Andy Burnham Brings £2 Bus Fares to All of England
Good news if you rely on the bus to get around: single bus fares are being capped at £2 across England from January 2027. The announcement came from Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who wasted no time making his mark, revealing the policy on just his second full day in office.
The move is backed by £400 million in government funding and will cut the current £3 fare cap by a third, putting more money back in the pockets of millions of everyday passengers. To give local authorities the breathing room they need to plan ahead, the cap will also be extended through to the end of 2027, rather than expiring mid-year.
"For too long people have said that cheaper transport isn't an option. I don't accept that. I've done it before and I will do it again now -- a £2 cap on bus fares for millions across the country." Prime Minister Andy Burnham
This is not a new idea for Burnham. He first introduced the £2 single fare on Greater Manchester's Bee Network back in September 2022 when he was Mayor, and it quickly proved popular with commuters and occasional travellers alike. Rolling it out nationally is a clear signal that he intends to use that regional success as a blueprint for the whole country.
The bus fare cap also sits alongside a broader package of travel savings. Earlier this year, the government announced the first rail fare freeze in 30 years, saving passengers an estimated £600 million, with some commuters saving more than £300 annually on certain routes. Add in a £100 million scheme offering free bus travel for children aged 5 to 15 over summer, and it is clear that affordable transport is shaping up to be a defining priority of the Burnham government.
For regular bus users, the message is simple: fares are going down, and they are staying down.
From Manchester to the Nation: How This Policy Was Born
Every big national idea has to start somewhere, and in this case, it started in Manchester. Back in September 2022, Andy Burnham, then Mayor of Greater Manchester, introduced a £2 single bus fare cap on the city region's Bee Network. At a time when the cost of living was squeezing household budgets across the country, it was a bold, practical move that put money back in people's pockets every time they stepped onto a bus.
The results spoke for themselves. The policy proved enormously popular, with an estimated 30 million extra bus journeys taken during the cap period. That is not just a statistic; that is millions of real trips to work, to school, to the shops, and to see family that people might otherwise have skipped or swapped for a more expensive alternative.
Fast forward to July 2026, and Burnham, now Prime Minister, wasted no time scaling up what he had tested in Greater Manchester. On just his second full day in office, he announced that the £2 cap would be extended across England from January 2027, backed by £400 million in extra funding. Until that point, the national fare cap had sat at £3, with no guarantee of what would happen after March 2027.
"For too long people have said that cheaper transport isn't an option. I don't accept that. I've done it before and I will do it again now." Prime Minister Andy Burnham
In policy terms, this is a relatively rare thing: a local experiment that genuinely worked, scaled up into national action by the same person who first championed it. Whether you live in Manchester, Birmingham, or Bristol, the blueprint for your cheaper bus fare was quietly road-tested on the Bee Network years before it reached you.
What About London and Scotland? A Tale of Two Different Systems
If you live in London or Scotland, you might be wondering whether the £2 bus fare cap applies to you. The short answer is: not automatically, and here is why that matters.
London operates under a completely separate transport structure. Transport for London (TfL) runs the capital's bus network as an integrated system with its own fares policy, set independently from national government decisions. London buses already use a flat fare structure, so the England-wide cap announced by Prime Minister Andy Burnham does not simply fold into the TfL system. Londoners are, in effect, governed by a different rulebook when it comes to bus pricing.
Scotland presents a different situation again. Transport is a devolved matter, meaning the Scottish Government holds its own powers over bus fare policy rather than Westminster making those decisions for Scotland. Scotland has historically pursued its own approach to affordable travel, including free bus travel for under-22s, so any equivalent to the £2 cap would need to come from Holyrood, not Downing Street.
This is why the announcement made on 22 July 2026 specifically refers to England rather than the whole of the UK. The £400 million in funding backing the cap is directed at English services, and the policy is designed to work with local authorities and Mayors across England.
"Good, affordable transport links are an essential. Lower fares will help people get to where they need to, giving them breathing space to help with the cost of living." Prime Minister Andy Burnham
So if you are travelling in London or Scotland, it is worth checking directly with TfL or your local Scottish transport authority for the fares that apply to your process.
What £2 Fares Mean for Everyday Passengers
If you rely on the bus to get to work, the shops, or the school run, this announcement is genuinely good news. Single bus fares will be capped at £2 across England from January 2027, backed by £400 million in government funding. That is a reduction of a third from the current £3 cap, which was always meant to be temporary. Now it is being made permanent through the end of 2027, giving passengers, local authorities, and bus operators the certainty they need to plan ahead.
For regular commuters, the savings can be substantial. The rail fare freeze announced earlier this year is already putting an estimated £300 or more back into the pockets of passengers on some routes, and the bus cap works alongside that to create a broader package of relief. When you are watching every penny, shaving a pound off every bus process adds up quickly over a week, a month, or a year.
"Lower fares will help people get to where they need to, giving them breathing space to help with the cost of living." Prime Minister Andy Burnham
The policy also sits neatly within a wider set of transport measures. The Government has already committed £100 million to free bus travel for children aged five to fifteen in England on participating services, introduced as part of the Great British Summer Savings scheme. Together, the rail freeze, the child bus travel scheme, and the £2 fare cap form a joined-up approach to making getting around cheaper for families.
Beyond the fares themselves, the Government is consulting on giving Mayors greater planning powers over local public transport decisions. The idea is that local leaders, who understand their communities best, should have the final say on how services are shaped. Andy Burnham pioneered this model in Greater Manchester with the Bee Network, and the intention is to give other city regions the same tools to deliver for their residents.