{"id":704838,"date":"2026-07-22T07:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T07:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/704838\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T07:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T07:33:08","slug":"burnham-announces-bus-fares-across-england-to-be-capped-at-2-transport-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/704838\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnham announces bus fares across England to be capped at \u00a32 | Transport policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Single bus fares across England will be capped at \u00a32 from January Andy Burnham<\/a> has announced as he continues a cost of living blitz in his first week as prime minister.<\/p>\n

The nationwide cap is currently set at \u00a33 until the end of March 2027 although some areas \u2013 including London and Greater Manchester, where Burnham set a \u00a32 limit as mayor \u2013 have lower top rates for single tickets.<\/p>\n

The \u00a32 cap reverses an increase put in place by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in 2024, and will be in place throughout 2027. The same cap was in place between January 2023 and December 2024 but the former prime minister and chancellor argued it was not affordable. Some metro mayors, including Burnham, decided to fund an extension of the lower limit in their areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood, affordable transport links are an essential. No one should be priced out of those and left behind,\u201d Burnham said on Wednesday. \u201cBut for too long people have said that cheaper transport isn\u2019t an option. I don\u2019t accept that. I\u2019ve done it before and I will do it again now: a \u00a32 cap on bus fares for millions across the country. Lower fares will help people get to where they need to \u2013 giving them breathing space to help with the cost of living.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bus fare cap scheme, which will apply across all of England<\/a> except London, is expected to cost more than \u00a3500m, with money allocated to allow devolved governments to take similar action.<\/p>\n

Around \u00a3400m of that will come from switching investment in international climate finance to loans, with the rest from savings in the budget of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and around \u00a350m from Department for Transport<\/a> funding already set aside for buses.<\/p>\n

The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the move was designed to make \u201ceveryday journeys\u201d easier and cheaper. \u201cWe\u2019re cutting fares by a third to help with the cost of living, open up opportunities and keep people connected to work, school, healthcare and their friends and family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Burnham announced on Tuesday that the government would remove VAT from electricity bills, reducing them by an average of \u00a345 a year from October as part of immediate measures to help ease cost of living pressures.<\/p>\n

The Trades Union Congress general secretary, Paul Nowak, welcomed the measures but called for Burnham to tax profits made by banks and introduce a \u201csocial tariff\u201d to boost living standards. \u201cAlong with the tax cut to energy bills, capping bus fares is a good start and means working people can get around for cheaper. That\u2019s good for households, businesses and local economies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On his third day in the job, Burnham was given a boost as figures showed the rate of consumer prices index inflation fell to 2.6% in June, from 2.8% in May, the Office for National Statistics said.<\/p>\n

The chancellor, John Healey, said millions of people would benefit from bus fares being slashed by a third and insisted the measure could be paid for. \u201cThis action to ease the cost of living<\/a> is funded by savings made elsewhere, so there\u2019s no burden to British taxpayers, just pounds going back into their pockets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, accused Burnham of wanting \u201cto go back to the 1970s\u201d and said the newly appointed chancellor, John Healey, \u201chas got a huge job ahead of him\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fear that he is somewhat captive to a prime minister who seems to want to go back to the 1970s and huge spending and state intervention, higher taxes, higher borrowing, and all of that, which is what we\u2019ve seen from Labour to date, but even more of it,\u201d he told BBC Breakfast. \u201cAlso constrained by his backbenchers, who do not have any appetite, particularly for welfare reform, which I think is key to the success of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Single bus fares across England will be capped at \u00a32 from January Andy Burnham has announced as he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-704838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}