Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:16 pm on 20 June 2017.
It’s hugely important that people are able to travel on a reliable service and in comfort. There are many occasions where Members have drawn attention to a breakdown in that service over the years. From next year, of course, it is the responsibility of the Welsh Government, and we accept that. He should count himself lucky he was not in London yesterday, where I travelled back and fore on a Great Western train where there was no air conditioning at all. If I’d taken a rubber plant with me, it would have prospered in what were mid-30s temperatures—that is, centigrade—on the train itself. That was wholly unacceptable by Great Western. It’s wholly unacceptable for any train company to operate in that way. That’s why it’s so important with the new franchises, as they are allocated, that we look not just at frequency, but that we also look at the comfort that passengers experience when they’re on the trains, in order to make sure that more people use the trains.