Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what cost benefit analysis the Government has carried out on the potential financial risk for council taxpayers of powers being given to local authorities to reverse bus deregulation and replace it with bus franchising.

The Department for Transport published an impact assessment (IA), which analysed the potential costs and benefits of the Bus Services Bill proposals. The IA can be accessed from the gov.uk website - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bus-services-bill-impact-assessments.

The actual costs and benefits will depend on how franchising is implemented at the local level, and the Bill requires any authority wishing to pursue franchising to produce an assessment of its proposed scheme, which will include consideration of whether the authority would be able to afford the scheme and whether it would represent value for money.