England’s bus and tram services will receive extra support worth up to £256 million to help them ramp up services ahead of expected increases in public transport use in September, the government has announced today (8 August 2020).

Bus services across the country will receive up to £218.4 million of support over the next eight weeks, with rolling funding at up to £27.3 million per week afterwards, until a time when the funding is no longer needed.

From today, tram services also have access to up to £37.4 million over 12 weeks, at a rate of up to £3.1 million a week, with funding to be reviewed at the end of the period.

Currently, passenger numbers on bus and light rail services are significantly below normal levels despite the bus network now running at over 80% of normal service levels. The 5 light rail systems are also running at similar levels. The funding announced today will enable operators to mitigate the impact of the loss of revenue, while continuing to build back to normal service levels.

The latest round of funding – key to safely getting young people back in education settings and workers back to their offices – means total support during the pandemic for bus and tram services will reach at least £700 million.

This means that we have supported tram services as follows during the pandemic:

Our announced allocations for bus services which now total at least £600 million alongside a further £27.3 million per week means that our funding has helped to support over 13,000 local bus services across England, outside of London, as at the end of July.

Roads Minister Baroness Vere said:

As we continue to open up the economy more people are using public transport and need sufficient service levels in order to travel safely.

That’s why we took swift action at the start of this outbreak to ensure that these services were maintained for key workers then and would still be there for people when the economy opened back up. This extension of funding pushes our overall support past £700 million and means people across the country will have access to the transport services they need.

CPT Chief Exec Graham Vidler said:

Continued social distancing measures mean capacity on buses remains reduced and income from passenger fares is still significantly lower than normal. This latest funding will help us keep running a comprehensive bus network that millions of people rely on.

Bus operators remain committed to working with government, passengers, businesses and local authorities to provide a safe, flexible and sustainable bus network for local communities.

Further to today’s funding, the government is also actively working on ways to ensure the bus sector can operate independently and be commercially viable.

The government is committed to a sustainable future for bus services across the country recognising the services are vital to millions of people’s everyday lives. To ensure future bus services work for everyone the government will publish a National Bus Strategy to set out how it plans to support this vital sector going forward.

All bus operators in England outside London that previously claimed the Bus Service Operators Grant, as well as operators who run services tendered by Local Authorities, are eligible to claim the new funding and future provisional funding. Five tram services in the North and Midlands – West Midlands Metro, Sheffield Supertram, Manchester Metrolink, Tyne and Wear Metro and Nottingham Trams – will be supported by the light rail funding, with the money going directly to operators, as with the previous rounds.

A British team of specialist medics will fly out to Lebanon today (7 August) to assess health needs on the ground and identify what more the UK can do to help following the devastating explosion on Tuesday.

The five medics from the UK’s Emergency Medical Team (UK EMT) will leave from London Heathrow and travel to Lebanon, at the request of the Lebanese Government, to determine the urgent needs in the Beirut health system and look at how the UK can support.

The team specialises in trauma, emergency nursing and rehabilitation and is funded by UK aid. Another medic from the UK EMT is already in Beirut.

Earlier this week the UK also sent a team of four humanitarian experts to Beirut, comprised of two logisticians, a security advisor and a field support specialist

This comes as the UK announces £3 million has been allocated to the British Red Cross for the emergency relief effort following Tuesday’s devastating explosion, which has left over 200,000 people homeless.

International Development Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said:

“The Lebanese people continue to be in our thoughts at this terrible time. The UK is sending these world-leading medics to use their expertise and to make sure the people of Lebanon get the help they need as quickly as possible.

“Today’s field team comes on top of the UK’s substantial military support and aid package. We will do everything we can to help the people of Lebanon in their hour of need.”

The charity UK MED coordinates the deployment of medics from the UK’s Emergency Medical Team.

CEO of UK MED David Wightwick, said:

“I’ve worked in and have friends in Beirut, so like everyone was shocked to see the devastation following the explosion in the city and so many people harmed.

“UK-Med and partners Humanity & Inclusion are supporting the UK Emergency Medical Team to make an assessment of how we might contribute to the health response, working alongside partners on the ground to support overstretched health facilities and provide specialist clinicians.”

Once in Beirut, the medical experts will visit hospitals and clinics, both functioning and damaged, to gain an understanding of the severity of the challenges and any further specialists that may be needed. They will also meet with the World Health Organisation, United Nations and NGOs to help coordinate the response.

The team, made up of volunteers from UK Med and Humanity and Inclusion, includes an orthopaedic surgeon and trauma consultant, senior health advisors, a paramedic and a rehabilitation specialist. They will join another team member who was already in Beirut at the time of the blast.

In addition to supporting the Lebanese Red Cross, UK aid is also supporting MapAction to provide specialist mapping services to help humanitarian experts understand the need on the ground at the port.

The damage caused by the blast is widespread and likely to have long-lasting consequences. Lebanon was already experiencing a major economic crisis and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, as well as hosting over 1.5 million refugees from the war in neighbouring Syria.

The UK already works closely with Lebanon and this partnership is focused on managing the humanitarian, stability and security implications of the war in Syria.

• The £3 million for the British Red Cross is an allocation from the £5 million that the Foreign Secretary announced earlier this week. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-send-emergency-relief-to-lebanon
• The Ministry of Defence announced yesterday that Royal Navy survey ship HMS Enterprise will sail to Lebanon to assess the damage of Beirut’s port and help return it to normal operations.