London free transport scheme 'stealth tax'

Monday, June 04, 2007

London Councils has accused Ken Livingstone of using the Freedom Pass free travel scheme for pensioners and people with disabilities as a stealth tax on Londoners.

The body said that in the seven years since Transport for London (TfL) was formed, the cost of providing the pass has risen by 52 per cent and this cannot go on. It currently costs London’s boroughs £216m to provide the pass on the TfL network, compared to £142m in 2000-2001.

London Councils said it wants the government to safeguard the future of the scheme by introducing changes through the Concessionary Bus Travel Bill and by being the final arbiter if no agreement over costs is reached.

Chair of London Councils’ transport and environment committeer Daniel Moylan said: “London’s councils pay out hundreds of millions of pounds a year to provide the Freedom Pass, the most generous free travel scheme in the country. More than a million people use it to live as independent a life as possible and we have absolutely no intention of changing that. But the Mayor is currently using the Freedom Pass as a stealth tax on Londoners. It is for this reason alone he is doing his utmost to claim the law should stay as it is. It has nothing to do with protecting the Freedom Pass. We think the law has to be changed. Nowhere else in the country can a provider of transport schemes hold council tax payers to ransom in this fashion."

He added: “We are not threatening the Freedom Pass. We are simply asking that if we cannot agree with TfL each year how much we should pay for it, the government should make the final decision. This has to be a fairer way of negotiating the cost of the pass.”