Andy Burnham has announced that single bus fares across England will be capped at £2 from January, one of his first major policy moves in his opening week as prime minister as he seeks to address the cost of living. The change reverses a rise to £3 introduced by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in 2024, restoring the lower cap that had applied between January 2023 and December 2024 before it was scrapped on affordability grounds; some areas, including London and Greater Manchester, already have lower fares.

The scheme, which excludes London, will run throughout 2027 and is expected to cost more than £500m, with funding also set aside to let devolved governments introduce similar caps. About £400m will come from converting international climate finance spending into loans, with the remainder drawn from Department for Energy Security and Net Zero savings and roughly £50m of existing Department for Transport bus funding. The move has drawn criticism from the NGO network Bond, whose chief executive Romilly Greenhill accused Burnham of raiding the aid budget and pitting UK communities against those in climate-vulnerable countries, while transport secretary Heidi Alexander insisted the scheme was fully funded through reprioritised spending.