Over-60s free travel costs taxpayers three times as much as fare dodgers

Telegraph

a day ago

Providing free transport for over-60s in London is costing taxpayers £500m a year, prompting calls for the benefit to be scrapped.
A rapidly ageing population means more than 1.5 million people now travel for free across London's buses, Tubes, trains and trams.
They do so via the 60+ Oyster Card, for those aged between 60 and 65, and the Freedom Pass, available to those aged 66 and older.
Telegraph analysis shows the 60+ Oyster Card alone will cost Transport for London (TfL) £135m this year, up from £60m in 2016. By 2027, costs are expected to reach £185m.
The Freedom Pass, which now has more than 900,000 users, costs £350m a year – a bill that is forecast to reach £498m by the end of the decade.
By comparison, traditional fare dodgers – such as those recently exposed by Tory MP Robert Jenrick for skipping barriers at Underground stations – cost the organisation £130m a year.
According to TfL, the majority of 60+ Oyster card holders (60pc) are still in paid employment, and one in five use the free travel to get to and from work.
This is despite the fact that those aged 60 and 64 earn an average salary of £42,000, double that of those aged between 20 and 24 at £24,000.
Reem Ibrahim, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: 'It is difficult to justify a system where the wealthiest age group in the country is having their travel funded by taxpayers.
'The 60+ Oyster card and Freedom Pass schemes are financially unsustainable, and are not targeted to those genuinely in need of support. We urgently need a more targeted approach, rather than entrenching an unfair and costly system.'
Liz Emerson, chief executive of the Intergenerational Foundation, a research charity, said: 'At the very least, the Freedom Pass should be aligned with the state pension age.
'It's a perfect example of intergenerational unfairness at work with younger workers having to subsidise their older colleagues free travel to work.'
The 60+ Oyster Card was first introduced by then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson in 2012.
It is funded by Sir Sadiq Khan's mayoral precept in council tax bills and the congestion charge – the daily fee for driving into central London.
Once Londoners reach the age of 66, they continue to receive free travel in the form of a Freedom Pass, which is also provided to eligible disabled people regardless of age. This £350m bill is shouldered on to London's 33 boroughs – 28 of which increased council tax by the legal maximum of 5pc in April.
The body that runs the scheme on behalf of the boroughs, has warned it will cost taxpayers £498m by 2029-30, a figure it described as 'unsustainable'.
Sir Sadiq, 54, who is five years away from qualifying for free travel himself, banned the use of 60+ Oyster cards and the Freedom Pass before 9am during the pandemic. The move generated an extra £15m in fares.
However, he rejected plans to increase the qualifying age for the 60+ Oyster card by six months a year for the next 12 years, allowing for it to be slowly phased out until it matched the qualifying age of the Freedom Pass.
A spokesman for Transport for London said: 'Both the Mayor and TfL are committed to making public transport in London as accessible, convenient, and affordable as possible.
'We regularly review our range of concessions to ensure that they continue to benefit Londoners, while also remaining affordable for TfL to operate.'