North Yorkshire pensioner John Taylor who has successfully championed the cause of widowed fathers and male pensioners to receive the fuel concession, is now campaigning to win a better deal on concessionary bus fares.

The group Parity, of which Mr Taylor, of Norton-on-Derwent, is a leading member, is taking the British Government to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, on February 19, in the hope of winning the case for men as well as women to receive half fare bus passes at 60, instead of having to wait, as at present, until they are 65.

With local authorities nationwide introducing the concessions by law from April 1, many councils will be discouraged to discriminate against men aged 60 and over, said Mr Taylor.

He has pursued the issue with Ryedale MP John Greenway, who says he is taking it up with ministers.

Lawrie Quinn, MP for Scarborough and Whitby, has also been approached by Mr Taylor.

He is one of 14 Labour MPs on a Commons Standing Committee, which last year voted down an amendment by two Liberal Democrats to allow both men and women over 60 to have cheap travel.

Mr Taylor said he carried out a survey among private bus companies, nationally, and found that many already offer the concession.

Mr Quinn said he believed that if the argument had been pressed for all 60 year old people to have half price fares it would not have been successful in Parliament.

Better he believed, to have cheap fares for women at 60 and for men at 65, and for the law to be amended later.