Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the effect on fares for (a) rail and (b) bus passengers of changes in the price of a barrel of oil since August 2014.

I am aware that my Rt Hon Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury recently wrote to the five largest UK bus operators seeking their assurance that they are doing all they can to ensure passengers benefit from the fall in oil prices.

The bus market outside London is deregulated, with the vast majority of services provided on a commercial basis by private sector bus operators. Decisions on the level of fares are a commercial matter for individual bus operators.

As fuel costs are such a small proportion of the cost of providing rail services we would not expect to see a strong relationship between the two. Rail fares are set based on inflation, of which fuel prices are a component.