Public subsidy to buses is to be reviewed to deliver carbon emission savings, chancellor Alistair Darling has announced. The Department for Transport will shortly publish a consultation on overhauling the way that public money – which has risen to £2.5bn this year – is distributed, to encourage investment in new technology. There has been concern that the bus operator subsidy grant paid to bus operators encourages trips, and carbon emissions, without necessarily meeting passengers’ needs. The Government first announced its intention to review bus subsidies six years ago. The Commission for Integrated Transport had urged an incentive payment per passenger. Rosie Winteron, minister for local transport, told a conference of transport operators in Sheffield that the UK’s transport system could make ‘a major contribution to cutting CO2 emissions’. But the Campaign to Protect England spokesman, Ben Stafford, claimed it was ‘wildly optimistic’ to rely on technology to deliver significant cuts in emissions. But the Budget 2008 document sounded a note of caution over biofuels, stressing that the potential greenhouse gas emission savings were reduced when processing and transport and land change were taken into account. Professor Julia King, in a review for the Treasury, said biofuels ‘can occupy a segment of the fuel market’ but ‘robust environmental safeguards’ were needed. In the long-term, ‘almost complete de-carbonisation’ of road transport was possible. The DfT will order a review into ‘the wider economic and environmental impacts’ of using biofuel, as a £40M research programme into low-carbon vehicles was launched by the chancellor.