Bus Services: Covid-19 Emergency Funding

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is quite right. It is extraordinary how many different streams of funding go into the whole bus network system. This can be to the operators directly, or to local authorities—some of which comes from the Department for Transport and some from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. I will respond to my noble friend with a letter which draws this all together. It is a substantial sum of money. Combined with some of the money we are putting into the infrastructure of major urban centres—for example, CRSTS—there is a lot of money going into buses, and we need to ensure that we make the best use of it.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that none of the emergency support or recovery grants for buses has been taken out of the £3 billion for buses and bus services by 2025 announced under the Bus Back Better strategy, and that all the emergency support and recovery grants are in addition to that £3 billion?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government have committed to spend £3 billion over the course of this Parliament, so I suggest to the noble Lord that, when we get to the end of this Parliament, we do a totting up.