Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the zero-emission bus regional areas scheme in decarbonising the bus fleet.

The Zero Emission Bus Regional Area scheme (ZEBRA) is supporting local authorities to drive decarbonisation of their bus fleets. So far, the Government has awarded £270 million to 17 local transport authorities which will support up to 1,278 zero emission buses (ZEBs). These will remove polluting diesel buses from the road.

To inform the assessment of ZEBRA bids, my department required local authorities to complete a tool that calculates the costs and benefits of each bid, including the amount of carbon savings. This information helped target funding to ensure the decarbonisation of the bus fleet in an effective way. Furthermore, we have designed a monitoring and evaluation project for the scheme. This will provide data on the effectiveness of the scheme and the extent to which it delivers its aims and objectives. It will also improve the evidence base on the performance of ZEBs, to support full decarbonisation of the bus fleet.