School children should receive free bus travel before pensioners?

[Itchthescratch]

My child is starting a school where it will cost around £2k for bus travel. This school is local and one of the closest schools to us. The other schools close to us are much worse in terms of opportunities and academic outcomes. I can afford the bus fare easily but I worry that some poorer families will really struggle to send their children to the higher achieving school because of the cost.

I understand that there isn't an endless pot of money but surely it would make sense to give school children free travel ahead of other groups like pensioners? School children are statistically much more likely to suffer from poverty (child poverty is almost double pensioner poverty)and it seems crazy that we aren't supporting social mobility whilst we let all pensioners travel for free on buses.

And where does it end? Everybody gets to choose any old school anywhere with guaranteed free transport. Complete and utter chaos with added expense.

And no I don’t subscribe to the petty well if kids that want to go across the country can’t have free bus passes pensioners shouldn’t.

And you claimed that people needing to go into a care setting (NEED) didn’t have a choice in settings. And you’re doubling down.

if people want better than something that adequately meets their needs they have to pay.

And that’s the same for EVERYTHING in life. I want an Aston Martin. Does my Mazda i10 meet my needs by getting me to work, to the shops and completing the school run? Yup. But I want BETTER - and apparently I should get it for free and if I don’t get it for free it means I have no choices. Wahhhh!

Childish nonsense.

Not all OAPs need free bus passes. Not all OAPs have them or use them, what planet are you on?!

It's different in London, I think, but out here in the provinces the bus companies are compensated for the exact journeys taken by pass holders (the driver scans the pass). They aren't being given huge wads of cash to pay for non-existent pensioner journeys.

You have to apply for your pass - every three years where I live. Lots of people don't bother, lots more apply but only use them once for the novelty.

No one should be getting free anything if they have the means to pay for it. Period.

What are you talking about?

If parents want to turn down all schools within a 3 mile radius with free transport they should pay the added cost same as the elderly have to pay top ups if they want to live in a residential home not in the area allocated - because of simple choice.

FFS, why does it always have to be a competition?

Since you want to make it one, no. Parents already get plenty of help with child costs, do you just want tax payers to fund your child entirely? Why should you have to pay anything for the child you decided to have, right? 🙄

So nobody should be getting free school transport, free school meals up to the age of year 2, child prescriptions etc

All OAPs are eligible for them though in the same way that all school children would be eligible under my proposals. Not all children would use them either as many would get dropped to school by parents or walk or cycle.

It's about eligibility

My parents do.

They are millionaires but live in a city with a lot of parking restrictions so they take the bus into the city centre all the time

If they have the means to pay for it.

that’s why it’s called MEANS TESTED.

Is it fuck about eligibility. You started this thread by saying pensioners shouldn't have free bus travel, the money should go to kids instead. You've gone on to expound in painful detail that pensioners are filthy rich, so don't need the bus passes.

I'm explaining that pensioner bus travel doesn't actually cost that much, because the filthy rich pensioners don't use buses. And the taxpayer ONLY covers the fares of those who do: the poor and infirm pensioners.

In short, they means test themselves. Pensioners who can hop in a nice, comfy car on their own doorstep, do. Those who can't are the ones using buses.

Sorry I’d don’t agree with means testing prescriptions as many parents will just not pay for them to save money, ditto transport. Anything beyond the 3 mile radius should be paid for though. Don’t agree with free schools meals for those that don’t need them.

Quite. If my mum hadn't had her free bus pass, she would have been stuck in her small village most days of the week with almost nowhere to go. There was one shot and one cafe.And the cafe was closed on sundays and mondays.

The free bus fair gave her a lifeline to go into town and be able to go to larger shops to pay cheaper prices for groceries to be able to certainly normal.And see people she knew and have coffee with them.

Helped my mum out as best I could, but I i am not filthy rich either and there's a limit to the financial support.I could give her whilst paying for my own home.

