Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of bus routes that have been (a) added and (b) removed since 2010.

My Department does not hold this data, as decisions about the provision of bus services, including the frequency, the level of fares or agreed local concessions are mainly a matter for the operator concerned.

Where there is not enough demand for a bus route to be commercially viable in its own right, all local authorities have powers to subsidise bus services, Provision of subsidised services is a matter for individual English local authorities, in the light of their other spending priorities.

We are very aware however of the importance of bus services to local communities, and in recognition of this we were able to protect Bus Service Operators Grant funding as part of the 2015 Spending Review. We have also protected the national concessionary travel in England for the whole of this Parliament.