London’s 60+ Oyster card: fair deal or Britain’s biggest freebie? Transport for London has revealed that the free travel perk for people who are often financially better off than fare-paying youngsters cost them £125m in 2024
by BritRedditor1
London’s 60+ Oyster card: fair deal or Britain’s biggest freebie? Transport for London has revealed that the free travel perk for people who are often financially better off than fare-paying youngsters cost them £125m in 2024
by BritRedditor1
29 comments
Text:
At the Garrick Club, one of London’s best-heeled members’ societies, a must-have accessory is a free travel pass.
Home to chief executives, senior lawyers and members of the great and good, those turning 60 proudly show off their new 60+ London Oyster photocard, which entitles them to free travel in the capital at all times except the morning rush hour. One regular has apparently taken to enjoying sightseeing bus tours of the West End. The twentysomethings working for the national living wage in the Covent Garden shops around the corner, battling runaway rents and inflation, enjoy no such perks.
London residents get their complimentary ticket to ride around the capital from the age of 60, several years before the state pension age of 66. It is a hugely costly benefit. In the last year, Transport for London (TfL) missed out on £125 million worth of revenue from 60 to 65-year-olds. The cost is set to double to £180 million by 2027.
Yet the generation that enjoys this perk earns more, on average, and is much more likely to own their home outright, than those just getting on their career ladder, who are still paying the full fare — and subsidising their elders.
Free bus passes were, and for most of the country still are, pegged to the age that women hit the pension age. Until 2011 this was 60 for women and 65 for men.
However, the state pension age has increased: first to bring women in line with men, at 65, then further, to 66 today. It will rise to 67 by 2028.
Boris Johnson introduced the 60+ pass in 2012 as mayor of London after deciding that Londoners expecting their pass at 60, having been told they would have to wait, would “rightly feel cheated”. His successor at City Hall, Sir Sadiq Khan, agreed.
There have been some adjustments: holders cannot now use the pass between 4.30am and 9am Monday to Friday and have to confirm their eligibility every year — intended to stop those moving out of London after 60 from retaining the perk when they visit.
Sixty-year-olds get free travel in some other places, such as Greater Manchester and Liverpool, but in most of England it is still reserved for those who hit the pension age of 66.
And in London, the card allows for travel not just on buses but trains run by London Overground, the Tube and the Docklands Light Railway. A twentysomething living in Clapham Common or Dalston — hospots for young professionals — would pay £171.70 a month for a zone 1-2 travelcard. Even if they travelled to and from work only during off-peak hours, they would still be looking at a monthly travel bill of more than £100 before they did any other travel at all.
• Robert Crampton: I can’t help showing off my new over-60 travel pass
During the pandemic, when TfL’s funding shortage was at its worst, there were reports that the mayor was looking to phase out the photocard six months at a time. Khan said a proposal had been considered but rejected after he “made funding available to protect the concession”.
There is little sign of any policy change, with consensus across City Hall — far from opposing the scheme, the Conservatives want to make it more generous and revive free rush-hour travel for 60+ residents too — but there is evidence it is increasingly out of step with the financial reality of the capital.
The cost of the concession is calculated as revenue “foregone”. It has increased from £50 million in 2016 to £125 million this year. TfL has an operating day-to-day surplus of £138 million, but every penny lost to the concession is one that cannot be spent elsewhere on the network, for example on vital upgrade work.
London’s 60 to 65-year-olds are, on average, doing well. They are far more likely to own their house outright compared with younger age groups. Many will have ridden London’s long property boom and are sitting on properties whose value has vastly outpaced wage growth and inflation, unlike younger generations squeezed by rising housing costs and stagnant salary growth.
Many of them are still in paid employment — about 60 per cent, according to TfL’s own figures. Nationally, those aged 60-64 earn an average of £42,000 a year, substantially above the salaries of those aged 20-24 (£24,000), 25-29 (£32,600) and even 30-34 (£39,600).
Many of those in that 60-64 age bracket receive income from other sources, such as stocks and shares or property. This is likely to be particularly true among Londoners, who are significantly wealthier than those of the same age group living elsewhere.
Despite all of this, the capital enjoys other transport advantages over the rest of the country: total government spending on transport is just shy of £400 a head higher in London than elsewhere, and even those who pay to use buses are doing it at a discount compared with the rest of the country. Londoners can get two buses within one hour for £1.75; single journeys elsewhere in the country are capped at £3. While London enjoys a transport network to rival the very biggest global cities, many of the UK’s other cities struggle with networks far less extensive than smaller metropolitan areas on the Continent.
