The next item on our agenda is the debate on the Economy Infrastructure and Skills Committee report, ‘Taming the traffic: The Impact of Congestion on Bus Services’. I call on the committee Chair to move the motion—Russell George.

Motion NDM6524 Russell George

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Notes the report of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee on its inquiry into the impact of congestion on bus services which was laid in the Table Office on 28 July 2017.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move the motion. When we talk about public transport in Wales, mostly we’re talking about buses. Bus travel accounts for over 80 per cent of public transport in Wales, but over the past decade, bus services have declined by nearly half. If we look at figures between 2005 and 2016 published by the Welsh Government, they show us that passenger numbers have declined by around 20 per cent. Interestingly, this compares to an increase of around 1 per cent in English journey times for the same period.

The average speeds of buses in Wales are declining faster than any other mode of transport, and slower journey times and speeds, of course, make bus travel a less attractive option for customers. I put it to you that a reduction in speeds is caused by congestion on the roads of our towns and cities but also key pinch points in rural areas as well. I certainly don’t think that this is just an urban issue. It increases journey times, it makes bus trips unpredictable, increases operational costs and fares, and undermines passengers’ confidence. And, of course, it reinforces negative perceptions of the bus. A leading expert on congestion, Professor David Begg, has said that,

Traffic congestion is a disease which, left unchecked will destroy the bus sector.’

Faced with congestion, bus operators are forced to respond in one of two ways: either to attempt to maintain service frequency with the associated increase in costs or to operate fewer services. Our bus services transport people to work and to education, connect communities, support our economy and help to make our country greener by reducing the number of private cars on our roads. They’re a vital lifeline for about a quarter of Welsh households without access to a car and for those for whom rail isn’t a viable option.

A fit-for-purpose bus service supports economic growth, but it also has a range of positive environmental impacts. Buses are a part of the jigsaw that will help us to release the ambition, I think, of many key pieces of legislation passed here: our carbon reduction commitments under the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, a shift to sustainable travel supported by the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, and working towards the well-being goals set out in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

The Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee report, which we are considering today, sets out our views on the action Welsh Government needs to take to urgently address the crippling impact that congestion is having on the bus industry in Wales. There have been examples of significant investment in the industry. The quality of vehicles is improving and the legislation is in place to support a modal shift to sustainable public transport. Despite this, the numbers of bus journeys and passengers continue to fall. The bus is still viewed as the Cinderella of public transport, and this downward trend needs to reverse. More action is needed to combat congestion and improve bus services for the people of Wales.

Our report sets out one recommendation and that is that, as a matter of urgency, the Welsh Government should develop and publish an action plan to set out how it will tackle the impacts of traffic congestion on the bus industry in Wales. Whilst we recognise that there is a substantial role for bus operators and local authorities to play, it is essential that the Welsh Government provides clear strategic direction on the action needed, and the starting point must be a recognition of the scale and extent of the impacts of congestion on the industry. We need a firm commitment from Government to tackle the issue, and, during our inquiry, we heard that further work is needed to understand the root causes, and this should be used, of course, to inform the development of sustainable, evidence-based solutions.

Local authorities are key players in the battle against congestion, of course. They need support from the Welsh Government to work in partnership with bus operators, they need guidance and support to establish effective bus quality partnership schemes, and they need to ensure that they work in partnership across administrative boundaries that are often meaningless to the residents who live there. Local and regional planning provides the ideal mechanism to ensure that congestion is tackled on a regional basis. There are many tools currently available to help tackle congestion: park-and-ride schemes, congestion charging, enhanced parking charges, workplace parking levies, and bus priority measures of course, as well, such as bus lanes. These need to be assessed in the Welsh context and decisions need to be taken about how useful they might be. Different solutions will, of course, be right for different areas, but it is indisputable, though, that, if bus is going to become a solution to transport issues, it does need to have priority.

Bus services are caught in a catch-22 situation. For congestion to be reduced, people need to be encouraged out of their cars and to make the switch to public transport. Whilst congestion is still having such significant impacts on bus travel, the bus industry is unlikely to be an attractive option. There is much work to do to sell the benefits of travelling by bus. The bus industry needs to market itself more positively, and there is a role for Welsh Government and local authorities in developing and delivering an impactful nationwide campaign to encourage the modal shift to public transport.

