Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to support the provision of rural bus services in West Yorkshire.

Decisions about the provision of bus services requiring local government subsidy are a matter for individual English local authorities, in the light of their other spending priorities.

The majority of public funding for local bus services is via block grant provided to local authorities in England from the Department for Communities and Local Government. However, my Department also provides around £40m of Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) funding directly to English local authorities to help deliver bus services, of which over £2 million goes to West Yorkshire.