According to the Centre for Cities think tank, all large British cities except Glasgow have worse public transport accessibility than their European peers, holding back productivity growth. One Yorkshire-born academic now at the London School of Economics, Professor Peter Gill-Tiney, caused a stir in 2019 when he said it was “perverse” that London enjoyed a regulated public transport system with high levels of public funding and low prices, while poorer, more rural areas had deregulated, privatised and expensive public transport. He says the situation has in some ways got worse since then, with small-scale projects across the north of England falling victim to funding cuts.
Campaigners are beginning to take notice.
Maxwell Marlow, director of public affairs at the Adam Smith Institute, said: “Britain is hooked on benefits — whether for the out-of-work or the elderly. Working taxpayers now spend £150.7 billion a year on the state pension Ponzi scheme and £23 billion on social care, and nearly two-fifths of NHS spending goes to the over-65s. On top of that, the state provides free TV licences and even complimentary bus and metro travel for the elderly. Yet pensioners remain among the wealthiest in society — [with] mortgage-free homes bought cheaply, generous pension pots and a taxpayer-subsidised lifestyle. The [Office for National Statistics] reminds us that the average pensioner is nine times wealthier than the average 30-year-old.”
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Handing out universal perks that benefit already well–heeled Londoners is simply ridiculous. Concessions [should be] focused on those who really need them.”
While some over-60s are celebrating the benefit, others are choosing to reject it. Sir William Russell, the former lord mayor of London, who turned 60 in April, said he was “very likely not to use it”, though it was “a nice birthday present”.
Vincent Keaveny, a senior City lawyer and also a former lord mayor, said there was “something democratic about the transport network being available to young and old … but it does seem generous that it kicks in at 60; there’s certainly a case it should be given alongside the pension.” He too is yet to decide whether to accept a pass when he qualifies this summer.
A TfL spokesman said: “We regularly review our range of concessions to ensure that they continue to benefit Londoners, while also remaining affordable for TfL to operate. There are no plans to discontinue the 60+ Oyster photocard.”
They should give it to the ones who need it + mums on maternity leave
Why is this country so allergic to means testing? A government ID based on income for pensioners to apply to WFA, transport, pension credit etc. Would solve all of this.
Why not base it on finances instead then rather than everyone over a certain age?
This is news to me, are you seriously telling me TfL keeps saying it has no money while giving free transport to millions of people, including people who are still working?! The deference to pensioners in this country will be the death of all of us
Like any other support, should be given to those who are destitute, not those who already have so much.
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Young people should get it rather than old age pensioners unless they can’t afford it
Scrap it fully or make it means based. It shouldn’t be handed out across the board to those who can afford it.
I always hear “it would be too complicated to means test it” but why is that the case? Even government IT should be good enough to speak to DWP or whoever and find out who has been deemed disadvantaged enough to need help.
Pensioners are more likely to own cars and use them for short journeys. I’d say this is worth keeping as they don’t get to use it in rush hour and it’s not exactly a large amount of lost revenue.
As long as these decisions are made by someone wanting to get elected they’ll favour older active voters over younger infrequent voters. So yes it’s unfair but won’t be changed. Would there be any merit jn an age discrimination case? Even by a 59 year old!?
I love how our tax system focuses on redistributing wealth from the working to those that don’t work, fantastic idea 👍
It’s a common right wing dream to abolish free travel for the over 60s. The Economist had a period where every week they had some jibe about it. The way they talked about it you’d think you could have paid for the NHS ten times over, rather than it being a relatively minor outlay in the scheme of things.
Personally, I think everyone should have free travel and transport should be funded out of general taxation. However until we get that it’s fine that kids/over 60s get free travel, even if some individuals in this group are vastly richer than me.
Yes, there are some 62 year old millionaires who get free travel. So what? Is this group seriously so common that it materially affects passenger numbers? I doubt it.
Besides, here’s a secret – we should be happy if wealthy people use public transport. Public services only used by poor people tend to get shit on whereas those services used by everyone have much greater political support.
Yes, we could introduce means testing but this adds additional complication and makes the freedom pass something only the poor/disabled use, and thus yet another target for cuts.
There are clearly social and health benefits in keeping people active as they age. For the outlay it seems like pretty good value.
And no, I don’t have a freedom pass and anticipate some right wing cunt cutting it before I ever get one.
I swear people in the comment are so spiteful for no reason. Might as well be calling for eugenic and forced euthanasia if all you think about is costs.
They’re old. Just let them travel and enjoy the rest of their remaining years.
