Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Financial Times article Bus operators say £5bn funding gap threatens England’s transport plan, published on 25 November, how much additional funding they plan to allocate to the National Bus Strategy, and over what timescale, to address any shortfall.

During this parliament the Government will invest £1.2 billion of new funding to deliver improvements in bus services, fares and infrastructure in England outside London, and £525 million to deliver zero-emission buses (of which £355 million is new funding announced at the Spending Review). This is part of over £3 billion of new spend on buses over this Parliament, which represents a doubling of dedicated bus funding over this spending review period compared to Spending Review 2015.

The Government provides an annual £43 million directly to Local Authorities through the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) so that they can subsidise socially necessary bus services. In addition, over £200 million of BSOG is provided directly to commercial bus operators to support bus services.