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Public Transport

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the mention of Worthing. In fact, the figure for the Worthing and Adur authorities combined, which are in partnership, is something like £624,000 for the current year. When I brought the deputy leader of Worthing council, Ann Barlow, and the leader of Adur council, Neil Parkin, to see the Minister, they said that they would rather the scheme were not funded through them. Why do local authorities need to control this scheme? They are losing money that will be made up by council tax payers, or by the cutting of local services. Why can the Government not fund what is supposedly a fully funded scheme and operate it themselves, rather than operate it through local authorities, which have to pick up the bill for what is, in our case, not a fully funded scheme?