Bleh, all of this is the same divide and conquer madness…This is part of a foundational issue with the infrastructure not being prepared for a huge generation of aging people living longer than their preceding generations by a long shot. Austerity has led to a lack of funding which even brings this conversation into relevance. Analysing the finances of every single 60+ person annually or whenever a pass renewal is not feasible if the actual government agencies don’t have the staff to process the workload. Corruption has circumvented social growth, but that’s not the fault of 64 yr old divorcee cancer survivor Beverly who still works because she has to and inherited a house from her estranged father that needs repair and has bad electrics and no central heating but is in Balham, or any other person just because they reached 60.
There it is, another article attacking some sort of ‘perk’ people get after a lifetime of working and contributing to society.
There was another one just a few months ago. Simply trying to slowly sway people into thinking the people getting said “perk“ (I’m not even going to qualify it as a ‘benefit’) don’t deserve and it comes at the expense of something else. Just so when they finally get rid of it, we don’t even see it as a negative thing. They just use some people that really don’t need any kind of perk or benefit as an example, as if there were’t plenty of retired people that wouldn’t be able to travel if they had to pay full price.
If the governments were run efficiently (including preventing people from actually gaming the benefit system) and politicians weren’t just a bunch of corrupt and incompetent morons, our taxes should pay for any kind of ‘support system’. But alas, this is where we are, they get “journalist” doing their dirty work, poisoning public opinion, before they make their move, thus eroding our standards of living one chip at a time.
PS=I’m nowhere near 60 so I’m not saying this because it affects me, but because I can see what’s really going on.
PS2=Judging by some comments, the tactic is working too. People actively disliking that this exists, shooting themselves in the foot so when they actually reach 60, they don’t get to have it. It’s a “brilliant“ mindset.
It shouldn’t be beyond the ability of TfL to link to HMRCs real time income information tools which could remove a lot of the “means testing is too expensive” argument.
The HMRC system is relatively new and using it could mean anyone over 60 and earning above, say, 20k isn’t eligible if the powers that be don’t want to entirely remove it.
Just checked and HMRCs Real Time Info systems on income and wages started rolling out back in April 2013. It should be robust enough now to cross reference.
It is a basic question of fairness. A 58 or 21 year old on the breadline gets nothing but a wealthy 62 year old does.
Time to slash this handout.
my view: free but rush hour is full price
That’s £2 per taxpayer per year. It’s all but irrelevant.
Millionaires with triple lock pensions who made their fortunes by selling all of this countries assets and it’s future get free transport paid by all of us.
But it’s the immigrants that are a problem for Barry Ninefinger from Wetwang in the North who just voted for Reform.
The times are reporting this and then dragging labour for WFA… Make it make sense.
>it was “perverse” that London enjoyed a regulated public transport system with high levels of public funding and low prices,
In what world does London transit enjoy high levels of public funding? It’s 2-5 times more expensive than any other major EU city. TfL gets very little govt funding, which is why they charge ridiculous prices (10+ pounds to get from Canary Wharf to Richmond on light rail + tube + bus, different tickets for each type of transport).
In Vienna a 90 minute journey costs 2.20 regardless of how many tubes / trains / streetcars / buses you take. London transit is an expensive joke.
What a waste. Think of what better things this could be spent on! For example, if we scrapped this then it would pay our refugee hotel bill for 16 days.
Hmm. The Freedom Pass (as depicted) and the 60+ London Oyster Card ain’t the same thing.
The former is totally free but you have to be in receipt of the state pension.
The latter is for youngsters aged 60+ and costs £20 to buy and £10pa thereafter. So, while a phenomenal bargain, it ain’t *strictly* a ‘freebie’.
I used to pay for my bus fare from 14-16 going to school then 2 yrs at college. TfL will spaff it up the wall anyway it’s the least they can do for 60+
The real people shafted are 26-59
Its not right to come for old folk who (in London) are still working well in to their 60s because retiring is becoming a thing of the past.
I dont care if they have a perk now – I care that that perk is still there when I reach 60.
It’s a hateful article that deflects off the true waste and makes us fight and hate amongst ourselves rather than bring government to account.
When it becomes our time to get this, it will be scrapped.
The truth is, there should be enough money to fund this, if the government did not give their friends 1.4 billion in covid contracts to buy low quality ppe now in a landfill, over 700 million to friends for the failed Rwanda scheme, hundreds of millions for government private helicopter and private jet rides.
All of those billions of insidious government corruption and cronyism would have funded this scheme for at least 20+ years.
Now they are preparing us to remove it forever by setting the propaganda ready, like with EMA, like with university maintenance grants.
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