Can I thank Russell George for his questions? Details concerning some of those questions are contained in the documents, but I do appreciate that the Member won’t have had an opportunity as yet to be able to delve deeply into those consultation documents, so I hope I’ll be able to answer each of your queries here today.

First of all, I’d like to deal with the last point that the Member raised, which I think is a very fair point, that the take-up of the mytravelpass was not as high as I would’ve wished, and I think not as high as anyone in this Chamber would’ve wished. For that reason, the Confederation of Passenger Transport have agreed to embark on a new marketing exercise to drive up the number of people that are applying for and securing the mytravelpass. Indeed, I think the numbers have now risen from 15,000 to well over 17,000. I’d wish to see those numbers increase still further.

I’m going to return to the question of concessionary fares for young people in a moment, if I may, but I’ll move first of all to the benefits that are offered to older people. The system is not broken, but, as I outlined, we will see a significant increase in the number of people aged 60 or over as we approach the latter part of the next decade, and therefore we need to future-proof this important scheme today. Any changes that would be implemented would have to take account of the existing arrangements for people with passes. We would not, under any circumstances, be withdrawing them from those existing pass holders, but we do need to consult on the sustainability of the existing model. But, as I say, currently, it’s not broken, but we need to future-proof it. We need to future-proof it in light, of course, of the fact that there is still no end to austerity and there are pressures on budgets right across Government and on the basis of the increase in the state pension age that the UK Government is pursuing and also consultations that are taking place elsewhere in the UK on this very same issue.

The Member asks a very important question about how we’ve learnt lessons, how we’ve improved monitoring, how we can improve delivery, and I think that’s very, very significant, because better checks on the use of the passes have led to, as the Member is aware, prosecutions taking place. That, in turn, is believed to have contributed to a reduction in the overall number of passenger journeys that took place annually from something in the region of 108 million not long ago to about 101 million last year. Clearly, better checks on use and reimbursements for concessionary fare schemes are leading to less abuse of the scheme, but we are constantly monitoring and carrying out spot checks to ensure that there is no abuse in the system.

The Member also asks about changes that could be made to ensure that better monitoring is carried out in terms of the administration of the passes in the first place. This is a responsibility for local authorities, but, of course, one of the questions that I’m posing within this consultation is whether the Welsh Government should become a concessionary authority. That would require legislative change, but what it would enable us to do is potentially make savings but also monitor better who is getting the passes and who is using the passes, at what time of day and so forth. It would also enable us to deploy new technology consistently across Wales in the way that the travel pass is used. The Member identifies a number of new and emerging technologies that could see the way that we pay for or go about using free travel passes change considerably in the years to come, and if Transport for Wales were to be able to develop an integrated, multimodal ticketing system for transport in Wales, with Welsh Government operating as a concessionary authority, then I am confident that we could exploit all emerging technologies for the purpose of enhancing passenger experiences.

I’m going to come on to the question about youth concessionary travel now—specifically about youth concessionary travel. I should just mention, though, that, as an alternative to Welsh Government becoming a concessionary authority, one proposal that should be considered as part of this consultation is the establishment of regional transport authorities that could, on a regional basis, manage this scheme. In terms of youth concessionary fares, I do welcome the Welsh Conservatives’ engagement in this debate. I think it’s very helpful and it certainly assisted in driving it up the news agenda, but I would advise the Welsh Conservatives to crunch the numbers more accurately in the future. The reason I say this is that £25 million has been earmarked for the scheme, a scheme that they propose would offer free bus travel and a third off rail for 350,000 people.

I’m just going to quickly crunch the numbers on behalf of the Welsh Conservatives. At the moment, there are about 16,000 to 17,000 pass holders. They’ll take approximately 1.5 million journeys on buses by March next year, and, therefore, something in the region of 100 passenger journeys per pass holder. On that basis—and I think it would be entirely reasonable to expect far more young people to use a free pass than a discounted pass—we would expect the 350,000 young people to take something in the region of 35 million journeys annually. And, therefore, with an adult ticket price—let’s say we guess it, which is exactly what I think the Conservatives may have done—at £2, that would amount to something in the region of £70 million for reimbursement of bus journeys, and that’s before you reach the cost of reimbursing a third of the rail travel costs.

So, I do look forward to receiving full details of how the Welsh Conservatives propose to provide that level of offer for just £25 million, but, as I say, I do welcome their engagement in this very, very significant debate. I also do agree with Russell George when he says that we do need to incentivise behavioural change in order to decarbonise the environment, in order to deal with congestion on our roads, and to ensure that we have a more physically active population. I do think that youth concessionary fare schemes have a crucial role in that regard.