Section 17: Financial assistance
82.This section provides the Secretary of State with authority to provide financial resources to any person for the purposes of transport services by land in England. This power will be used in particular to provide funding to a strategic highways company, and also (inter alia) to provide funding to the Office of Rail Regulation and the Passengers’ Council in respect of their functions under the Act as monitor and watchdog respectively in connection with the performance of a strategic highways company. Financial assistance may take the form of grants, loans or guarantees (subsection (3)). The power conferred by the section supersedes an earlier power in the Ministry of Transport Act 1919, to which a consequential amendment is made in subsection (7).