In response to the Welsh Government, the Welsh Government has accepted our overall recommendation to produce an action plan. It has also agreed with the committee’s suggestion about what the plan should include. I’m delighted that the Cabinet Secretary shares our committee’s vision for an effective and efficient bus services that is committed to improving bus services across Wales. We are encouraged by the fact that the Cabinet Secretary has taken on board our recommendation to better understand the root causes of the issue, and furthermore that, following on from the bus summit earlier this year, he will be convening a workshop in the autumn, and this will give local authorities, bus operators and other partners the opportunity to get together to discuss the particular issues in their areas. We hope that the Cabinet Secretary will feedback to the committee as soon as possible after that has taken place.

We remain concerned about how local authorities will work together. The Cabinet Secretary has announced funding for them to appoint bus co-ordinators in north and south Wales, whose remit includes closer working between stakeholders to develop bus quality partnerships. There is a raft of guidance already available for local authorities, encouraging them to work together, and it remains to be seen whether these new posts will actually make a difference on the ground to achieve the ultimate aim of a more efficient and sustainable service for bus users.

We welcome the greater transparency that will come from Welsh Government, requiring local authorities to establish the predicted revenue of bus operators for each route for which they have sought a support grant. In a time of constrained budgets, it is essential that funding is, of course, directed towards those services and routes where it is most needed. We also support the proposal that the Cabinet Secretary set out in his response that the grant could only be allocated in support of bus services that formed part of a quality bus partnership between local authorities and operators. This would be a catalyst, I think, for improvements in partnership working. I very much look forward to the debate this afternoon and hearing contributions from Members across the Chamber.

I’m very pleased to support the recommendations of the committee. It’s an opportunity, of course, for us to give attention to part of our public transport infrastructure that, as Russell George said, has, unfortunately, too long and too consistently been a cinderella sector in terms of public investment and in terms of the focus of public policy. I’m speaking now as somebody who was entirely reliant on bus services as a young person. We didn’t have a car as a family at all; therefore, in the area where I lived, aside from a few trains that went about three times a day, we were entirely reliant on the bus system, as many young people are, as are older people. My parents, for example, are entirely reliant on bus services that are contracting, to tell you the truth, which puts them in a situation of being isolated more and more because it restricts their ability to travel.

Therefore, it is vital that we now turn our attention to this industry. It still represents, despite the contraction and the pressure on it, about 80 per cent of our public transport system in Wales, and, in large parts of Wales, this is the only public transport that is available. So, hearing, as the committee did, about the pressure on the industry because of congestion does cause great concern to us all. As the committee says in its report, the reasons for the congestion vary from place to place, and one of the core recommendations is that the Welsh Government should press ahead with having a better understanding of the different reasons and factors that are driving this trend across Wales, and I’m pleased to see that the Government, in its response, has committed to doing this work at a local and regional level, working with local authorities.

In terms of what could be done, an important part of moving things forward is to support active travel, of course, in accordance with the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, which tries generally across Wales to encourage a modal shift from car travel to a more sustainable mode of transport and a more integrated mode of transport. The Scottish Government have taken major steps in this direction, and they are in the vanguard, I think, at a British level; they have doubled the budget for active travel recently. They have announced five schemes across Scotland, with about £22 million for bus lanes, walkways and designated cycling paths. That’s the kind of ambition that I’d like to see from the Welsh Government.

There are things that we could do now to show that the Welsh Government does see travel by bus as being a central part of the offer in terms of integrated transport. There has been a feasibility study, for example, for reopening the railway from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth, and I’m very supportive of that. Maybe that should be a mid-term goal. But, it would be possible to start now by insisting in the franchise, for example, that there is a coach service that can be used as part of the railway system operating between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth now, in order to have proper integration between bus and rail services.

