Plans to scrap free bus passes for pensioners slammed
A Lords' plan to scrap free bus passes for pensioners has been slammed by a city council leader.
Roger Lawrence, the Labour leader of Wolverhampton Council, says the scheme would strip bus companies of income and increase loneliness and isolation among the elderly.
He has urged Peers to ditch the proposals – and also called for improvements to travel provision for young people.
It comes after a House of Lords committee published a report calling on the Government to take measures to deliver a fairer society by getting rid of free bus passes, TV licences and winter fuel for elderly people.
The Tackling intergenerational unfairness report found that the relationship between older and younger generations is being failed because British youth are not properly supported with rewarding jobs and adequate housing.
Councillor Lawrence, who is also the transport lead for West Midlands Combined Authority, said: "This report completely ignores the crucial role that free travel subsidies play in supporting the day time bus network.
"Without this income, bus companies would provide a much reduced service. Travel for West Midlands pays around £50 million per year which is crucial to supporting regular bus services.
“The report also fails to recognise the crucial role travel provides in tackling loneliness and social isolation amongst older people.”
He added: “If intergenerational inequality is an issue it is not solved by making services for older people worse. Instead the Lords should support better travel provision for younger people as we have done in the Midlands, with supported travel for care leavers, apprentices and trainees and further education students.
"With better Government support, we could do even more to assist young people to get around.”
The committee's suggestions have sparked a backlash from charities, with Age UK saying that young people should not be helped “at the expense of the older generation”.
“This underplays the extent of need among older people, and skates over the great difficulty of ensuring a targeted approach which actually reaches those older people who are the most vulnerable," the charity's director Caroline Abrahams said.
“All the evidence suggests that means-testing, for example, results in significant numbers of very poor older people missing out.
"More profoundly we reject the notion that helping younger and older people is an ‘either/or’; in practice many at both ends of the age spectrum need our society’s support and an advanced twenty first century economy like the UK is well placed to provide it.”
