To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport how much funding his Department allocated for the development of transportation with (a) low and (b) no carbon dioxide emissions in (i) Essex and (ii) Castle Point in each of the last five years. (281634)

The Department for Transport allocates integrated transport block funding to local transport authorities for capital investment in transport. Funding provided by the Department to local authorities is not generally ring-fenced and local authorities have discretion to spend their allocations in line with their priorities, such as the development of low-carbon transportation. The following table shows funding support the Department provided for Essex from 2004-05 to 2008-09.

Revenue expenditure on transport is generally supported through the Department for Communities and Local Government's Formula Grant.

The Department has funded sustainable travel projects such as the 'Walking to School Initiative Grant scheme'—in 2008-09 Essex schools received £20,500. It has provided Essex county council with £10,000 for cycle training grants in 2008-09. The Department has also made the following funding available to Essex county council in the last five years for Rural Bus Subsidy and cycling ‘Links to School’:

Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) has been reformed to link better with Government objectives, particularly on climate change. The previous link between BSOG and fuel duty has now been broken and only those bus operators who achieve a 6 per cent. improvement in their fuel efficiency compared with the previous one or two years will receive an increase of 3 per cent. in their BSOG from April 2010. In addition, operators will receive an additional 6p per kilometre on routes operated by low carbon emission buses from 1 April 2009.

Detailed policies and proposals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions will be published in the Department’s Carbon Reduction Strategy this summer.