Commentary on Sections Section 1: Eligibility for travel concessions: age
6.Section 1 is the substantive section of the Act. By virtue of:
men become entitled at age 65, on the one hand, to the mandatory half-fare travel concession on bus services and, on the other, to further discretionary concessions while women become so entitled at age 60. (Section 93(7) and section 240(5) were amended, respectively, by paragraph 15 of Schedule 11 to the 2000 Act and by section 151 of that Act.)
7.Subsection (1) amends the 1985 Act so that both men and women become eligible at age 60 for discretionary travel concessions applying on journeys outside Greater London. Subsection (2) makes a similar amendment to the 1999 Act in respect of all types of travel concessions on journeys in and around Greater London. Subsection (3) makes an amendment to the 2000 Act having the same effect in respect of entitlement to the mandatory half-fare travel concession on bus services outside Greater London.
8.Subsection (4) enables the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (in England) and the National Assembly (in Wales) to make an order to replace references to age 60 in the amendments made by subsections (1) to (3) with a formula which gradually raises the age of entitlement of men and women to 65. In this way, eligibility for concessionary travel could be equalised at 65 by 2020 in line with the provisions of paragraph 1 of Schedule 4 to the Pensions Act 1995.