IN DEFENCE OF THE FREEDOM PASS
By Ken Livingstone, abridged from New Statesman, read the full version here.
Of all the things that has been conceived and delivered by the London Labour movement it is the work to implement the Freedom Pass that is one that makes me most proud.
The future of the Freedom pass has given Labour members in London an important decision to make about the future direction of policy in London.
An honest difference of view has opened up on this issue between myself and Oona, in members’ debates in Croydon and Brent. Asked if the Freedom Pass should be means tested, Oona has argued “If there is a choice, then I want the money to go to the poorest, not to pay for the richest like Prince Charles to go free,” and “if you are the mayor and you have got less money coming in you need to ensure the average pensioner can have the same experience or better than those richer ones you need to accept means testing.”
I disagree. On such a fundamental question it is necessary to give a clear answer that the Freedom Pass is safe. If I am selected as Labour’s candidate and then elected as Mayor I will oppose any attempt to means test the Freedom Pass. I will defend the concessionary schemes.
I never expected to hear in a Labour Mayoral selection that we should consider means-testing the Freedom Pass. It is a catastrophic mistake, a gift to our opponents including Boris Johnson. We must have a clear bottom line - and a universal Freedom Pass should be part of it.
This strikes at the heart of electability. A London Labour candidate going into an election with a question-mark over the Freedom Pass, such as being open to means testing it, would damage Labour. Either Boris Johnson will use it as a stick with which to beat Labour, posing to the ‘left’ of the Labour candidate. Or it will open up territory that assists those who want to erode travel concessions.
In both circumstances it is a direct blow against Londoners and would make it harder to win.
The Freedom Pass unites people across London. It is particularly crucial in the outer boroughs, one of the areas where its take-up is greatest. The latest figuresshow 51,691 Freedom Passes issued in Barnet for older Londoners and 5,903 for disabled people. 43,791 in total have been issued in Bexley, 63,671 in Bromley, and 48,827 in Havering, for example.
Older people make up a significantly high proportion of voters and are therefore vital to our support.
There is already concern that the national bus concessionary scheme may be under threat from government cuts.
It is not the super-rich who would be affected by means-testing. You are unlikely to find billionaires or members of the royal family taking advantage of the Freedom Pass. To save any meaningful amount of money the cut-off point for the means test would not be for multi-millionaires but for individuals on much lower levels of subsistence.
The cost of administering means-testing could only be off-set by placing the cut-off way below the richest. The question for anyone toying with the notion of means-testing something like the Freedom Pass is where would you draw the line?
Some services are best delivered universally or with universal concessions for key groups. That ensures broad support for services - such as public transport - that otherwise would be much easier to cut by right wing governments.
The more widely people use public transport and see the benefits, the more the city moves freely and the biggest number of people possible will have a stake in maintaining those services.
The Freedom Pass is so popular with older and disabled Londoners and their families that Boris Johnson was forced to adopt our plan to extend the Freedom Pass to 24-hour operation (although he has failed to secure its 24-hour operation on many rail services).
For Labour to succeed in 2012 it must have a strategy for winning based on protecting Londoners from the combined assault of the economic situation and a government whose policies will worsen its impact.
That is why I will not toy with ideas like means testing the Freedom Pass and I will support other universal services and benefits that make our society fairer and stronger.
Ken Livingstone was Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008, and is currently campaigning to be Labour’s candidate in the 2012 London mayoral election.
Private bus companies receive £1 billion a year subsidy to operate the free pass for over 60s. If they didn’t get it a lot of bus services would close which shows that the private bus companies cannot supply the service we need.
Comment by Personage — 29 July, 2010 @ 9:44 pm
http://www.wwobb.org/
Comment by steelcityred — 29 July, 2010 @ 10:03 pm
2# Ah Brian Soutar, this man believes that Jesus is coming back quite soon and that he controls the Scottish Nationalist Party, spent half a million opposing clause 28.
If Soutar gets hold of your bus routes be prepared to pay.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/612409.stm
Comment by jim mclean — 29 July, 2010 @ 10:14 pm
‘The question for anyone toying with the notion of means-testing something like the Freedom Pass is where would you draw the line?’
Fantastic way to phrase the issue. It’s the issue with every cut, every reduction in service. Who do you want to take away from, whose live do you want to make worse, where would you draw the line?
At least some hardened ideologues of the right will answer this with a straight-forward, ‘you’. Then we know we are enemies. But Oona King’s attempt to put a progressive sheen on her shilling for the ConDem government’s agenda is disgraceful and should have no place in the labour movement.
Comment by Manzil — 29 July, 2010 @ 10:43 pm
As someone who has a Freedom Pass it is a boon and everyone who has one sings its praises.
Comment by ScotinLondon — 29 July, 2010 @ 10:45 pm
#4 It’s great and the coalition is going to get rid of it.
Comment by Personage — 29 July, 2010 @ 10:50 pm
On a more practical level, it’s interesting that Ken is often portrayed by his right-wing enemies in the Labour Party as someone who only appeals to inner London, and that someone else is needed to win back the mayoralty by appealing to other areas.
Well, as the article mentions, take-up of the Freedom Pass is highest in the outer boroughs. The diehard Blairite thinking behind the King campaign isn’t exactly overflowing with smart politics, is it?
Comment by Manzil — 29 July, 2010 @ 10:50 pm
On another important issue
retirement at 65 rule
Dont believe the hipe
The bosses will still be able to say no
because of financial or succession planning
so just another CONDEM HOAX
But many people will think they have an automatic right and build the future on that basis
Comment by sean — 29 July, 2010 @ 11:24 pm
#3 “Brian Soutar, … spent half a million opposing clause 28.”
If only. He spent his money defending it.
Comment by Grim and Dim — 29 July, 2010 @ 11:48 pm
Bit of trolling:
Just posted the following comment on Lenin’s Tomb on the `Right to Work(less)’ thread so thought would put it here before it is deleted:
`a compulsory 35 hour week would be a good start’
This is no start at all. This is what miserable compromisers hope to achieve and think they might because it makes absolutely no inroad into the system and therefore just might be conceded and can then be claimed as a victory when it is really a massive missed opportunity.
The objective conditions will tell you what the working week should be. In order to achieve full employment in productive, and it must be productive, work then even a 21hour week is probably too long. However it represents a genuine start in this sphere and nothing less than that will do because nothing less than full employment will do. From a child’s point of view the working week has doubled over the last 15 years as both parents work. It now needs to be halved so that both parents get the benefits of work and domestic life. That really would be the end of patriarchy. It would also be the end of over-policed communities and the armies of social workers needed to protect neglected kids whether they are neglected by the employed or the unemployed.
The Right to Work should be balanced with the slogan The Right to Work Less. One thing is for sure if the employed and the unemployed don’t find common cause on this then the employed will be used to marginalise the unemployed and the unemployed to undercut the employed. Sharing the work is not a utopian demand. It is an immediate necessity. The 35 hour week however is mere political cowardice.
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/07/right-to-work-less.html
Comment by David Ellis — 30 July, 2010 @ 1:38 pm
Two very interesting CiFs from the guardian on the question of working week:
Nina Power
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/29/right-to-work-recession-women-at-work
Anna Coote
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/30/short-working-week-benfit-society
Comment by David Ellis — 30 July, 2010 @ 4:33 pm
The Right to Work Less
Shop steward addressing union meeting after long strike : Comrades, we are victorious. The management have agreed to our demands. We will now only work on Wednesdays.
SWP member from back of room : What! Every bloody Wednesday.
Comment by Martin Kelly — 30 July, 2010 @ 7:06 pm