Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Local Government Association’s analysis showing that local buses are travelling almost 150 million fewer miles than they were 10 years ago; and whether following that analysis they will use the 2020 Budget to fully fund the England national concessionary travel scheme.

Local bus journeys remain central to transport choices, accounting for around half of all public transport journeys. In 2018/19, 1.18 billion bus service miles were run in England, a decrease of 1.3% when compared with 2017/18.

Funding for the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme is within the funding made available to local government at the Local Government Finance Settlement. This funding is not ringfenced, which enables local authorities to make spending decisions that more closely match local needs and circumstances.

The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government is currently working on a Review of the Relative Needs and Resources for local government. This Review is being developed in close collaboration with local government representatives and others. It will consider the drivers of local authorities’ costs, the resources available locally to fund services, and how to account for these in a way that draws a more transparent and understandable link between local circumstances and resource allocations. The Government’s current aim is to implement the outcome of this review as part of the 2021-22 Local Government finance settlement.

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 provides the tools local authorities in England need such as Enhanced Partnerships and Franchising to improve local bus services. From 2020, a number of measures such as Bus Open Data powers, and the commitments in the Better Deal for Bus Users, will help increase passenger numbers.

This Government has committed to implementing the UK’s first-ever long-term bus strategy, accompanied by a long-term funding settlement. The strategy will focus on the needs of passengers so that more people want to use the bus and set out how national and local government and the private sector will come together to achieve this.