BUS passengers in the North are being taken for a ride again, this time to deliver a pre-election Tory bung to London Mayor Boris Johnson. Regular readers of this column will know I have long-criticised the failure of successive governments to reverse the deregulation disaster of the Eighties.
As a result, the private bus giants are free to suddenly axe routes, or demand higher subsidies from cash-strapped local councils, while regulated London decides its own routes and fares.
A crisis is growing, as a 28 per cent reduction in funding to local councils for transport, plus a 20 per cent cut in the Bus Service Operators’ Grant (BSOG), paid to the bus companies, eat into vital routes.
In the summer, a stinging report by a parliamentary committee warned that the Tees Valley and North Yorkshire were among the parts of the country worst affected.
The harsh cuts were preventing people from taking up jobs, visiting sick relatives, shopping and going to college, the MPs found.
Into that grim future stepped Chancellor George Osborne who, without warning, suddenly announced extra cash to cap bus fare rises… in London.
Here in London, those increases, inflation, plus one per cent, are, typically, seen as bad news. But, to quote Monty Python’s four Yorkshiremen, they don’t know how lucky they are.
Across England’s other big metropolitan areas, including Tyne and Wear, fares are expected to soar by 24 per cent in real terms, over a five-year period ending in 2014.
That means an annual rise of nearly five per cent, on top of an inflation rate currently above five per cent. The future in the rest of the North, outside the big cities, is likely to be just as bleak, or worse.
The Passenger Transport Executive Group has estimated that every penny reduction in London’s bus fares costs the taxpayer at least £15m, because there are so many trips.
Furthermore, this extra cash for the capital comes on top of a chasm in transport spending, between London (£774 per head) and the North-East (£255 per head).
The key point is that there was no logical reason for the Chancellor, in last week’s mini- Budget, to extend a cap on rail fares to all journeys on London’s Tube and buses.
There was, however, a political reason… the crucial mayoral election, next May, when Mr Johnson’s widely-recognised weak point, in his renewed battle with Labour’s Ken Livingstone, will be the cost of transport.
A Passenger Transport Executive spokesman said, tactfully, that the organisation was “quite surprised” when the Government, while announcing an extra £30bn of spending cuts, suddenly found spare dosh for Boris. He added: “London was going to be hit as hard as the rest of the country, but that blow has now been softened.”
ONE of Labour’s favourite sports is to poke fun at Jacob Rees-Mogg, the fogeyish Conservative backbencher, son of former Times editor William, who appears to have stepped out of the 18th Century. The maverick Mogg delighted the Opposition yesterday, calling for council officials handing out fines for minor offences to be forced to wear silly uniforms. He told MPs: “I wonder if they might have a bowler hat or something so that you knew they were from the council, a proper, thorough-going bureaucrat.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here