Lord Moylan (Con)

The Minister makes a very important point there. When the last grant was allocated—in round numbers, of £1 billion, £250 million went to bus operators and £750 million went to local authorities—a new methodology was introduced for allocating it. It was based on three factors; I cannot remember what they were but, in a way, that does not matter, because the important point that I raised was that there was no evidence underlying the choice of these three factors. Although it is true that the Minister answered my point in the Chamber, he offered no rationale or evidence for the choice of those three factors; they will come back to me the moment I sit down. However, that is not my main point. My main point is not to drag over the coals of what was discussed in the debate we had on that Statement but, rather, to point out that the Minister now appears to be saying that the same unevidenced methodology, with no rationale to explain it—a third this, a third that, a third the other—will be applied when the department comes to distribute whatever funding it has available for buses as a result of the upcoming spending review. That is a very important point, if he is making it. Does he want to confirm that that is what he meant? Or did he, perfectly understandably, fall into a momentary lapse that he would want to withdraw? We really need to know.