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Public Transport

I shall make some progress, if I may. I suspect that I anticipate the point that the hon. Gentleman wants to make. Secondly, councils are cropping other services not connected to travel to balance their books. A recycling programme in Christchurch has had to be scrapped as a direct result of underfunding for concessionary fares. Finally, a number of local authorities have been left with no option but to increase council tax. Adur in West Sussex, Worthing and Torbay are just three examples of that. According to a representative of Suffolk Coastal district council,"““last year's Council Tax increase almost all went towards supporting the concessionary travel costs””." The situation is little better for bus operators. Mr. Peter Shipp, the chairman and chief executive of the East Yorkshire Motor Services group, has described the situation as"““even more of a financial and operational disaster than I predicted””," and he certainly was not very complimentary about it before it was introduced. The new concessionary fare scheme is having a destructive effect on partnerships between local authorities and bus operators, which is jeopardising improvements to local networks. Bus operators have had to spend a considerable proportion of their time on concessionary fares administration and appeals—time that could more productively have been spent improving bus services. It is clear that the uncertainties of reimbursement are affecting the bus operators' attitude to risk, which may be reflected in tender prices for bus contracts. The principal bone of contention between local authorities and operators relates to calculating the so-called general travel factor, which means the travel pattern that would have been experienced without the concessionary fares. That factor is used as the basis of reimbursements paid to the operator. In many cases, that leads to appeals by operators. A bus operator can appeal if it feels that it has been inadequately reimbursed by the local authority, but it is worth noting that the local authority cannot appeal if it feels that it has been inadequately reimbursed by the Government. Will the Minister let us know how many appeals have already been lodged with her Department? Another common complaint is that whereas operators can increase fares without consultation, the grant awarded to local authorities to reimburse operators will increase only with inflation. If a bus company is in financial difficulties, it can raise fares. Because local authorities must reimburse it for revenue forgone based on a percentage of revenue, it will be the council that loses out. Mr. Shipp wrote to me at the end of May outlining the bureaucratic nightmare that is unfolding for companies such as his. He stated that one natural result of the new reimbursement arrangements is that he is paid a different amount by Scarborough borough council for a journey to Beverley than by East Riding of Yorkshire council for the return journey. Even worse, because East Riding is offering its residents a £15 pass to enhance the national scheme and provide pre-9.30 am travel to and from Hull, East Yorkshire Motor Services has to bill East Riding council for journeys made by its residents from Hull before 9.30 am, but Hull city council for the same journeys after 9.30 am. That is an example of the bureaucratic morass that such companies are having to deal with. Such companies are also finding that on sunny days, a large number of people entitled to concessionary fares are turning up for leisure journeys. All well and good, one might say, but as a result they are leaving regular fare-paying passengers behind because there is no room. Because of that, East Yorkshire Motor Services has just cancelled a £6,000 summer marketing campaign for fear of encouraging fare-paying families who would otherwise have been using their cars to turn up for buses that they cannot get on because they are full of pensioners.