Shaun Bailey vows to restore free travel for pensioners in London mayor bid
London mayor candidate Shaun Bailey has vowed to restore the Freedom Pass if elected as Sadiq Khan’s replacement in the 2021 mayoral election.
The Conservative party candidate told Morning Wire he has pledged to reinstate free travel for people over the age of 66, after it was suspended in June as the coronavirus crisis crippled finances at Transport for London (TfL).
The transport body also halted free travel for 60-plus card holders at peak times, while the suspension of free bus and tram travel for under-18s has been postponed until the spring.
Bailey today said the decision “has stripped the most vulnerable Londoners of their ability to get around”, as he laid his case to replace Labour mayor Khan in next year’s election.
“Sadiq Khan’s four years of mismanagement have left TfL’s finances in a mess. The suspension of the Freedom Pass clearly shows the effect that mismanagement has on the services Londoners need,” the mayoral candidate said.
“In these challenging times, it’s our duty to look after the elderly. We cannot allow them to become isolated, unable to travel to doctors appointments or to see their friends and family,” he added.
But Khan hit back at Bailey’s claims, accusing the mayoral candidate of “scaremongering” for political gain.
Khan added that it was not his intention to scrap the Freedom Pass permanently, but a requirement as part of a government funding deal for TfL.
A spokesperson for the mayor told City A.M: “Shaun Bailey has exposed just how little he knows about free travel for older Londoners.
“[Khan] will not entertain the removal of the older person’s Freedom Pass. This is scaremongering on the part of Bailey and he should know better than to use this issue as a pawn in his political game”.
Bailey said he would roll out a two-year pay freeze for TfL staff earning more than £51,000 a year — around half of the transport body’s employees — in a bid to shore up more than £25m for the scheme.
The Conservative candidate added that the pay freeze would not affect the lowest paid TfL staff.
More than 550 TfL staff are currently on salaries of £100,000 or more, including 53 employees who earn more than £150,000 a year.
The highest earner on last year’s pay roll on a salary of almost £520,000 was Mike Brown, the former TfL chief executive who was controversially awarded in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
TfL crunch talks
It comes as central government and TfL have been locked in negotiations over a settlement to plug a multi-billion pound hole in the transport body’s finances, after lockdown regulations hammered revenues across the network.
Khan has asked for just shy of £5bn to keep the network running for the next 18 months. A previous support package of £1.6bn signed in May to prop up TfL throughout the pandemic is understood to have run dry.
The mayor last week accused the government of “lying” and playing “party political games” during bailout talks, sparking a tit-for-tat with the Prime Minister over the future of the ailing transport network.
Khan said he “cannot accept” conditions attached to Whitehall’s proposed bailout, which he claims include an extension to the congestion charge, above-inflation fare hikes and a back-door increase to Londoners’ Council Tax bills.
Business bodies last week blasted the government’s demands for a potential bailout as a “mockery”, accusing ministers of “railroading” policy through while the transport network is on its knees during the pandemic.
Shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon told Morning Wire it was “extremely worrying that despite repeated requests, the government is offering only a papering-over-the-cracks funding package for TfL, with such punitive conditions.”
McMahon said: “If the government gives financial support to the privately operated rail network, it is inconceivable that it does not do the same for publicly owned transport providers like TfL, which need long-term secure funding during what could be a lengthy period in which they won’t be able to operate at full capacity.”