I think the criticism specifically of Flintshire County Council was politically motivated, if I may say so, because there are other local authorities utilising GHA’s services. The fact of the matter is that Flintshire County Council—actually, unlike other local authorities—have retained a service support grant of over £1 million. As a consequence, they have been able to restore services in many parts of Flintshire. That said, I am currently considering additional resource for the local authorities in north-east Wales to be able to overcome what I hope to be short-term difficulties whilst powers that we require over bus services can be gathered, and for change to actually take place. I recognise that the Member has reflected the concerns of bus operators from earlier in the summer, but, actually, those concerns have been around since deregulation, which has been, quite frankly, a disaster.

In terms of the support that we offer local authorities, in spite of huge financial cuts to our budget, we have maintained, at £25 million, the level of support for local authorities for several years now. As I’ve said on a number of occasions, we would hope that local authorities would show a similar degree of commitment to bus services by maintaining the sort of support that Flintshire County Council has done. We will go on working with Bus Users Cymru, and with other organisations, as we lead into the new year and the bus summit that I have decided to host on 23 January in Wrexham.