On the buses

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I’m not sure that it’s always helpful to refer to anything and everything which people get for ‘free’ as a ‘benefit’.  It’s linguistically accurate, of course, in the sense that people benefit from it, but it seems to be confusing – perhaps deliberately in some cases – the issue of benefits for ‘the needy’ with the issue of services provided at no cost at the point of use. 

But I’m inclined to think about the second category as being more a case of ‘collective purchase’ of services; and the reasons for deciding to purchase some services collectively can be much wider than merely the matter of whether the recipients need or deserve the services concerned.

Taking bus passes as an example, not everyone approaches the issue from the same perspective.  I don’t really consider free bus passes as being a ‘benefit’ in the narrow sense.  There are a number of reasons why we might decide to give cheap access to public transport (and ‘free’, in this context, is merely a special case of ‘cheap’) to some or all groups in society, not least the environmental advantages of getting people out of cars and into buses. 

My support for free public transport for pensioners and other groups is not, therefore, based solely on the idea of identifying ‘need’, either at a personal level or at a group level.  Nor is it based on the extent to which such a policy is popular, or even populist. 

Yet populism seems to be the main issue, when it comes down to the way in which the parties present their take on this policy; or rather, populism plus an attempt to hit the right emotional buttons in identifying which groups should receive the ‘benefit’.  It looks as though there is no longer any argument about the principle between the four parties about the question (in Wales, at least – the UK parties may be a different issue); the debate is solely about which groups should benefit. 

I suppose that we should welcome the Tories’ conversion, just as I sort of welcomed the Lib Dems’ conversion to free prescriptions yesterday; but (again, in a parallel with yesterday’s comments) I can’t help wondering if they’ve really changed their minds at all, or simply recognised the unpopularity of their previous position.

I also wonder how important this issue really is in terms of the electoral contest in May.  It no longer tells us very much about underlying values and principles, which means it’s of little real use in distinguishing between parties and their policies.

Universality

Tweet This week's 'news' about the fact that there are no plans to abolish pensioners' free bus passes has been something of a controversy about nothing. A ministerial advisory group recommended looking at the issue again; the government said a firm 'no'. End of story.

Amanwy is amongst those who pointed out that the BBC were about three weeks late in drawing attention to the report concerned. The delay in responding is surprising, certainly; but I was also surprised at the time about the lack of attention given to a number of significant decisions made by the government in relation to the recommendations of the Ministerial Adisory Group. There is a sense in which the rejection of certain recommendations was actually more newsworthy than the acceptance of those which found their way into the national transport plan.

The bus pass policy has been both popular and successful, but in a time of budget cuts, universal benefits were always going to come under greater scrutiny, and there were always going to be those who would start to argue for cuts. The leading cutters of public services in general, the Tories, have responded by supporting the idea of curtailing, if not scrapping, the scheme, having already proposed scrapping the system of free prescriptions in Wales.

The word 'free' itself is actually a misnomer, of course - nothing is 'free' in the widest sense. The underlying question is whether certain goods or services are paid for individually as and when required, or collectively, so as to be available when required. And that difference in approach is more fundamental than some seem to realise.

Those who would use the current economic crisis as a reason for cutting back on things like bus passes and prescriptions fall into two categories. The enthusiastic cutters are those who have never believed that such things should be free in the first place; the reluctant cutters are those who would prefer to keep current arranmgements, but believe them to be a lower priority when less cash is available for government spending.

Those in the second category need to be careful that they don't end up becoming the instruments by which the first category deliver their agenda. There is more than mere pragmatism involved in this debate; there is also, as Adam Price has pointed out, a difference in ideological standpoint.

Adam puts forward a particularly robust defence of the principle of universality on his blog, with his usual clarity of expression. It's a welcome contribution; there is a real dividing line in politics here which is far too often treated as merely a debate about priorities. One thing of which we can be certain is that if we find ourselves with the Tories in power in Westminster after the next election, universality is going to need a lot of defending. Conceding the argument in advance, as some seem to be doing, is hardly the best way of defending public services.