§ 45. Mr. Freudasked the Secretary of State for Transport what proportion of the current amount of subsidy to bus operators now represented by cross-subsidy will be paid for by his Department following deregulation of the bus service.
§ Mr. David MitchellI am sure that operators will themselves continue to provide a great deal of cross-subsidy for commercial purposes. Where non-commercial cross-subsidy is withdrawn, I expect that loss to be offset by reductions in the industry's costs, brought about both by the presence of competition on commercial routes and by the process of tendering for contracts to run subsidised services. We have announced extra transitional support for rural bus services, starting at £20 million in the first year, to help stimulate new services and to provide support in case the benefits of competition in rural areas take time to work through.