Politicians are on the campaign trail for the local elections in England on 3 May, so it’s no surprise that Jeremy Corbyn has announced that a Labour government would fund free bus travel for under-25 year olds. It’s time to bribe the electorate again!
I’m all in favour of state benefits for those in genuine need. But I’ve never felt that blanket benefits regardless of means are right or proper. It’s morally indefensible and shouldn’t be used as a political bribe – except, of course, that political parties can’t resist making political capital out of the general ‘benefits’ issue.
But putting that aside there are two flaws with Jeremy Corbyn’s generosity. First, he says the new travel concession will be paid for by using money ring-fenced from Vehicle Excise Duty (VED).
The trouble with this is that the funds raised from VED are already to be ring-fenced for allocation to a new Roads Fund with effect from 2020, and to be spent directly on investment in the strategic road network.
So the Roads Fund will have to be abolished and the poor long-suffering motorists, who already pay substantially more in motoring taxes than they see invested back in the road network, lose out.
Second, and here’s the real point, free bus travel for under-25s, will only be available where a local authority introduces bus franchising or sets up a municipal bus company.
So Jeremy Corbyn’s generosity is nothing short of a brazen political bribe, a desperate attempt to bring back bus regulation by coercing local authorities to re-regulate buses.
And it could be divisive. Because young people living in a local authority area that does not have or want re-regulation won’t have free bus travel, but their friends living in the next door authority area that does re-regulate will get free travel.
Not because they actually need free bus travel (they may have rich parents or be in a job that pays a decent salary) but simply because their local authority has been bribed by politicians in Westminster.
That said, in these days of devolution, if a local authority wants to introduce free bus travel for under-25s – or for everybody for that matter – provided they are prepared to pay for it via council tax, not national taxation, then so be it.
It would at least force the local electorate to think about what their local priorities should be.
There’s one final flaw with Jeremy Corbyn’s generosity. The bus industry is already offering young people a range of travel concessions and discounted fares. Why?
Because it is the right thing to do from a commercial perspective and costs the taxpayer absolutely nothing.
You do wonder if Labour has bothered to find out what operators are already doing on the ground.
If there weren’t local elections on 3 May I wonder if Jeremy Corbyn would have felt the need to be so generous with our money.
