Pendle MP, Gordon Prentice, is responding to the Government’s consultation on a redistribution of bus fare grant for older people. The new proposal for Pendle's grant to pay for concessionary fares for 2010-11 has seen it reduced by half while the overall amount for Lancashire has gone up.

Speaking from Westminster the MP said: "Free bus passes give millions of older and disabled people greater freedom and independence. And that is not going to change."

"But the distribution of grant for next year is being changed to Pendle's disadvantage, on the grounds that the original funding was set up using projections that did not materialise.

"The proposed reduction is by no means the worst in the country—London and many authorities in the South were also "winners", who will see their grant reduced. But I want to know why Pendle is the only authority to lose out in Lancashire, which has seen an overall increase of £3.6 million."