To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what recent estimate he has made of the number of pensioners who (a) are entitled to and (b) hold a concessionary bus pass in (i) Test Valley borough and (ii) the City of Southampton. (288398)

During preparations for the introduction for concessionary travel, the Department for Transport used census data to estimate the number of older people eligible for a concessionary bus pass. The figure for Test Valley was 24,402 and for Southampton unitary authority was 40,145.

The Department is not responsible for issuing passes and so does not maintain records of how many passes individual authorities have issued. The last information held by the Department was that as of April 2009 Southampton had issued approximately 37,000 new smartcard concessionary passes. Test Valley is part of the Hampshire Countywide scheme who had issued approximately 184,000 passes. This includes passes issued to disabled people as well as those aged 60 and over.