Last week, London Councils announced a review into the future of the Freedom Pass. The Pass entitles those aged 66 and over to travel for free across London’s entire transport network. In this article, IF Senior Researcher Conor Nakkan argues that the Freedom Pass, along with other age-based concessionary travel schemes, should be reformed.
What’s happening?
If you live in London, on your 66th birthday you will become eligible for a Freedom Pass. With the exception of weekday peak hours (4:30–9:30am), the Pass allows free travel across the city’s bus, tram, Tube, DLR, and Overground networks. The scheme is administered by London Councils, the body representing London’s 32 boroughs, and is funded directly by local authorities.
Last week, it emerged that London Councils were considering a review into the future of the Freedom Pass. The review was prompted by growing concern about the scheme’s rising cost. Total spending is expected to increase from almost £333 million in 2025–26 to £372 million in 2026–27.
One option reportedly under consideration was to restrict free travel to buses only. This would have aligned London more closely with most other parts of the country. Early estimates suggest this change could save around £100 million a year. For many local authorities facing pressures from funding cuts and the rising cost of providing adult social care, this would represent a substantial saving.
However, it now seems that the proposed review of the Freedom Pass is unlikely to get off the ground. In a statement released yesterday, Labour councils in London said that they would oppose “any changes that would see restrictions placed on who can use it and which modes of transport it applies to.”
Even if the proposed review does not go ahead, the questions it raised remain important. Would the suggested changes have been the right approach? Would they have unfairly restricted a valuable entitlement for hundreds of thousands of older Londoners? Or did they not go far enough? Should concessionary travel schemes continue to be allocated primarily on the basis of age, or is it time to rethink how entitlement is determined altogether?
Are concessionary travel schemes bankrupting the country?
In November, television presenter Kirstie Allsopp became involved in a heated social media argument with the children’s author Michael Rosen over the Freedom Pass. Rosen had publicly complained about issues with his Freedom Pass. In response, Allsopp argued that someone as successful as Rosen should not be using the pass in the first place. As she put it, “people have to stop taking things they do not need,” because it is “wrong and bankrupting our country.”
Clearly, considered in isolation, the Freedom Pass in London is not going to bankrupt the UK. But Allsopp’s comments do point towards a broader issue: many benefits and concessions in the UK are allocated simply on the basis of age, rather than need. And as the population continues to age, there are good reasons to question whether this approach will be affordable over the longer-term.
Age over need
The most prominent example of a universal, age-based benefit is obviously the State Pension, which is set to cost taxpayers a staggering £146 billion this year. But it is far from the only one.
Unlike their younger colleagues, the nearly 1.2 million working pensioners in the UK are exempt from paying National Insurance. Some estimates suggest this exemption alone costs the Exchequer around £1.1 billion a year in foregone revenue. Following the most recent Budget, some pensioners may also now be exempt from paying income tax, a change that could cost up to £250 million a year by the end of the decade.
Over-60s in England also receive free NHS prescriptions. In 2021, the former government proposed aligning the age for prescription charge exemptions with the State Pension age of 66. Had it gone ahead, the change was expected to generate up to £300 million a year for the NHS. But the proposal was ultimately abandoned.
It is important to keep this broader context in mind when discussing the future of the Freedom Pass. It is just another benefit or exemption that the government provides to individuals once they reach a certain age, regardless of whether they actually need it.
So, what should happen to the Freedom Pass?
For many older Londoners, the Freedom Pass provides a genuinely valuable benefit, supporting mobility, independence, and social participation. That should not be dismissed lightly. But given the severe financial pressures facing both local and central government, it is reasonable to ask whether the scheme should be better targeted going forward.
One option would be to align London more closely with the rest of the country by limiting free travel to buses only. Another would be to introduce some form of means testing. Eligibility for the Freedom Pass in its current form could be tied to receipt of existing means-tested benefits. For example, the income threshold could be aligned with the updated eligibility criteria for the Winter Fuel Payment. This currently applies to pensioners with incomes below £35,000 a year.
Who really needs free travel?
Suppose we accept the principle that concessionary travel benefits should be based on need rather than age. The obvious next question is: who actually needs this kind of support?
The precise answer will inevitably depend on individual circumstances, including income, living costs, and reliance on public transport. But it is still possible to draw some high-level conclusions without getting lost in the detail.
First, pensioners, particularly those living in London, are doing relatively well by historical standards and compared with other age groups. Over the past few decades, rates of pensioner poverty have almost halved. Over the same period, homeownership rates among the over-65s have risen, at a time when they have fallen for all other age groups. As house prices have surged, especially in London, pensioner wealth has increased significantly. Our research found that by 2020 almost 3 million pensioners were living in millionaire households, many of them likely to be in London.
By contrast, younger people, and younger Londoners in particular, are often facing much tighter financial constraints. Years of weak real wage growth, combined with rapidly rising rents, have squeezed younger people’s disposable incomes. Rising transport costs place an additional burden on their already stretched budgets.
Taken together, these trends suggest that if concessionary travel is meant to support those who need it most, there may be a stronger case for extending discounts to younger people, particularly those under 30.
The 60+ London Oyster card should be means-tested or abolished
Much of the debate has focused on the future of the Freedom Pass. However, it is worth stressing that this is not the only concessionary travel scheme available to older Londoners. First introduced by Boris Johnson during his time as mayor, the 60+ London Oyster card provides the same travel benefits as the Freedom Pass to those aged between 60 and 65.
Unlike the Freedom Pass, however, the cost of the 60+ Oyster card is borne by Transport for London (TfL). In practice, this means TfL simply writes off the cost as lost fare revenue. Recent figures suggest that the scheme cost TfL around £125 million over the past year, a figure expected to rise to around £180 million by 2027.
This is an extraordinarily generous policy. Employment rates among people in their early 60s remain relatively high, at around 60 per cent. In effect, this means younger Londoners are subsidising the daily commutes and weekend travel of many older colleagues who are still in paid work, while being required to pay full fares themselves. It is difficult to see a compelling justification for providing such a benefit on a universal basis.
Moreover, some TfL fares are set to increase by 7.1% this year, well above inflation. This will place further downward pressure on younger Londoners living standards, while increasing the generosity of the subsidy for the over-60s.
At a minimum, eligibility for the 60+ Oyster card should be tied to receipt of means-tested benefits. An even stronger case can be made for scrapping the scheme altogether. Either way this concessionary travel benefit is in clear need of reform.