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Public Transport

This is not a debate about local income tax, but I am happy to tell the right hon. Gentleman that all our tax proposals balance. I would be happy to send him details, should he wish. Our proposals are open and accountable, they have been externally audited and they balance. More to the point, they exist, which is more than can be said for the Conservatives' proposals. I am grateful to the Committee for its comments on the concessionary fare scheme, and I hope that it will follow them through, because this is an important area of delivery not only for people up and down the country but for the new Government policy, which needs to be examined. That is exactly the sort of thing that the Committee should be doing. The report is not just about concessionary fares; it also deals with other matters. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside mentioned fare evasion, which is an important issue. I support her suggestion that there should be a better independent appeals body. It is quite right that those who are seeking to avoid paying their fare should be caught and dealt with properly. It is unacceptable to the proper fare payer that others are getting free travel by seeking to avoid payment. However, people are sometimes given unjustified penalties. A constituent of mine, a young student, got on a train without having paid the fare because there was no one in the booking office. They were subsequently charged a penalty fare because they had not seen the conductor on the train to get a ticket as soon as they got on. That cannot be right, and we need to resolve issues such as those. An independent appeal body that works would be the right way forward, and I fully endorse the hon. Lady's proposal for such a body. One way of dealing with such problems is by gating stations. I do not pretend that that is the full answer, but I know from speaking to Transport for London that it has massively increased its fare income—by 15 to 20 per cent., I think—by putting gates on the North London line, which it has taken over from a British Rail-type body. I am not sure which of the train operating companies it was. TFL has improved its income stream markedly by gating those stations. Technology can therefore help to provide answers. I want also to deal with integrated ticketing, but I shall preface my remarks by saying that we need to recognise that there is a problem with the bus services that are presently provided in this country. The problem dates partly if not wholly back to deregulation in the 1980s. The statistics from the Department demonstrate that the average cost of bus fares has increased markedly above inflation in the intervening years, and particularly since this Government came to power in 1997. The average cost of bus fares has increased by 13 per cent. above inflation since 1997. Those who use buses are often among the poorest in society. They do not all qualify for free passes as they are often working people, and this is a significant cost for them to meet. The cost of travelling by bus has gone up by more than the cost of travelling by train and, dare I say it, by more than the cost of motoring in those years, notwithstanding recent fuel price increases. The cost of travelling has gone up, but the cost of subsidy has gone up as well. The subsidy to bus services in 1986 was £847 million. When this Government came in, it was largely unchanged at £881 million. By 2006, however, it had rocketed to £2,452 million. That represents a tripling of the subsidy in the 11 years of this Government, at a time when fares have been increasing at above the rate of inflation and bus passenger numbers have continued to fall. That is not a success. Between 1985 and 2006, the number of bus journeys in Scotland fell by 30 per cent., in Wales by 28 per cent. and in the non-metropolitan areas of England by 22 per cent. It is only in London that there has been any success in driving the numbers up. The subsidy per head in London is markedly higher than elsewhere in the country.