Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans his Department have to grant additional powers to urban transport authorities to respond effectively to the (a) covid-19 outbreak and (b) recovery period after that outbreak.
We continue to consider the role additional powers could play in helping transport authorities to deliver their transport restart and recovery plans and to implement local lockdowns should these be required in the future.
Due to be published later this year, the White Paper on devolution will aim to connect local recovery into levelling up, to provide a transformative place-based strategy to boost regional economic performance as part of the UK-wide economic recovery and renewal response to Covid-19. The role of transport authorities in supporting this aim will be considered in parallel.