The row over free bus travel escalated today when Mayor of London Ken Livingstone published figures setting out how many under-18s in constituencies represented by backers of an alternative budget benefit from the scheme.
Mr Livingstone said 385,000 young Londoners “are now benefiting from the free bus and tram travel, which nine members of the London Assembly have voted to abolish.”
The number of under-18’s receiving a free Oyster card per constituency are:
Barnet & Camden (Brian Coleman AM) – 26,252
Bexley & Bromley (Bob Neill AM) – 26,533
Brent & Harrow (Robert Blackman AM) – 28,880
Croydon & Sutton (Andrew Pelling AM) – 1,236
Ealing & Hillingdon (Richard Barnes AM) – 29,523
Havering & Redbridge (Roger Evans AM) – 25,572
Merton & Wandsworth (Elizabeth Howlett AM) – 22,175
Hounslow, Kingston-upon-Thames & Richmond-upon-Thames (Tony Arbour AM) – 27,065
Hammersmith & Fulham, K&C and Westminster (Angie Bray AM) – 20,036
Explaining his decision to publish the figures the Mayor said “every Londoner has the right to know if their local Assembly member is seeking to remove a benefit that saves families with children hundreds of pounds a year.”
Members who backed the alternative budget proposed a ‘pilot’ school bus scheme in 6 boroughs in place of the current free fares concession which they previously described as “fully costed at £24 million” and is intended to be “a replacement of free travel, not a ‘scrapping'” which “if successful, and cost effective…would be rolled out London wide.”
Mr Livingstone’s decision to publish the figures was attacked by the One London Party on the Assembly.
One London Party leader Damian Hockney said publishing the figures was “a massive waste of time and resources” adding that “the Mayor is trying to make a story from nothing.”
Hockney said it was important that Londoners understood that the Assembly “has no powers to abolish free bus travel for under-18s, or indeed anything else in the Mayor’s budget, because we can only amend bottom line figures, not specific items. Even if we did reject his budget in favour of the Tories’ alternative, the Mayor can simply reintroduce his own with the amended bottom line, but with exactly the same provisions except some alterations in other areas to put into affect the altered total.”
