Bus Improvement Plans

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, we committed to £3 billion of new spend over the course of this Parliament, and that is what we will deliver. In addition, the noble Lord will recall that my noble friend Lord McLoughlin asked a question about other parts of funding within the system. There will be a letter in the Library, which I will also share with noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate, setting out exactly all the different funding streams available for buses. They are significant. Some are very long standing, some came from Covid and others will be part of the funding from BSIPs and CRSTSs, et cetera.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, noble Lords have asked about how the Government are to allocate resources to the different regions. Given that this seems to be done in some mysterious way that bears no resemblance to need or the levelling-up agenda, can the Minister say exactly how allocations will be made under this funding?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Yes, I can. There will be probably three different tranches of funding. Some areas—those that produced the best BSIPs, matching all the stated outcomes set out in the national bus strategy—will get transformation funding. A second tranche of local authorities will go into the improvement category, whereby they are on their way to preparing the sort of BSIPs that take into account all the outcomes from the NBS. Other areas will probably need more support, in terms of capability and capacity, so that they can fully understand how buses can meet the needs of their communities. We understand that no place must be left behind. We hope to provide support to areas where the BSIPs are not fully developed but where there is huge potential to do so.