Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether the total departmental underspend allocated to funding the reduction in bus fares had been identified before the announcement of that policy on 22 July 2026.

At the point of announcement, DESNZ were clear that the vast majority (£400m) of the cost of the Bus Fares announcement could be met by switching funding that had been set aside for international climate finance projects into loans. We were clear that the rest would need to be absorbed through wider DESNZ reprioritisation, an approach to which was agreed ahead of the Budget.