The bus fare cap would have risen to £10 if Labour had not taken action, according to health secretary Wes Streeting.
Keir Starmer announced on Monday that the government will be bumping the £2 cap on bus tickets up to £3 at the end of this year, meaning prices in major cities are likely to rise.
The prime minister was quick to blame the change on his predecessors, saying: “The Tories only funded [the £2 fare cap] until the end of 2024, and therefore that is the end of the funding in relation to the £2 bus fare.”
He said the new £3 cap would be in place until the end of 2025 in the new Budget.
Critics have been quick to slam this policy for adding approximately £10 to a worker’s weekly commute.
Sky News presenter Kay Burley also described the new cap as a “tax on working people” on Tuesday, and reminded Labour how it vowed not to increase taxes on “working people” in their manifesto.
But senior minister Streeting defended the government, saying: “Had we not taken the action we are taking on the bus fare cap, instead of bus fares going up by £10 a week, we’d be seeing £10 a fare, because that is the impact of capping it at £3.”
He continued: “Across the board, this very much falls into the category of choices we are having to make that we would rather not be forced to make, but when you’ve got a Budget challenge as big as we’ve got and a deficit as big as we’ve inherited, we are having to make some hard choices now so we are not paying the price for failure in the longer term.”
Burley told him that it was still a “tax on working people,” but he just said the public should wait for the rest of Budget.
The PM also insisted the government was still dedicated to “working people” on Monday, saying: “It is working people who pay the price when their government fails to deliver economic stability.
“They’ve had enough of slow growth, stagnant living standards and crumbling public services.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to unveil Labour’s first Budget in 15 years on Wednesday.