£2 fare cap: uncertainty continues
Uncertainty over the fate of the £2 fare cap after the 31 December 2024 cut-off point continues.
The most recent development is press reports claiming Rachel Reeves is considering cutting or scrapping the fare cap in the Budget.
The news follows a parliamentary questions session last week where questions over the £2 fare cap were repeatedly asked. During the session, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh appeared to sidestep a question over the fare cap. Helen Whately, Conservative MP for Faversham and Mid Kent, asked: “Does the Secretary of State agree that the £2 fare cap has been a good thing and, crucially, is she going to keep it?”
Louise Haigh replied: “The hon. Lady is absolutely right to suggest that the underfunding of bus services over a decade has led to the cancellation and scrapping of thousands of bus routes across the country, and passenger numbers have fallen over the last 40 years. We are committed to consolidating funding and ending the ‘Hunger Games’ style process that the previous Government oversaw, which pitted authorities against each other and created winners and losers.”
Later that day, Lisa Smart, Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove, asked for clarity about bus funding for Greater Manchester, ‘so that it is not the ten constituent local authorities who are burdened with paying the price for keeping the £2 bus fare cap?’
Simon Lightwood, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, replied: “The question of funding for the future will of course be part of the spending review.”
Richard Holden, Conservative MP for Basildon and Billericay and a former transport minister with responsibility for buses, asked whether the government will commit to extending the £2 fare cap until at least the end of this financial year.
Simon Lightwood replied: “We are considering the benefits that have accrued as a result of the £2 bus fare and what steps we will take next. Of course, that will all form part of the spending review.”