Jeremy Paxman says 'no votes for pensioners'

I agree with my 80 year old dad, there should be a charge for everyone using public transport. I cannot see a reason why a pensioner should not pay a reduced fare. We really can't expect youngsters to pay higher and higher fares just so older people can travel for free.

It wasn't just wives who voted as their husbands told them to. It was whole villages who had to vote as the lord told them to; otherwise they could end up homeless.
Have any of you looked at the poll books? No secret voting then.

I think this still goes on in a fashion dj especially in ex-
mining towns like mine, where people vote for a particular party because their ancestors would turn in their grave if they didn't.

They don't have to, though. Once in the polling booth, nobody knows who you vote for. How do you think that Berwick on Tweed, which covers most of North Northumberland, including lots of ex-mining villages, voted for Ann-Marie Trevellyan, a Tory who signed the ERG letter to May, having been liberal for decades?

Oh I agree they don't have to, its just an inbuilt thing, a kind of nod to the past. Why do towns like mine stay in the dark ages with little or no investment? Simply because there is no effective opposition party. The LP need do nothing at all (except raise council tax to un-affordable levels) and they still get voted in.

There are a lot of rich farmers and the likes in Northumberland DJ

We really can't expect youngsters to pay higher and higher fares just so older people can travel for free.

Aren't the bus passes paid for by the Council, so other passengers are not in fact funding them for older people?

DH and I were having this discussion the other day because there was a woman on the radio who phoned in and said she gets very angry with all the pensioners waiting at her bus stop and in fact verbally abuses them!
My view was that if older people were not using the buses with their free passes then many routes or bus companies would shut down. The bus companies are therefore being subsidised by the money provided to them by the local authorities and can continue to run.
The woman who verbally abused the pensioners could find that, were the bus not used by people with bus passes, who also include the disabled, her bus would not run at all and she would be stuck.

^It is also worth noting that across the
English local bus network more than one in five journeys is made using a concessionary bus pass. It is not clear whether some of these services
could survive without this cohort of passengers^

The council pays a nominal amount to the bus company ( well the council tax payers do) and the rest is met by increasing the fares paid (by those who do pay to travel) .

Shopping centres would also lose so much trade if people didn't go into town using their bus passes.

There had to be a compromise here. Young people cannot pay more and more to allow older people to travel for free. I think free travel will have to end sooner rather than later as local authorities cannot sustain the cost and keep increasing council taxes at the rate mine is doing. Likewise the bus companies cannot keep increasing fares to make up the shortfall .

Ha ha . The oldies don’t shop in my town tegan the local shops are long gone . They all use their free passes to go to Newcastle city centre ( would cost a fare payer £5-£7) or to the huge out of town Metro Centre which would probably be about £10 for a fare payer !

I just think that at a cost of well over £1 billion per year a fairer system would be a consessionary fare rather than free travel.

It is not just a nominal amount, it is enough to compensate the bus company for the revenue it loses by allowing free/concessionary fares for people of or over the age for female retirement (which is a legal requirement)
The amount that councils pay to the bus companies is worked out from the number of free/ concessionary journeys that were logged previously). Every time a bus pass is used it is scanned and registered.
The more times your pass is scanned, the more the bus companies will get next year and the less likely it will be that they will go out of business, so oldies are helping keep buses viable and passengers moving around - but your council tax is paying.

"12 3. Principles of Reimbursement The Objective –"No Better, No Worse Off"
3.1 Requiring operators to use their assets to provide a free service for a proportion of the population is a major market intervention, and the requirement to provide adequate reimbursement is a fundamental one. Equally, however, European regulations prevent concessionary travel schemes being used to provide hidden subsidy (or state aid) to operators. The underlying principle which underpins reimbursement is set out in domestic Regulations which state that operators should be left 'no better and no worse off' as a result of the existence of concessionary travel schemes.
3.2 This means that Travel Concession Authorities should
• compensate operators for the revenue forgone – i.e. the revenue they would have received from those concessionary passengers who would otherwise have travelled and paid for a (full fare or discounted) ticket in the absence of a scheme; and
• pay operators any net additional costs they have incurred as a result of the scheme
www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-reimbursing-bus-operators-for-concessionary-travel

I use my bus pass because I have one, but I can afford to pay to use them. Maybe the bus pass system could be means tested as I realise some pensioners and some groups of people like the unemployed, disabled and people on low incomes would greatly benefit by having one.

I remember seeing something about a woman who travelled all day on the bus so she didn't need to put her heating on, as she couldn't afford it.
What would she do if she had to pay even a nominal amount for each trip?

The trouble with means tests is that it can cost more to carry them out than they save.

Many people could afford to pay the fare or the concessionary fare but those who could not would be the ones who are penalised. They are also likely to be the ones who will not have their own transport so would be trapped at home.

Those who can afford to pay will probably be paying more in tax and possibly council tax too.

The thing about bus-passes is nobody has to collect them, with or without means testing.
If you think you shouldn't have one, don't get one, and pay the fare the same as your kids.

Didn't Nick Clegg complain about Alan Sugar 'having a bus pass' - when in fact he hadn't claimed one anyway?
I suppose he could have gone on the bus and sent his briefcase in the Rolls.

I really can’t see what the problem
Would be for all pensioners paying 50p per trip. Children have to pay after all and tbh a low income family with 2-3 children would find it very hard to afford a trip into town and back even once a week the fares are so high.

I don’t have a pass and they will probably be gone before I ever get one. Hopefully before then (if they see sense) they would introduce a nominal fare well before then.

It wouldn't be a vote winner would it taking our bus passes off us. Hands off.

I’m with gillybob on on this one, I got my pass when I retired, I use it to prove my age, mostly in the cinema, but as I would have to drive 4 miles to get a bus I haven’t used it for travel.
However, I know that 2 very well heeled neighbours, after deciding which vintage car to take out, regularly park it outside a house and then get the bus using their passes for their trip.
Even £1.00 each trip would be a good deal, there must be a way to make sure that those who actually need passes can travel free?

Exactly ninny that’s what I said up thread. They all know it makes sense to introduce a nominal fare but no one will dare upset the oldies .

My very rich uncle and his lovely wife have 2 very expensive cars (they change them every year) they live in a £million plus property but take the bus for free into the city to save paying to park. There are plenty like them . I can’t see the problem with a £1 or even 50p per trip .

I think first off people should be given the option of giving up their bus passes ( not so silly as it sounds ) there are many people I know do not use them and also don't claim their winter fuel allowances. As for a vote loser the financial benefits of doing so should be carefully explained to the people and I think we may be surprised. It should not be forced on to people as that would be a vote loser. The financial benefits for doing so to me is indisputable.