Great Western Coffee Shop

From the Bury Times (https://www.burytimes.co.uk/news/17810160.leaders-agree-end-free-tram-train-travel-elderly/)

Fair enough if it pays for something useful. It is less than the price of two day passes. I expect weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth (or gums) from some though.Fleetwood's pensioners don't get free tram travel, and have to pay the regular fare.

I'm thinking of a 1930s Stanley Holloway monologue now - Magna Charta with its line: "the barons in rage started gnashing their teeth, and those with no teeth gnashed their gums" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qqsZ_5W9eQ

It is always something of a difficult issue when politicians are perceived to be taking something away from pensioners, even if they don't need it! It is a difficult issue politically because pensioners are much more likely to vote than any other section of the population.

Indeed ... the "free" bus pass was introduced by the Labour government of Gordon Brown in 2008, perhaps with a view to encouraging pensioners to vote for his party at upcoming elections ... and more generous schemes were added in by some countries of the United Kingdom and some authority areas - ranging from an extra half hour of use (09:00 to 09:30) through inclusion of railed transport (such as the Manchester example), and availability at an earlier age.    Those extra have been chipped away at - and even the basic has changed with a rise in the pension age ... there's a group of us now who are over what was pension age when it came in, but chasing both the bus pass and the pension and hoping that there will still be buses, and our pounds will be worth something, by the time we get there.

It has always struck me personally as odd that we allow ourselves to make our own decisions about where to spend our money during "working years" but then as we retire, rather than pay out a decent amount in pension we treat our elderly as unable to make there decisions and buy their bus travel for them as a government or local authority.  Appreciated that there gets to be a point as the elderly can no longer cope, just as children have to learn to cope in the first place - but I do wonder if we have the window of responsibly correct.

And, yes, I am aware that without a "free" bus pass but with monetary equivalent given to the people entitled t o them, many would no longer use the bus and our services would be ravaged.  What was Gordon Brown's long term plan when he set this up?

Free local bus travel in England was introduced by the Transport Act 2000 under Tony Blair. That allowed travel within the local authority area that qualifying persons resided in. 2008 saw the scheme widened to allow travel in any local authority area in England.

Outside of Greater London, the Transport Act 2000 only mandated half-price travel within the area.  This was changed to free local travel within the area by The Travel Concessions (Extension of Entitlement) (England) Order 2005.

This is, let us not forget, the removal of tram and train travel only - buses serve the same destinations, albeit more slowly. For the Blackpool trams, residents of the area covered by Blackpool Council holding passes can ride for free on the trams, all the way to Fleetwood. Those living in Wyre Borough, from approximately Anchosholme northwards to Fleetwood, cannot. This was a source of some disquiet, especially as Wyre Council contributed to the revamp of the trams, but it stayed that way. Passes can be used on the number 1 bus route, which runs half hourly from Starr Gate to Fleetwood Ferry, following the tram lines entirely, save for the short off-the-beaten-path bit. What the Greater Manchester Mayor is going to charge less than 20p per week for is actually a privilege above the legal requirement. Manchesters trams are very heavily used, and I'm sure they won't mind if a number of people don't take up the offer.


And so was I - well spotted! Somewhere in the stack of crates stacked in the garage and still unopened 15 months after I moved house lies an original copy of "Albert, 'Arold and Others" by Marriott Edgar, which contains the poem "The Magna Charter". I have quoted from it before, ending the constitutional law essay that got me my best mark of them all with the final verse:


I occasionally have original ideas.


Ay, there's the rub! (Shakespeare). You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone (Roberta Anderson, aka Joni Mitchell). Tony Blair probably still wakes up sweating, after dreaming of the treatment he got at the hands of the WI when he addressed them shortly after the formula for calculating pensions increases awarded 75p per week. A quick look at the fallout from the TV licence debacle is instructive, although that one could end up costing the government a lot more than it was intended to save. The Chancellor gaveth, and the Chancellor tooketh away! (after Job 1:21). He dideth!

Perhaps we should remember why we are where we are with bus passes.

The original legislation provided for bus passes to be issued at 60 for women and 65 for men, in line with what was then the state retirement age. However, the government lost a case brought against it for sexual discrimination, so reduced the age to 60 for everyone.

Then the women's pension age started to increase and entitlement got tied in with that. In my case, for example, I became entitled to a bus pass on the same day that a woman born on the same day as me could have drawn her pension (which was age 62 years and 3 months at the time). This unidentified woman was also entitled to her bus pass from that same date.

Everything will be on the new track by April 2021 when the retirement age for both sexes will be 66. Sorry that you are on the wromg side of that!!!

 ;D

State Pension ages...

My mum was one of those unlucky women who saw her 'retirement' age jump by several years thanks to the Pensions Act 2011.

A single piece of legislation that led to my Mum vowing never to vote Conservative again.

Both my wife and my sister also  >:(

The very one!

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The maximum increase of anyone's pension age under the Pensions Act 2011 compared with the situation prior to it was 18 months, reduced from the original Bill of two years. The Pensions Minister concerned was a Liberal Democrat, Steve Webb.

Re-equalisation of the pension age for women with men was legislated for by the Pensions Act 1995, after having being announced in the 1993 Budget by Ken Clarke, to be phased over ten years from 2010.

The future increases of the state pension age up to 68 were first set out in the Pensions Act 2007, under a Labour Government (although subsequently accelerated).

So all three major parties have raised the pension age over the last few decades, although not all of these has yet been triggered.