ANDY Burnham’s English bus fare cap will be funded by some of the poorest countries in the world, campaigners have warned.
The Prime Minister has announced that single tickets will be capped at £2 south of the Border, reviving a Tory policy that was replaced with a £3 cap his predecessor Keir Starmer.
The UK Government has said it will fund the policy by changing the rules on international climate finance, a scheme which provides some of the worst-affected countries deal with the climate emergency.
Instead of being given non-repayable grants, they will be given loans.
Charities have warned that this amounted to placing a debt burden on poor countries which bear less responsibility for climate change historically than a major polluter like Britain.
Among countries that have recently benefitted from the UK Government’s international climate finance scheme are Madagascar and Malawi, rated among some of the poorest countries in the world.
Katherine May, Oxfam Scotland advocacy adviser, said: “The Prime Minister’s decision to cap bus fares is welcome, but the bill should categorically not be handed to people thousands of miles away who are already living with the worst effects of a climate crisis they did little to create.
“Rich nations like the UK helped cause the climate crisis and continue to make it worse. Asking low-income countries to borrow money to deal with its consequences is like crashing someone's car and then offering them a loan for the repairs.
“A fairer option would be for the Prime Minister to ask the super-rich and those profiting from pollution to contribute more towards building a greener, fairer country by better taxing wealth.”
Emily Donnelly, senior transport campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, added: “It is good to see Andy Burnham recognise the cost-of-living impact people face from expensive bus fares, and take decisive action in his first days in the job to ease this burden on people who need to use the bus to go about their daily lives – to get to work, the hospital, see family and friends, go to the shops.
“But while fare caps reduce the cost of fares for the customer, public funds pay the difference. Meanwhile the private bus companies continue to rake in millions of pounds in profits each year, even ending up on the Sunday Times Rich List in some instances, making a fortune off ordinary people by running lifeline public services at a premium.
“This expensive model of intervention is also doubly worrying when it appears that the funding for it this week has been created by switching international climate finance grants to loans – a decision that would have a detrimental and unjust impact on those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis.
“The only way to deliver genuinely affordable, accessible, reliable and sustainable public transport run for communities – not for commercial interests – is by bringing bus services into public ownership.”
Oxfam called on the Scottish Government to speed up its own bus fare cap scheme, which is currently in a “pilot” phase which is not rolled out throughout the country.
May said: “Scottish Ministers should strongly press the UK Government to fairly fund its bus fare cap fairly. They should then use the extra funding coming to Scotland to at least match the UK's timetable by accelerating delivery of its own promised nationwide £2 bus fare cap, ensuring people across Scotland aren’t left behind.”
Donnelly added: “What we need now in Scotland is an urgent universal rollout of the fare cap – avoiding the postcode lottery of phased implementation which we have seen so far, that leaves behind communities like in Aberdeenshire paying a premium for lifeline services indefinitely.
“But beyond that, this fare cap should be seen as a temporary, urgent sticking plaster solution to ease people’s bills and commutes – not as a fix-all.”
Gillian Martin, the Scottish Government's Climate Action Secretary, said: "We are deeply concerned by the UK Government's decision to fund its bus fare cap by converting climate grants into loans while cutting official development assistance, shifting the burden onto the world's most vulnerable countries, those already facing mounting debt, worsened by the devastating impacts of a climate crisis they did little to cause.
“Scotland's Climate Justice Fund provides support as grants, not debt, because we believe in genuine solidarity with communities on the frontline of climate change. On Tuesday I convened a roundtable with Commonwealth countries facing huge difficulties with debt associated with devastation due to the Climate Change they did not cause. Loans add further strain to their impossible situation. We urge the UK Government to reverse this decision and find a fairer way to a fund public transport improvements that does not push Global South communities into even more extreme poverty.”
She added: "Scotland already has a £2 bus fare cap pilot running across the Highlands and Islands, and the Scottish Government is working to extend it to Glasgow and surrounding areas within its first 100 days. We are also committed to bringing forward legislation for a £2 bus fare cap across Scotland by the end of this parliament, building on the evidence from the current pilot."
A UK Government spokesperson said: "We are committed to spending 0.3% GNI on Official Development Assistance. International climate finance supports a range of projects such as protecting forests and development of clean power.
“Switching a small proportion of that spending from grants to loans give us more flexible ways to tackle the climate crisis while making the best use of taxpayers’ money.”
