Could I thank Julie Morgan for her contribution? Julie Morgan is a great advocate for bus usage, not just in Cardiff North, but right across Wales, and I know she cares passionately about the sustainability of key local bus services. The planning of bus services and the bus network right across local authority areas is crucial in determining where to build not just commercial properties, so that people can access work via bus, but also domestic dwellings. For that reason we have placed an expectation on local authorities to better design bus routes that actually meet the needs of passengers accessing places of work. Their powers, their resources, are constrained at present, given ongoing austerity and given, until recently, the lack of powers that will become available in due course. But it’s also essential that, as we develop the metro in the south-east of Wales, we incorporate into the plans for integrated transport appropriate park-and-ride and also cycle-and-ride schemes, and parking areas and cycling areas, so that people are able to switch from one mode of transport to another with the least hassle and at least cost. It’s our intention to ensure that bus companies do indeed work more collaboratively together—if needed, through legislation—not just in terms of identifying routes and ensuring that there is compatibility of timetables, but also to ensure that there are multi-journey, multi-modal, ticketing arrangements in place. One of the claims that has been made by bus operators consistently has been the difficulty with introducing multi-ticketing because of the challenge of apportioning the correct level of fares to each of the operators. We do not believe that this is an insurmountable challenge, and this is something that we believe should be an expectation once the Government has developed the new legislative requirements and the interventions needed to ensure that ticketing arrangements are more suited to the expectations of passengers.

The better bus fund is something that I remain open to consider. The green bus fund and the subsequent scheme that’s being operated by the UK Government—the low emissions fund—were extended to Wales at our request and following successful negotiations, but, disappointingly, no Welsh bids have been successful to date. I’m keen to see successful bids from Welsh operators, because we know from operators such as Stagecoach in the south-east and Cardiff Bus that, with investment in modern buses, you don’t just drive down emissions, you can also improve punctuality and quality for passengers. And so I’m open to the idea of a complementary better bus fund, but one that takes into account fully the advice of the bus policy advisory group, who have said that it should not be restricted to just low emissions vehicles, but that it could also be open to operators looking to improve other aspects of the passenger experience such as, as the Member rightly highlighted, the availability of Wi-Fi. It’s my belief that Wi-Fi now should be available as standard on all buses. It should not be an exception, it should not be a luxury, it should be an expectation that all passengers should have whenever they board a bus.