Councillor Donald Anderson
Leader
City of Edinburgh Council
City Chambers
High Street
Edinburgh

4th July 2003

Dear Councillor Anderson

Election Pledge - Free Travel All Over Scotland

You will recall from our constructive meeting of 25th September 2002 about concessionary travel, my advising communications had been forwarded seeking support from MP's MSP's and Councillors. It was agreed at your request that we would keep each other advised of our respective communications. You were kind enough to confirm your report to full council and that you would contact the President of COSLA in this regard.

I enclose copy of the correspondence in respect of the above. As you are aware previous correspondence from the Minister's Department advised that this was a devolved matter to be discussed at Local Council level. Particularly disturbing is the elderly being forced off the bus at the boundary

I look forward to hearing from you and would welcome a helpful response.


Yours sincerely

George Henderson
George Henderson
Secretary

Nicol Stephen MSP
Minister for Transport
The Scottish Parliament
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP

19th June 2003

Dear Minister

Labour Pledge Free Travel all over Scotland

Congratulations on your promotion to this important and demanding post as Minister responsible for Transport Policy; Delivery of public transport, road, rail, air, and ferry services. We wish you well in your new role and would welcome news of when this pledge, is likely to be implemented.

Pensioners and all concerned are appreciative of the above pledge given during the May Elections. It is understood this pledge receives cross party support, it is believed therefore that there should be no unnecessary delay.

To be helpful I enclose some documentation of our campaigning In this regard. This refers to considerable correspondence; meetings with Ministers, MP's, MSP's, Local Councillors, the President of COSLA; Lobbying of both Parliaments; the Welsh Assembly; and press reports of the elderly forced off the bus, etc.

As I will be deputizing for our President Jack Jones, leading the considerable TGWU Delegation representing 170,000 pensioner members at the NPC Parliament in Blackpool 1-3rd July I look forward to an early response. I hope your response will enable me to report favourable news to the NPC Parliament.

Yours sincerely

George Henderson

George Henderson

cc: First Minister Jack McConnell MSP; Patricia Ferguson MSP Management of Executive Business in the Parliament.

Labour Promise FREE travel all over Scotland.

Thanks to the National Pensioners Convention the T&G Retired Members Association and other organisations our collective efforts have resulted in a Pledge from New Labour in its Manifesto for the May elections that it will expand the scheme to allow boundary free travel throughout Scotland.   

A great deal of credit for this latest development is due to the superb documentation produced for the nationwide campaign of the NPC.   The National Pensioners Convention Publication “Ticket To Ride” by the T&G’s Bob Sears, Transport Advisor to the NPC provided an unanswerable case for Free Nationwide Bus Travel.

The much-trumpeted National free fares scheme introduced in Scotland only applied to local services in each part of the country.  Our RMA Branch diligently campaigned, organized local events, sent powerful missives to Transport Ministers, in England and Scotland, sent letters to MP’s, MSP’s , for their support asking them to sign Early Day Motions and obtained considerable media coverage.

A further exchange of letters between the new Minister, Iain Gray MSP, and the Branch Secretary led to a very productive meeting with Councillor Donald Anderson the Leader of Edinburgh City Council who promised to convey our submission on Boundary Free Travel to the President of COSLA.  The branch also lobbied MSP’s at the Scottish Parliament, had a meeting with the Secretary of State Helen Liddell MP and widely circulated documentary evidence on the case for Boundary Free Travel Nationwide.  Secretary of the branch obtained unanimous support for the case being submitted to the National Executive of the Labour Party. 

As reported in the Edinburgh Evening News, “the way the current scheme for pensioners operates is nothing short of a nonsense. When the Scottish Executive first promised the scheme it was assumed that free travel for pensioners would be just that, but the reality has turned out to be a bizarre compromise.  After wrangling with local authorities over how it was paid for, the scheme now only allows free travel within regions. That means there is the ridiculous situation where a pensioner can travel within Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian using their bus pass but not be able to, use it in West Lothian. Just to highlight the absurdity there is an exception made and the elderly are allowed to travel for free to St John’s Hospital in Livingston. 

So minister Iain Gray is to be congratulated for finally promising to provide the service that was promised in the first place.  With the cross-party support that appears to be evident there can be little doubt that the new scheme, allowing pensioners to travel free on buses to anywhere in the country, will finally be implemented.
It is just a shame that it took proximity to an election to bring it about”.

Mindful of promises being made by politicians prior to the 1997 election that have not materialized, the authors of such promises not being honoured should do the proper thing and resign.  We make no apology for continuing to remind them of their promises that have not materialized.

Most of the elderly appreciate that warts and all, the New Labour Government, and the Scottish Executive, have done considerably more for pensioners than the previous Tory government. 

The T&G RMA has welcomed and widely distributed this latest good news about this pledge from New Labour in its Manifesto for the May elections that it will expand the scheme to allow boundary free travel throughout Scotland.  It is hoped this information should assist our Sister and Brother pensioners to sustain and obtain further improvements to their schemes where appropriate.  In particular this information should prove helpful for the planned NPC Lobby to Defend Free Transport at the House of Commons against the attacks on pensioners free travel in the new report of the Commission for Integrated Transport Chaired by Professor David Begg.