I’d like to thank Russell George for his questions and for his very generous acknowledgement of the success of the bus summit. I was very pleased to be able to invite along members of this Chamber, and I recognise the very great interest that Assembly Members have in the provision of local bus services. Indeed, I believe there are approximately nine speakers in this afternoon’s statement, which should hasten me to answer the Member’s questions very quickly.

In terms of funding, just to clarify, the £0.5 billion is for the whole of the rail and bus services as well as community transport. Furthermore, I believe that multi-year funding would and could be an attractive proposition if it were possible for us to have multi-year funding to be able to then pass on the benefits of more sustainable funding provision.

Late payments are not due to the Welsh Government. The bus services support grant is channelled through local authorities, but it’s certainly something that I would encourage local authorities to facilitate swiftly, without delay and efficiently.

Integration is a key issue that has been raised on a regular basis in my discussions with the industry and with passengers. It’s something that we will be able to address more fully with powers that are available to us through the Wales Act. In order to deliver the fully integrated system with integrated ticketing and multimodal ticketing, we may require new legislation, but this Government has already stated that it is willing to introduce legislation as and where necessary in this regard.

The Member also raised a question about franchising. Perhaps if I could just outline some of the contents of the consultation paper that will be launched next week: the proposals within the paper are not set in stone, that’s clear, but they are the basis for discussion, and they will cover considerations such as the introduction of franchising as well as the ability for local authorities to operate municipal companies and the setting of statutory quality standards, and requirements on planning and co-ordination of services to have a better, more integrated, higher quality service with a better fares regime that all passengers can easily understand and can take advantage of.

I do believe, as the Member rightly identified, there is an issue with perceptions of bus travel. With regard to the mytravelpass scheme, the uptake was disappointing. We had hoped for more young people to utilise this particular offer, but the Confederation of Passenger Transport have now accepted my request to come forward with a new marketing strategy. Having spoken with representative groups that are able to take advantage of mytravelpass, it was clear that the marketing of the scheme when it was in the trial period was not particularly effective in reaching those young people who strive to own a car. Now, one of the important points that came from the evaluation of the scheme—the perception was that young people did not believe that a further reduction in the fares would lead to an increase in the number of young people taking up the pass. I need to test this assertion further, because it is still my belief that, as a result of the concessionary fare scheme for older people and disabled people, we’ve seen a relatively good number of people using local bus services. However, we’ve also seen a reduction in that figure, in part due to fraudulent activities that have been uncovered and have led to prosecutions. But I want to see more people use bus services on a more regular basis. With the new scheme for youth concessionary fares, we are open to the idea of looking at a broader, better deal for young people, which could include a reduced-fare regime.

The incentives that the Member raised for encouraging bus operators to deliver multimodal ticketing—again, this could come as a result of the legislation that we could bring forward as a result of the Wales Act. It is certainly something that we would be keen to look to achieve in the present Assembly term.

In terms of the metro, the Member asked a very important question about how the development of metros in the north east of Wales and south east of Wales could involve not just large bus companies but also smaller ones. One of the major challenges that has faced the industry in recent years has been the lack of available expertise within some well-established but small, family-run businesses. For that reason, we deployed Business Wales to be able to give advice to those companies, with a view of strengthening them for the development of a better, integrated public transport system. So, it’s our vision that those smaller companies will play a critical role alongside the larger companies, not just in the metro areas but also in between, in mid and west Wales as well.