7. 6. Statement: The Future of Bus Services in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:50 pm on 18 October 2016.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 5:50, 18 October 2016

Cabinet Secretary, you mentioned earlier that buses need to be clean, and the most important part of their cleanliness is the clean emissions. So, I just wondered what progress we’re making on that, because I notice that the UK Government has handed out grants of £30 million to 13 local authorities—and none of them was in Wales, as far as I'm aware—to invest in electric or hybrid buses. In Bristol, there's a bus service that has hybrid technology and which automatically switches to electric mode as soon as they get into the air quality management area, and that, for a place like Cardiff, would be really essential to try and combat the appalling air pollution that we've got. I would have thought that this was a major contribution for reducing our greenhouse gases by 40 per cent by 2020. So, I just wondered if you could say a bit about that and whether any of the larger companies that we have in Wales have so far invested in electric travel.