Making all bus travel free, as part of the battle to cut carbon emissions, was branded a ’simplistic’ idea by an MHK.

Ahead of the Tynwald debate last week on whether to declare a climate change emergency, Daphne Caine (Garff), asked the minister in charge of buses what plans there were to make bus travel free, to reduce car use.

Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer said his department was awaiting the outcome of a public consultation on government’s climate change mitigation strategy, which covered that idea.

But Tim Baker (Ayre and Michael) warned: ’A proposition such as making travel free needs some really serious evaluation.

’Basic economics tells you that demand would increase significantly, but that would drive significant capital requirements in terms of additional vehicles and significant additional operating costs.’

He added: ’A simplistic "make it all free" is not the only approach that the department could undertake.

’There are lots of other ways of improving bus utilisation, such as the route selection and design, and the timing of the service. If we simply give everything away free then this is not going to hang together economically and from a financial point of view.’

Mr Harmer told Mrs Caine the DoI was looking at a number of ’innovative’ ideas.

But he admitted: ’The elephant in the room on this is that transport services division has a bus revenue target in the current year of £4,028,857.

’Obviously, in the event of any free bus travel, this loss of income would need to be recovered either through alternative revenue streams within government or reduction in spending of budgets.

’At the moment, that currently is not feasible.’

In the full climate change debate, a vote on Mrs Caine’s motion for a climate change emergency to be declared was delayed - even though Chief Minister Howard Quayle had declared such an emergency earlier this month - after Environment Minister Geoffrey Boot tabled an amendment welcoming Mr Quayle’s statement and proposals for legislation.

The Legislative Council and House of Keys could not agree, so that amendment will be brought back for a combined vote at next month’s sitting.