Labour pledges free bus travel for under 25s

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From ITV.com

Labour has pledged that young people under the age of 25 would have access to free bus travel under their government.

The incentive would apply in areas where local authorities introduce bus franchising or services under public ownership, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will say on Thursday.

Mr Corbyn will declare that "young people deserve a break" in new promise to help them "travel to work, to study and to visit friends".

Labour believes that the policy could save up to 13m young people as much as £1000 a year.

[Tim]

Whilst I would tend to support anything that gets people onto buses, I'd prefer bus and train fares to be affordable so that everyone could afford them without concessions and freebies.

If you want to get people out of their cars, then targeting older people of working age (who can more afford to run a car and who tend to drive in peak times) with better services might be better than throwing freebies at people who are probably using the bus already.

[TaplowGreen]

This has been costed at £1.4 billion. Has Corbyn announced how it's to be paid for or is it another windfall from the magic money tree?

[Trowres]

[rather provocatively...] it could be funded by reducing the subsidy to rail services?  ... or is there a real MMT for rail?

[grahame]

This has been costed at £1.4 billion. Has Corbyn announced how it's to be paid for or is it another windfall from the magic money tree?

[rather provocatively...] it could be funded by reducing the subsidy to rail services?  ... or is there a real MMT for rail?

I'm trying to work out MMT ...
Market Model Typology?  Modern Monetary Theory? Methadone Maintenance Treatment?
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/why-is-mmt-so-popular.html
https://www.fixtrading.org/mmt/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methadone_maintenance

That aside ... I noted The incentive would apply in areas where local authorities introduce bus franchising or services under public ownership  which presently limits in to London (effectively franchising) and 10 other authorities where (some of) the buses are still owned by the local authority - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_bus_company  . Newport, Cardiff and Reading in our area?

The Bus Service Act enables other mayoral areas that are passenger transport authorities to run bus franchises and adds Cornwall too, with others who can convince the secretary of state they could do so also allowed to join in.   It's not clear to me whether the costing covers just the current London franchise and the other 10 local authority areas, or whether that price would also cover the Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle ... greater areas? These are certainly greater areas which if they went solid red might lead to a change in government ...

And where would that leave us in the shires?    We already hear of the 'rural poor' - hard to afford housing, difficult transport, lack of jobs.  Would our young be further disadvantaged encouraging a move to the cities, or would we see a rush of the likes of Somerset and Dorset rushing to a franchise model, or lobbying for a legal change so that they could once again set up their own bus companies run by the local authority?

Public Transport may actually be something that's naturally socialist ... although the railways are privatised, so many elements are in fact owned by the nation or managed to such a degree by government that in all but fine detail they are government controlled.  So what would be the effect of a nationalised network of public transport as a whole - and going even beyond Jeremy Corbyn's suggestion of making it free at the point of use for all people under the age of 25 ... or 35 or 45.  And  making it free at the point of use whether the vehicles run on rubber or steel.    We run into that great nationalisation debate again - and rather like Brexit, I suspect there would be lots of ways of doing it, each of which offers incentives to various groups to support it as it is suggested and brought forward, but then the devil of how we do it reveals that the devil is in the detail, and it can't be done in such a way that it delivers everything that everyone thought they supported.  We could end up with a system that's "like the NHS" - we're all very proud of, we make use of,  we have wonderful people working in there, but yet it's a money sink, short of facilities and monolithic / hard to change.   We could end up with an organisation that we find very hard to engage, such as some of us find with Network Rail, where planned projects seem to slip and change with minimal feedback and influence from the passengers who will actually use them, and the system is so risk averse and complex that budgets go up ten fold, pricing things out, and that promised community meetings "in the next couple of months" don't even make it to diaries for years.

Technology changes.   In 20 years, we'll all be travelling around in autonomous vehicles that go door to door taking us to nearby interchange points for larger vehicles; the individually owned vehicle and driven, and the need to be fit well and rich enough to afford driving insurance will be gone.   How will that effect and be reflected in the metrics of "Oooz going to organise it". "Oooz gonna regulate it" and "Oooz gonna pay for it?"

[Kernow Otter]

This has been costed at £1.4 billion. Has Corbyn announced how it's to be paid for or is it another windfall from the magic money tree?

From the sale of bags of Unicorn Dung to allotment holders....

[grahame]

From The BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

Labour is pledging to spend £1.3bn a year to reverse cuts to 3,000 bus routes and fund the expansion of new services in England and Wales.

During a visit to Nottingham later, Jeremy Corbyn will say services have been "devastated" by austerity.

The Campaign for Better Transport said local authority bus budgets have been cut by 45% since 2010.

But ministers said they spent £250m a year directly on services, including some that otherwise wouldn't be viable.

I know the headline.  I hope the £1.3 billion would be spent I ensuring the bus network has the routes, connections and fares for the future and does not just put back 3,000 routes.   Works out at £430,000 per route.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Well, this didn't appear anywhere in Rachel Reeves' Budget announcement. 

