Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding (a) in total and (b) per head of population has been allocated to transport infrastructure in each region in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Figures on public sector expenditure at a regional level are part of the Government’s Country and Regional Analysis (CRA) statistics.

The latest CRA statistics, published by HM Treasury on 20th November 2018, include total public expenditure on transport per capita on a regional basis from 2013-14 up to 2017-18, and are published at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/country-and-regional-analysis.

The statistics include spend on transport by all public sector organisations including the Department for Transport, Local Authorities, Public Corporations (in the case of transport, this is mainly spend by London Underground) and other Government Departments including devolved administrations.

When comparing expenditure across regions a number of factors should be considered. For example, when expenditure is presented on a “per head of population”(or “per capita”) basis, it does not account for the pressure that large numbers of commuters and visitors from outside of a region can add to the transport networks. In addition, larger built-up areas tend to make greater use of mass public transport systems, though these will generate fares income which contributes to their operating costs.

Statistics for public sector capital expenditure by region are given in Table 1 below. Table 2 provides the equivalent statistics per capita. Capital expenditure has been used as a proxy for spending on infrastructure specifically, but may include some capital investment beyond transport infrastructure projects.

Table 1: Capital spending on all transport, by all public sector bodies (£millions nominal)

Table 2: Capital spending, on all transport, by all public sector bodies, per capita (£s nominal)

¹Due to the reclassification of Network Rail into the public sector from 2015-16, care should be taken when making historical comparisons.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/country-and-regional-analysis-2017

Total capital expenditure is prone to large year-on-year fluctuations as major projects are completed and funding to new projects begins. Large transport projects tend to require large sums of capital expenditure during construction, but deliver benefits for many years into the future. Consideration of this must be given when making year-on-year comparisons.