Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of funding for Transport for the North.

In the next financial year, TfN will have access to over £70m of funding, the majority of which will enable further development of Northern Powerhouse Rail. To date, over £100m has been spent on Northern Powerhouse Rail development. TfN’s most recent core funding settlement is an appropriate settlement that enables the organisation to continue to deliver its statutory functions of developing a transport strategy for the region. The Rail North Partnership Grant that TfN receives from the Department will also continue unchanged in the next financial year. TfN was allocated up to £150m at the 2015 Spending Review to support its Integrated and Smart Travel programme, with this multi-year funding allocation expiring at the end of the current financial year. TfN utilised around £24m in the past five years to enable the roll-out of smart ticketing across the North and we are now considering how best to deliver more effectively the rollout of smart ticketing to improve passenger services across the region.