[Clan Line]

Well, this didn't appear anywhere in Rachel Reeves' Budget announcement. 

Got "rammed" into the too-difficult box 

[TaplowGreen]

Well, this didn't appear anywhere in Rachel Reeves' Budget announcement. 

"Labour  pledges"........

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

A proposed plan to trial free bus passes for under-22s in England will not go ahead as it is "unaffordable" at the moment, the government has said.

The trial was one of a number of recommendations put forward by the Transport Committee, a cross-party group of backbench MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context), in a report this August - with the suggestion it would boost access to jobs and education.

In its response, published on Friday, the government said no money was available for such a scheme during the current spending review period, which runs until 2028/2029.

Responding to the government's decision, committee chair Ruth Cadbury accused the Department for Transport of "lacking in ambition".

"Throughout our inquiry we heard about the consequences of poor connectivity," Labour MP Cadbury said. "Young people unable to get their first jobs or taking exhausting journeys to reach school or college. Older and disabled people feeling isolated and depressed, and high streets starved of customers. It is hard to shake the feeling that an opportunity may be missed, particularly to improve services in rural and underserved communities."

Since January 2022, everyone in Scotland aged between five and 22 has been entitled to free bus travel.

Gracie Moore is 22 and lives in Slough. She spends £120 a month to get the bus to and from work every day. Gracie said the government's decision was "disappointing".

"It would have been so beneficial, considering that under 22s are so negatively impacted by inflation," she said. "Things like buying our first house or affording bills are already difficult, so this would have taken the pressure off for us."

Gracie previously lived in Madrid, where she enjoyed unlimited travel on bus, train, tube, and tram for only €8 (£6.90) a month with a young person's travel card. England, she said, "seems to be one of the only countries who cannot effectively subsidise travel costs".

The announcement of the government's plans on under-22 bus travel in England comes in the week when the Bus Services Act has become law.

Welcomed by the committee, it will place tougher requirements on operators that wish to cancel certain services and give local authorities more control, including through franchising.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the new law would make it "easier for local leaders to take control of their buses" and was "putting passengers first".

Cadbury said while the new law is "positive and necessary" it cannot be "the last word".

Of the other recommendations put forward by the committee, some were received positively.

These included a suggestion that funding should be laid out over a longer period, and should be weighted to take account of rural needs. However, along with free travel for under-22s, other points of action were rejected - including a call for minimum service levels for buses.

The government argued that "significant differences in demographics, need and geography" would make minimum levels of service "very challenging to implement at a national level, whilst also ensuring value for money".

The number of bus journeys taken in England has dropped in recent years, while fares have risen faster than inflation. The committee found that this was a barrier to opportunity and growth in some areas.

Bus passengers spend £39.1bn in local businesses every year, according to research from KPMG. But experts told the Transport Committee that the bus sector's contribution to the economy declined by around £8.9bn between 2011 and 2023.

The committee's report said: "The current deregulated nature of the bus sector can encourage commercial operators to "deprioritise" less profitable routes, often leaving vulnerable communities without a service."

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Green Party calls for under-22s to get free bus passes

The Green Party is calling for free bus passes for everyone under the age of 22 in England to make it easier for them to travel for work and education.

The party said the policy would be self-financing because increased use of buses benefitted the economy.

However, the government rejected the idea last year, saying it was currently unaffordable without diverting funding away from maintaining current service levels.

Bus travel has been free for under-22s in Scotland since 2022, while in London children can travel for free on buses, with discounted rates for some 18-25-year-olds. Some bus companies in England also offer discounted rates for young people.

As well as helping young people access education, training and jobs, the Green Party said free bus travel would also improve access to services in rural areas, reduce car congestion and carbon emissions.

The party pointed to research by consultancy KPMG estimating that bus passengers spend £39.1bn annually in local businesses and that over 2.2 million commuters rely on buses to get to work, generating £72bn in collective income each year.

The analysis suggested that every £1 invested in bus services would yield an economic benefit ranging from £4.55 to £5.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said: "Young people are increasingly shut out of employment and training by the cost-of-living crisis, which often hits the youngest the hardest."

He added: "Green councillors elected in May will be using their influence to implement this scheme in their areas and we will be applying political pressure at a national level for a scheme recommended by the transport select committee last year to be made real. Free bus travel for the young is part of our mission to make hope normal again."

The party is also promising to abolish the current time restrictions on the disabled person's bus pass, making it valid 24 hours a day, and guaranteeing to keep free travel for older people with extended hours.

Buses are the most commonly used form of public transport in England, but the number of journeys has fallen over the last 10 years and has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. In the year to March 2025, there were 3.7 billion local bus journeys in England, down from more than four billion pre-Covid. Those aged 17 to 20 made the highest number of local bus trips per person.

Last year, MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament, or Mile Post (a method of measuring the railway in miles and chains from a starting point - usually London), depending on context) on the Commons Transport Committee also called for under-22s in England to get free bus passes.