London Mayor claims to "bust myth" that capital gets more than fair share of transport funding

Sadiq Khan has released a report which he says debunks "the myth" that London receives more than its fair share of investment in transport schemes compared to the rest of the country.

The report comes amid a febrile political conversation with Scotland and Wales demanding additional investment followed a Conservative-DUP deal, and in which the Government has not renewed its support for Crossrail 2 and has vowed a greater focus on the regions. Khan said that regional comparisons of transport spending are not being made on a like-by-like basis, and fail to consider the demand for transport, the size of the economy or the amount of tax raised by London. The report, produced by GLA Economics, argues that it is better to compare spend against the number of users, and this produces a public sector spend per passenger journey of £6.94 in 2015/16 that was below the Great Britain average of £10.31. Meanwhile, the public sector spend onroads per one million vehicle miles in that year was £23,700, the second-lowest among Great Britain's regions.

"When those figures are considered London has one of the lowest amounts of railway and road spending per user," Khan's press release said. In addition, it emphasises that the proportion of funding that comes from London's taxpayers is increasing, with the extension to the Northern Line and Crossrail in part financed by London businesses and Londoners, with 79.4% of planned transport infrastructure funded entirely by the public sector, which compares to the average for England of 90.5%.

Khan said: "London is often accused of taking a bigger slice of the cake. However, the capital faces immense level of demand placed on our networks. And when London succeeds, the rest of the country succeeds."