Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost to the public purse has been of subsidising bus travel in (a) Cornwall and (b) North Cornwall in each year since 2015.

The Bus Services Operators Grant (BSOG) is a demand-led grant regime in England under which payments are made to bus companies to help meet some of their fuel costs in running local bus services. BSOG spend figures are published annually on Gov.uk and can be found via this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bus-services-grants-and-funding#bsog-spend

BSOG spend figures are broken down to upper tier local authority level only, and not further to North Cornwall, specifically.

It should be noted that the local authorities listed in the table are derived from the address given on the BSOG claim form. This means that the figures do not reflect the geographical location of bus services, and may not capture all relevant services in Cornwall.

As a result of claims received in the Department that are clearly identified as being located from operators in Cornwall, a total of £1,031,489.59 was paid in 2014-15, £76,363.15 in 2015-2016, and £75,977.93 in 2016-17. Note that the reason for the big drop in BSOG paid after 2014/15 is due to a bus company with an address in Cornwall ceasing trading. Whilst their services were absorbed by other operators, the addresses on the claim forms for these other operators were outside Cornwall therefore spend has been attributed to other upper tier local authorities.