Elsie Blundell

Concessionary travel is a devolved policy area so the administrative arrangements in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland differ from those in England. There are no plans at present to introduce such an arrangement.

The Government has committed to investing £5.7bn in the transport networks of eight city regions in England until 2027 through the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS). This includes £1.07bn for Greater Manchester. CRSTS supports investments in public and sustainable transport across a range of modes including rail, bus, tram, and walking and cycling. The Greater Manchester CRSTS programme includes the development of a tram-train link to Heywood.

The Government is providing at least £600 million of new grant funding for social care, as part of the broader estimated real-terms uplift to core local government spending power of approximately 3.2%. Local authorities are responsible for how they use the available funding to fulfil their duties under the Care Act (2014).

This Government has set out an unprecedented ambition to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade, and we are determined to use every lever available to us to deliver on that aim.

That means working across Government departments to tackle threats to women’s safety in all areas of their lives, including in public spaces.

This year, the Home Office is providing £15 million to support communities through a variety of preventative interventions such as improved CCTV and streetlighting, public guardianship schemes, and behavioural change initiatives including educational programmes to help change attitudes towards women and girls.

In addition to reporting via 999 and the 101 non-emergency number, anyone who has experienced abuse which is not an emergency can report it through the Single Online Home (SOH) reporting tool (www.police.uk/pu/contact-us/). As of November 2024, 40 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales plus British Transport Police have been onboarded onto the Single Online platform and one further force is currently onboarding.

This Government will treat tackling violence against women and girls as a national emergency and will use every tool to target perpetrators and address the root causes of violence on our streets.

We want women to feel safe and will use every lever to halve violence against women and girls in the next decade, across the whole of government, with policing and other experts.

To make our streets safe, we must drastically reduce serious violent crime and violence against women and girls, increase confidence in the police, stop young people falling into crime, and make our criminal justice system work for victims.

No one should ever have to face the risk of violence or harassment when travelling. This government is taking action to make sure our transport network is safe for all. The Department for Transport is working closely with transport partners, including the British Transport Police, on a range of initiatives to address the problems faced by different users, including women and girls, on the transport network.