Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve public transport in Leicester.

Leicester is one of 12 city regions with the opportunity to bid for a share of £1.22 billion from the Transforming Cities Fund. The Fund is designed to improve public and sustainable transport links.

The bus market outside London is deregulated and decisions regarding service provision is primarily a commercial matter for bus operators. Decisions on subsidised bus services are a matter for individual English local authorities, in the light of their other spending priorities.

The Bus Services Act 2017 introduced new powers for local authorities and operators to work together to grow bus passenger numbers.

The £220 million Better Deal for Bus Users package provides new funding to transform bus services and includes a National Bus Strategy, which together will detail measures to improve bus services. This includes an extra £30 million for local authorities in 2020/21. If Leicester City Council complete statements of intent demonstrating how they will meet the funding requirements, it will be provided with the additional allocation of £83,550. This is on top of the £100,287 received in 2018/19 from the annual Bus Service Operators Grant.

There is £5billion of new funding to overhaul bus and cycle links outside London. This investment will boost bus services by including: higher frequency services, new priority schemes will make routes more efficient, more affordable simpler fares and at least 4,000 new Zero Emission Buses.

For rail, the new operator of East Midlands Railway, Abellio, is bringing a package of more than £600 million investment in improvements to rail services across their area. This will include an investment of £20 million on stations, including a larger scheme at Leicester, and replacement of the entire train fleet with more than 340 carriages.