Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 20 September 2016.
We are considering, as part of the budget process, what’s appropriate in terms of the bus services support grant. What is clear, however, in the answer I gave earlier—. I have been in this Assembly for 17 years. Many, many times, bus companies have collapsed and their services have had to be replaced. The question must be asked as to whether that’s a sustainable system, to have bus companies that don’t seem to be able to make a go of it—not all; some do well, of course—and the subsequent gap that leaves, however temporary, for the users of those services. We know there are many, many services across Wales that are run by private companies, but can’t operate without a public subsidy. To me, that wasn’t the intention of his party when buses were privatised. They were meant to be in competition with each other. There are very few parts of Wales with any kind of competition. It tends to be one company operating the service under a public subsidy. We have to examine how effective that is in the future. Some of them have been effective, and some of them have clearly not been effective. But, after 2018, there’ll be the opportunity to reassess how bus services are provided across the entire country.