come to pass, local authorities might find that they are unable in any way to supplement the provision of the national bus pass with discretionary arrangements. The financing of the scheme does not assume that local authorities will have to make further discretionary arrangements, but those in border areas would have to do so merely to keep the level of support that people have now, and they might not have the money to do that. What is needed is interchangeability between the English and Scottish bus passes—that stands out by a mile. The comments that I have made about my own constituents apply also in reverse: all those in Scotland whose nearest GP, supermarket or indeed shop is in Berwick need to be able to travel the opposite way and need to be able to benefit from the scheme. If their national card runs out, they will not be able to do so. Tourism is a relevant issue as well. The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley mentioned that, although in a negative sense, saying that the bus pass situation could be a problem for tourist areas. My own area is a tourist area, although not on the scale of Blackpool, where there are all those people wanting to use the trams for free. Nevertheless, there will be a problem. If tourists can travel around on the bus, in particular those who want to use the bus to go on walks, it is an attraction to our area. Many pensioners walk—let us not assume that they are all restricted in their movements. Many are keen walkers and ramblers, and would be delighted to use the scheme to arrive at one place and walk to another—down the coast, for example. A similar situation must exist in the Welsh borders as well. Unusually among Ministers, but commendably, those dealing with the scheme have foreseen the problem—they have included powers in the legislation to enable interchangeability. However, all the replies that I have received from them up to now have totally lacked any sense of urgency on the negotiation of interchangeability, and no commitment to achieve it by the time of the introduction of the national bus pass. It is vital that the national bus pass is interchangeable from the day on which it is introduced—otherwise half of my constituents will say, ““What use is this to us? It is not getting us to the GP, the hospital, the shopping centre, or the city.? They will be extremely angry and there will be a pensioners’ backlash in border areas—not just in my constituency but in the Carlisle area and in all the areas along the Welsh border. The local authorities in those areas, which currently provide for a certain amount of cross-border travel, will not have spare money to continue provision if the scheme financing presents the sort of difficulties that have been referred to earlier in the debate. I have one simple request of the Minister, therefore, which is that I hope that she will respond today by saying, ““Yes, I am undertaking negotiations. As soon as the Bill is on the statute book and the Scottish elections are over I shall be negotiating with my Scottish and Welsh colleagues to ensure that there are interchangeable national bus passes from the date of introduction of the national bus pass scheme.?