Hansard

I welcome this opportunity to open the first parliamentary debate for five years devoted to concessionary travel.

On 1 April 2006, the national concessionary travel scheme for older and disabled people, the product of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005 and secondary legislation prepared by transport ministers, came into operation. Although the scheme replaced 16 local schemes, it is still possible to enhance it at a local level. For example, in the Strathclyde partnership for transport area—a topical subject this morning—it is possible to get discounted fares on rail services and the Glasgow subway, and around Scotland there are other examples of what one might call a local non-bus dimension to concessionary travel. The national scheme also includes two free ferry journeys a year for island residents. However, it is principally and overwhelmingly a free bus travel scheme.

I have been gleaning a number of facts and figures from parliamentary questions. Given that the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, Stewart Stevenson, has described himself in the chamber as a "geek", I will not seek to give figures that are accurate to the nth degree, because I am sure that, punctilious as he is, the minister will if necessary correct me at the margins. At the moment, 1.1 million people hold national entitlement cards, the document that is key to concessionary travel and, in particular, free bus travel; 164,000 cards are held by people with disabilities and there are 104,000 companion cards in circulation to enable people with certain disabilities to be escorted.

The scheme is built around an agreement negotiated by Transport Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government with the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK, which represents bus operators. It is a seven-year deal that, from its vesting day, takes us up to 2013. The principle for bus operators is that they should be no better and no worse off by participating in the scheme. However, thereby hangs a rather complicated tale and, as a former convener of a local concessionary travel scheme in Strathclyde, I know that the financing and financial administration of such schemes can be extremely complex.

At the moment, the system reimburses to CPT members what is, in my view, a rather generous 73.6 per cent of the average fare in Scotland. It is fair to say that there is some tension between Transport Scotland and CPT on the matter but, in my experience, tension can be a creative thing. The operators are interested in being paid average costs, whereas Transport Scotland has rightly proposed the establishment of a scheme in which increased patronage could be borne at marginal cost to operators. Other tensions have emerged; CPT has demanded that a cost escalator be built into future years, while the Scottish Government has understandably sought a cap, so that it knows the amount of finite resources it can plan to make available for future concessionary travel schemes.

One of the greatest complexities in the financial administration of concessionary travel is the generation factor—not, I stress, the generation game, although it can sometimes turn into a bit of an elaborate game. By that, I mean the difficult-to-capture information about the people travelling under the concessionary travel scheme who would not have done so if the scheme had not been in place. That kind of information bedevils a budget that is essentially a projection rather than a precise amount. Who will travel next year? How many journeys will they make? Will there in some years be a lack of financial provision for concessionary travel or will there, as has been more usual and as the minister has made clear on the record, be surpluses at the end of the year?

At the moment, the number of journeys per year is running north of 158 million and, when the scheme began in 2006, each journey was costing the taxpayer 78p. The cost is now substantially more than £1 per journey. Of course, one of the drivers of that increase has been the increase in commercial bus fares. The scheme's current real-term annual costs are in excess of £180 million and, according to a parliamentary answer, since it started operators have claimed £510 million and have been paid back £506 million. In other words, Transport Scotland has repudiated £4 million of gross claims.

It seems to me that as we try to move away from the average-costapproach to the marginal-cost approach, even more provision will be required, and I am heartened by the way in which the roll-out of smart card technology, which captures precise data about all bus journeys, is gathering momentum.

Even before the scheme started, people were saying that some of its aspects should be enhanced. In January 2006, the then MSP for Banff and Buchan took up the cudgels on behalf of the local community transport organisation, one of the best in the country, arguing that in rural areas community transport organisations account for a significant part of bus usage and should therefore be considered as part of the bus network and as operators for the purpose of the scheme. At that time, quite a number of MSPs signed a motion to that effect in the name of Stewart Stevenson.

In 2007, a number of members became concerned by approaches they were receiving from constituents who were, in the main, on the lower level of disability living allowance. They had received free bus travel in 2006; however, when on vesting day they had tried to claim their national entitlement card with their local concessionary travel card, which had been recognised as a valid document for free bus travel, they were told that they were not eligible for it. Essentially, from 2007 onwards, thousands of people who had been able to travel free in local authority schemes in Strathclyde, the Lothians, the Highlands and Fife were stripped of that benefit.

What went wrong? With a view to standardising eligibility and validation processes, the then Scottish Government undertook a public consultation exercise between October and December 2005. Following that, the national scheme eligibility criteria and validation processes were standardised with the agreement of transport authorities, operators, and the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland. Subsequently, the arrangements were approved by secondary legislation. To ensure a smooth transition, people who were on the lower DLA rate in local schemes were simply ported across to free bus travel on vesting day in April 2006.

In the meantime, Transport Scotland expected that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities would be involved in ensuring that all cardholders would be reassessed on the expiry of their existing cards. I am not at all clear why it was felt to be necessary to reassess people who had been through rigorous United Kingdom Government agency checks, but we are where we are.

So it could be said that there was a bit of a cock-up. There was considerable pressure in Parliament and on the minister to reflect the views of affected constituents, and he founded on a review of concessionary travel that would commence in 2008. However, just before that review started, the Halcrow Group reported to Transport Scotland that 42 per cent or more of car owners with entitlement cards were now using the car less, so we were starting to see benefits in terms of modal split. Halcrow concluded that the schemes in Scotland were contributing positively to reducing social exclusion and encouraging active lifestyles and modal shift from private car to public transport and, in particular, the bus.

Then came the review, and it was rather a closed review that mainly involved the civil service and Transport Scotland, and only accepted written submissions from other stakeholders. Yes, we welcomed and still welcome the recommendation to include disabled war veterans in the scheme, but we are particularly disappointed that people who are on the lower rate of DLA are still excluded. The review includes a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation that claims that it would cost £18 million for people who are in that category to be included once additional companion cards are factored in. Those calculations do not bear much scrutiny, as members will have seen from the e-mail that we received from Leonard Cheshire Disability. I have received a number of quotes from Leonard Cheshire and other voluntary organisations that reflect the views of those vulnerable people, and it is fair to say that in many parts of Scotland, the cry is still for people who are on the lower rate of DLA to be given free bus travel. I will have the opportunity to highlight those points when I sum up.

We should not be looking backwards at the cock-up, nor should we be constructing conspiracy theories. Across the parties in the Parliament, we should be doing the right thing by some very vulnerable people.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the recommendation of the Review of the Scotland Wide Free Bus Travel Scheme for Older and Disabled People to include seriously injured armed forces veterans to the scheme but notes with disappointment and concern the review's recommendation to disenfranchise disabled people who receive the lower rate of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) from the scheme; further notes that the review paints a worst-case scenario of the costs of including disabled people who receive the lower rate of DLA and that these costs are open to scrutiny and debate and that the review also played down the positive social impact that the scheme has on people's lives; acknowledges that denying disabled people on the lower rate of DLA access to the scheme will damage the main aims and ethos of the scheme, namely to allow disabled people improved access to services, facilities and social networks by free scheduled bus services and so promote social inclusion and improve health by promoting a more active lifestyle for disabled people; notes that previous local schemes operated in West Lothian and Strathclyde provided people on the lower rate of DLA access to concessionary travel schemes and that they supported the national scheme mirroring their eligibility criteria instead of the stringent criteria that are now adopted; welcomes disability organisations Leonard Cheshire Disability, Learning Disability Alliance Scotland (LDAS), Inclusion Scotland and many more in challenging the review's negative recommendation, and considers that disabled people's views, that the national concessionary travel scheme should include people who receive the lower rate of DLA instead of backing the unfair recommendation on eligibility from the review, should be listened to.