Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the oral contribution by the Secretary of State for Transport of 19 October 2017, Official Report, column 975, what evidence there is that per-head transport investment in London is not 10 times greater than in Yorkshire and the Humber; and if he will publish per-head transport investment for each NUTS 1 region of England.

Historic per-head transport investment for each NUTS 1 region of England is already published in Her Majesty Treasury’s Country and Regional Analysis data.

Analysis using the most recent Country and Regional Analysis (November 2016) shows that in 2015-16 transport investment per head by the Department for Transport in London was less than double that in Yorkshire and the Humber, at £285 in London and £168 in Yorkshire and the Humber.

A number of factors make precise analysis and comparisons difficult. It is not always possible to allocate spending accurately on a project that crosses many regions, such as HS2. Projects of national significance such as Crossrail, which is the largest infrastructure project in Europe, can alone distort these figures significantly. An analysis of regional spend per head of resident population would not necessarily take into account the pressure that large numbers of commuters and visitors from outside of a region can add to a region’s transport networks.

In addition, larger and more densely built-up areas tend to make greater use of mass public transport systems. For example, in 2015/16 there were 537 million rail journeys within the London area compared to 142 million in the North. Investment by the Department is made based on a fair and rigorous process designed to ensure that spending goes where it is most needed.