Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many audits there have been on payments made to bus operators through the Coronavirus Bus Services Support Grant to date.

The COVID-19 Bus Services Support Grant of £167m initially, and a further £254m, for restarting services will help protect and increase services, allowing people?travelling to hospitals, supermarkets or their place of work to get to their destination safely and quickly, while helping ensure there is enough space for them to observe social distancing guidelines. The level of support offered to bus operators is based on the actual mileage of services provided to ensure that payments are only being made for buses that actually ran. Due diligence checks are made on every operator applying for the scheme, and there will be a reconciliation process after every 12 weeks of funding to ensure that no operator is made better or worse off by providing these services with government support.