Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’d better make the most of my opportunity then. Could I welcome the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure on the future of bus services, and also welcome his vision that there is a future for bus services, along the lines that he suggests? Because, of course, naturally, local bus services are the foundation of our public transport system, given the deprivation of large areas of Wales from any rail services at all. The majority of our population is entirely reliant on local bus services that allow them to go out when they can’t drive. Often the only way they have to reach hospital or a health centre or the shops is the local bus.

So, that local service is vital, because every day about 63,000 people depend entirely on bus services to travel to work, and some 350,000 journeys are made every day in order to reach hospital appointments, see friends, shop, or to do some kind of leisure activity. So, I welcome the fact that the Cabinet Secretary is persevering with his work to improve the provision of services across Wales. And, of course, I’m also very supportive of the five aims at the end of the statement, and look forward to the outcome of the consultation.

Of course, many years ago now, the buses were a public service. Of course, it sapped a lot of money at the time but at least it was a service, although not perfect, that people could rely on. A bus would turn up in the same place, around the time you were expecting it to turn up. As I said, that service wasn’t perfect, although it was a public service, and, of course, in the 1980s, a decision was made to privatise—or the word is to deregulate—with the idea of improving the service and saving money. Well, I would be happy to discuss with anyone—we haven’t seen an improvement in the service, if you look across the board, and we certainly haven’t saved any money either. As the Cabinet Secretary mentions in his statement, these services cost millions of pounds in public money every year. Therefore, deregulation hasn’t achieved the vision that was seen back in the 1980s by a long chalk. What we have, in terms of buses, is a divided service that often fails on a local level, in terms of bus companies going bust, as we’ve seen recently, and people just can’t rely on the bus turning up at the time it’s supposed to turn up. That’s one of the biggest complaints I receive. People wonder why people don’t use the local bus, well, the thing is you can’t rely on them. I try to catch the bus when I can, but if it’s vital that you turn up to an appointment at a specific time, you can’t depend on the bus, and people tend to make any other arrangement to ensure that they do get to such a place by the time they’re supposed to turn up, because you can’t rely on the bus.

And, of course, as I’ve already mentioned, the split service of the buses that we have at the moment is sapping more public funds than ever before. The vision back in the 1980s of saving money and improving services hasn’t been realised either. So, I do strongly support the Cabinet Secretary’s vision in the objective that he has stated in his comprehensive statement this afternoon. The questions—the majority of them—that I wanted to ask, have already been asked, but it does leave one. Just a final point: has the Cabinet Secretary considered the best way of spending the £15 million of additional capital funding that was set aside for the local transport fund following the autumn statement? Would it be possible to use some, if not all of that fund, to help local bus services? Thank you .