Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to help ensure that the extra funding announced in the Budget for expenditure on potholes is spent on road maintenance.

The additional highways maintenance funding announced in the 2023 Budget will be paid to local highways authorities in line with the Government’s broader approach to local government section 31 grant funding, which means that the funding will not be ring-fenced. However, the Department is allocating this funding to local highways authorities with the strong expectation that they spend it on maintaining and improving their respective networks based upon their local knowledge, circumstances, and priorities.