6 days Ago By HuffPost UK
"If we hadn't taken the action, the fare cap would have been lifted entirely" Transport Secretary Louise Haigh defends raising the £2 bus fare cap to £3, and says the £2 cap ending on 31 December "was the funding settlement I inherited" — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) put the transport secretary on the spot this morning over decision to increase the bus fare cap to £3 by reading out the real-life impact of the move. The government decided in last month’s that, to help fill the “black hole” the supposedly left in the public finances, they would increase the cap from £2. The department for transport has now £1bn of funding will go on delivering London-style buses nationwide, with an extra £151m going on funding the £3 cap outside of the capital until 2025.
But, as the presenter told Louise Haigh, this still means some people will be worse off. On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC host began by asking: “Do you admit just it’s logical that will make it more expensive for people to get around?” “The £2 fare cap was due to finish on 31 December, that was the funding settlement I inherited,” Haigh replied. She said that Labour then “stepped in” to protect the cap at £3, adding: “That means for rural routes in particular where bus fares could have leapt back up to £13 or £14 in some instances, we are keeping it much lower at £3.
” Haigh also said the government has made sure some operators cannot raise fares more than in line with inflation, so that they would not expect all fares to raise to £3, that is just a maximum amount. But Kuenssberg pushed: “Protecting the cap, as you put it, means increasing fares for lots of people.” She then read out of an example from a viewer’s relative, who may now have to pay an extra £15 per week just to get to work as she has to get three buses in her commute.
“Where’s she meant to get the money from?” Kuenssberg asked. Haigh said it would be more economical to buy a weekly card, but the presenter cut in: “OK, this is a real-life example. “One of our viewers says in their family they’re going to have to find an extra £15 a week, and that’s money they don’t have.
What are they meant to do?” Haigh just said the government stepped in with £150m to protect the fare at £3, and said the fare should not go up to that full amount in urban areas. The exchange comes a few weeks after health secretary Wes Streeting the bus cap would have risen to £10 if Labour had not acted. Related.
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