It's sickens me that people see pensioners as filthy rich.

Quite frankly, I can't remember the last time I saw a child in a buggy that didn't have a bloody smartphone or tablet in its hand

You've all got money for that

If you had actually read my post you would understand that I know that the cost is associated with reimbursing journeys and not in issuing the passes themselves and that the combined cost of reimbursing journeys for OAPs and the disabled is £1 billion. Pensioners won't be a small proportion of this. In what world is this not costing much?

Nobody has said all pensioners are all filthy rich. You are rage baiting yourselves. As a group they are factually the wealthiest demographic. This unequivocally true.

A toddler may have a tablet but is statistically far more likely to be homeless and suffering from poverty than the pensioner.

Inconvenient truths.

Ian convenient truth for you.Is that you just don't want to pay for your children?And I refuse to believe that you care about every child having a free far to a good school

You just resent having to pay a bus fare for your children. That's the inconvenient truth for you.

It’s based on NI contributions, unlike Child Benefit. Many older women like me don’t get a full state pension because of a lack of, or the wrong type of contributions. Mine is just over £100 per week. We were also the ones who didn’t get Child Benefit (Family Allowance back then) for the first child, mine was about eight when it started. Swings and roundabouts?

However, the changes in attitudes to house buying benefited many of us, who’d grown up in rented housing, and had seen our parents with little in retirement. Society was also opening up opportunities for better educational and career opportunities for our DC. Those that took them are mainly better off than their parents were.

Just think of all the trickle down as we pensioners die off! Unless DH and I (early boomers) end up having to pay for our care (and subsidise others’) our DC will inherit whatever our small and very modest house in the North of England raises. They’re already mortgage free, heading towards retirement, sorted, so the DGC should benefit. As there are so many pensioners, the gain to younger generations should be huge!

Oh the vitriol.

The issue you have is that the state is actually obligated to pay for them. It pays for their childcare, their healthcare and their education. At it's most extreme, parents can walk away completely from their children and guess who has to pickup the pieces? In the same way pensioners can piss away all their money and the state will step in and pay for a care home for them.

It's in everyone's interests that children go to the school that best meet their needs and are the best fit. Who is going to be paying pensions and all this debt we are accruing through the triple lock in the future? These exact children you begrudge so much. Why are you so desperate for poor kids to go to bad schools? My kids are great either way and I would actually prefer a means tested system so no, it's not all about my kids getting free stuff.

I really don't agree with this idea that rich pensioners don't take the bus.

I realise Mumsnet is convinced that public transport is only for poor people but IRL that isn't true at all.

My parents and all their friends are wealthy pensioners and all of them use the bus regularly. Why wouldn't you? Most city centres are a huge pain to drive and park in. They could afford taxis but when you live five mins walk from a free (to you) bus service, why would you pay?

I think you don't understand what truths are. They aren't just your opinions.

London accounts for 29% of the expenditure, its pass holders are highly active. Out of the 624 million concessionary bus journeys made across England, 223 million journeys (about 36%) take place in London alone.

I couldn't be bothered to find out how this dovetails with the Freedom Pass, but perhaps you'd like to remove free transport from London pensioners while allowing everybody else to have it?

Or something. London's obviously different because it has fantastic public transport and it's idiotic to drive a car there. In the provinces, you are indeed arguing for impoverished pensioners to be stuck at home on their own.

Our bus service are crap as it is. It'd be great if enormous public funds were being pumped into transport services! Sadly, they are not. Yet the kids still manage to get to school. They run buses at school times, btw, which presumably are being subsidised as they don't bother serving people who have to get to work and back in the school holidays.

Has anyone pointed out that some elderly pensioners shouldn't be on the road and free bus pass encourages them to stay off it. That's a good thing imo.

That frequently happens because the sentiments being expressed are indeed ageist.

This has been covered. An idea that surrendering your license could be rewarded with a free bus pass was mooted.