Concessionary Fares: Blackpool North and Cleveleys

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Andrew Jones)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) on securing the debate. He made his case with his customary passion, and I was particularly struck by how important the issue is for both visitors and residents. I have some knowledge of the area, having visited his constituency on a number of occasions; in a former life I took company conferences to the Norbreck Castle hotel—and very successful and enjoyable they have always been.

My hon. Friend raised several issues, and I will begin my response by talking about concessionary travel. The Government know how important affordable, accessible transport is. It is the bread and butter of the way communities function and move around. That is especially true for older and disabled passengers—a point that he made clearly and powerfully. That is, of course, why the Government have committed to protecting the national bus travel concession in England, and why they spend some £950 million a year on doing so.[Official Report, 21 January 2016, Vol. 604, c. 5-6MC.] The concession provides much-needed help for some of the most vulnerable people in our society by giving them greater freedom, independence and a lifeline to their community. It enables some 10 million older people and disabled people to access facilities in their local area. It helps them to keep in touch with family and friends, and it brings wider benefits to the economy.

The national concession sets a minimum standard available to any eligible person anywhere in England. That does not come cheap, which is why, given the current economic situation, we do not have plans to extend the remit of the basic concession any further. My hon. Friend asked whether we could extend it to tramways. I will do some costing, but we do not have tramways just in his constituency; they are a growing feature of urban transport in our country. They are successful, and they are being extended in Nottingham, Manchester and other areas. They are popular and well used, so extending the concessionary fare scheme into our tramways nationally would be an extremely expensive undertaking.

Local authorities have the power to enhance the national offer with discretionary concessions according to local need and funding priorities; I will come back to funding priorities at the end. That may include extending the times of the concession to include peak-time travel, offering a companion pass for people who need assistance to travel, or offering concessions on different modes of transport, such as trams. As we have heard, it can also include concessionary arrangements between neighbouring local authorities, such as the arrangement between Blackpool Borough Council and Lancashire County Council to accept NoWcards from other Lancashire residents on the Blackpool tramway. I am aware of the changes to the administration of that enhancement. Although I fully understand my hon. Friend’s disappointment and that of his constituents, the provision of such discretionary concessions is a matter on which local authorities must work together to try to solve such problems, based on those authorities’ assessment of local need and funding priorities.

Trams and light rail are a convenient, regular and reliable way for people to get to work or school, or to travel around their area with ease. Well planned systems in the right location can enhance the reputation and ambience of an area. However, I do not think it is for the Government to dictate what extensions should be made to particular schemes, because such decisions should be taken locally to reflect the individual needs and circumstances of an area. That is entirely in the grain of Government thinking about devolution, about people taking responsibility and ownership of their areas and about ensuring that decisions are made as close as possible to where a service is delivered. As a consequence, such services will be better tailored to local need and, therefore, better services.

On the joint funding arrangements between Blackpool Borough Council and Lancashire County Council for tramway maintenance, I understand that discussions may already be taking place, and I do not wish to pre-empt any outcome. It is, however, my sincere hope that a speedy and satisfactory resolution can be reached, with the best interests of the community at heart.

It is worth taking a moment to consider funding for rural services, because we have had many requests for further support for transport in rural areas. Calls have been made for Government to provide a dedicated fund to maintain and improve bus services in rural areas. I assure the House that we fully recognise the extra pressure placed on local authorities to provide services in more isolated areas. If communities are disconnected from transport, they may wither and die, so transport is fundamental to community health. That is why we have introduced the rural services delivery grant, which is a non-ring-fenced grant paid to the most rural councils. Last year, the Government added £2 million of additional funding to the £9.5 million of rural services delivery grant already provided, and I am sure we all welcome the recent announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government that he intends to increase the support for the most sparsely populated rural areas by quadrupling the rural services delivery grant from £15.5 million to £65 million in 2019-20.

Transport in rural areas is not just about the levels of public funding; it is about how and where that funding is used. Where commercial operations are not feasible, local authorities have a vital role in supporting rural bus services. Indeed, around one fifth of bus mileage in predominantly rural areas is operated under contract to the local authority. We believe that local authorities are best placed to decide what support to provide in response to local need. That is why we devolved £40 million of the £250 million paid in the bus service operators grant subsidy to councils outside London last year to support bus services in England, so that they can decide for themselves how it is spent. It is vital that those local authorities maximise the return on every penny of the funding that they provide.

[Paul Maynard]

Does the Minister recognise that many urban bus services in the centre of Blackpool originate in rural areas? The proposals for Lancashire County Council to reduce rural bus subsidies will also reduce the frequency of bus services in central Blackpool. It is not just about rural or urban, because many rural bus services also support urban areas.

[Andrew Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point, and I entirely agree with it. The distinctions are very blurred, and both things clearly have a knock-on effect on each other.

I want to highlight an initiative called Total Transport. At present, some £2 billion of public funding for transport services every year is provided by a number of different agencies. For example, I have mentioned the bus service operators grant of £250 million. DCLG provides support for local bus services of £317 million, and home-to-school transport funding of £1 billion. Non-emergency patient transport worth £150 million is provided by the NHS to local clinical commissioning groups. All that funding is provided from different sources. That is why last year we launched the £7.6 million Total Transport pilot scheme across England to explore how different authorities working together can potentially deliver a much better transport solution. It is about working collectively and pooling services where there is common interest. We seek to avoid the duplication of commissioned services, to allow networks to be designed to complement each other, to reduce administrative costs and to focus on how a more comprehensive offer can be delivered by working together.

My hon. Friend mentioned community transport, which is fundamental in many parts of our country, both urban and rural. I hope that he is aware of our strong support for it. We have supported it with a recent community minibus fund of £25 million, which will help elderly residents by providing, I think, 310 new minibuses to groups up and down our country. So far, £1.3 million of grant has been paid to organisations to buy their vehicles, and the procurement of the remaining vehicles is well under way. That will make a difference to the whole sector.

On the specific issues that my hon. Friend raised, I will certainly write to the councils concerned, because the point is partnership solutions to deliver a result for residents. I will highlight to the councils the strength of feeling that has been shown in the debate and urge them to work together. The solution has to lie in councils working in a non-partisan way. In my letter to Lancashire County Council, I will ask it to consider the impact of changes on disabled people, in particular. That is an area of personal interest to my hon. Friend and of significant personal interest to me. I do not want disability access to our public transport to be compromised in any area. I want it to be improved, not the opposite.

I hope that the message that goes from here to the councils is that we want to see a solution that will continue to offer tramway access and support Blackpool’s trams. They are an iconic part of Blackpool, and they are one of the reasons why visitors go to Blackpool, particularly at certain times of the year. That is something I have experienced, as a visitor to Blackpool. They must be understood to be a driver of the local economy, so there is an economic and a social reason why a swift resolution would be helpful. That is the message that I will send to the councils, and when I hear back from them, I will report back to my hon. Friend. They will, I am sure, be acutely aware of the strong case he has made and continues to make.

Question put and agreed to.