One year after the publication of the Government’s national bus strategy, Bus Back Better, the Transport Committee is launching an inquiry to investigate the progress of delivery and implementation of the policy.
Improving local public transport outside London is a goal of the Government’s Levelling Up white paper. In his foreword to the strategy, the Prime Minister wrote: “better buses will be one of our major acts of levelling up.”
Government funding, pace and priority of delivery will be central to the Committee’s inquiry. The challenges facing the bus sector as society emerges from the pandemic will also be considered as MPs examine how the Government is supporting the bus sector to recover.
Recommendations from the Transport Committee’s 2019 inquiry into the health of the bus market were central to the Government’s National Bus Strategy when it was launched in March 2021, and the Committee intends to examine the progress that has been achieved so far.
The Transport Select Committee is therefore calling for written evidence that addresses:
The challenges facing the sector as it recovers from the pandemic and the effectiveness of steps taken by both Government and stakeholders in response;
- Progress against the ambitions and targets set out in the national bus strategy including the effectiveness, pace and priority of the strategy’s implementation;
- Innovation in the sector, including examples of new methods that have been trialled successfully;
- Bus funding over the short and long term, and;
- Decarbonisation of the sector and modal shift from other forms of transport.
The closing date for written evidence is Friday 1 April 2022.