Thinking about the situation in Cardiff, it’s disgraceful, to tell you the truth, that there’s been no progress in terms of the bus station. We’re hearing that there are questions about what’s going to be developed on that site. In our capital city, we have to see proper status being given to bus services in the capital city, as we should in the rest of Wales as well.

Thank you for this report, which is very interesting. Getting people out of their cars in a city like Cardiff is absolutely essential in order to reduce congestion. Counterintuitively, of course, congestion reduces the number of people who actually want to travel by bus, because they think that if they go in a car they can rat-run and they can get there faster by private vehicle. So, it’s hugely important that we do something to tackle bus congestion because we’ll all drown in our own air pollution if we don’t do that, in a city.

What are the measures that we might introduce? Well, we could go for road pricing—I’m sorry to say that David Melding is not here at the moment. It is obviously a very logical way of reducing private motor cars on the road at the time when they are preventing the buses from getting through. It did, in London, cause a significant increase in the speed of bus journeys and cut their waiting time by 30 per cent just in the first year. But when a cabinet member in Cardiff proposed this as a proposal, the balloon went up in Cardiff. Everybody produced loads of reasons why we shouldn’t be doing this.

A softer alternative, but one that I think we should be absolutely pushing for now, is to increase the number of bus priority lanes. Cardiff Bus gave evidence to this inquiry that it isn’t much use having a bus priority lane along, maybe, 300 yards rather than the whole route. That certainly applies to the bus routes along Newport Road. It’s a real stop-start operation in a restricted space. But, frankly, the bus has to take priority. That has to be the way in which we can do it. I also am aware that when a bus lane along Caerphilly Road was proposed, it was strenuously opposed by all the local councillors, even though they ought to be thinking about the needs of the whole community, not just those who want to use their private motor cars, who probably don’t even live in their local areas. So, there’s a need for education there.

There’s obviously, also, an important role for priority traffic lights to ensure that buses go first at the traffic lights, before the cars, and that is an important way of ensuring that you get there faster by bus than you do by car. That is obviously one of the key factors, when people are running to work, that they will use. We can see how, when new proposals have been constructed in key areas like, for example, getting to the Heath hospital in Cardiff: a new park and ride from Pentwyn, the Llanedeyrn interchange, has been hugely popular and not just with car users who, instead of sitting in appalling traffic jams trying to queue to get into a multistorey car park, are able to get there in seven and a half minutes. It’s also benefited people who don’t have cars, because they can either get a cab or walk across the road and join in the park and ride. So, it’s been a fantastically useful way of ensuring that people can get to the hospital in a less stressful way, which is obviously very important when you’re talking about people who are either ill themselves or are visiting somebody who is ill.

But, in the week that the nudge theory economist Richard Thaler has just won the Nobel prize for economics for his work on the human propensity to make irrational choices, we have to think of ways in which we can encourage people to make the right, rational choices. So, I think bus priority lanes is certainly one of them, and I think we need to reflect on our policy on free hospital parking, which may be entirely appropriate in an area like Betsi Cadwaladr, where I’m fully aware that Glan Clwyd Hospital serves a huge diaspora of rural areas, where I’m sure the bus services will be infrequent and do not necessarily serve those communities, and they shouldn’t, obviously, be penalised for getting to the hospital, but in an urban area, it seems to me that free hospital parking in the middle of an urban area, where it’ll be tempting for commuters to dump their cars at the hospital, is something that we need to reflect on quite carefully, as it may have the opposite impact to what we want.

I thank the economy and business committee for their report, and I hope we can make a much greater push on the role that buses ought to be playing in encouraging people particularly to use buses for getting to work and school, and particularly pending the delivery of the metro system, both in Cardiff and Swansea, where until the alternative of the metro exists, we are going to have to offer bus services as an alternative, otherwise Cardiff is simply going to seize up with the congestion.

I, of course, fully endorse the recommendations of this report, and would also like to acknowledge here the contributions made by those organisations and individuals who took the time and effort to address the committee. However, in contributing to this debate, I wish to make a number of personal comments and suggestions that I feel may help to alleviate this very serious problem. In so doing, I make no apologies for returning to a number of points I made after the Cabinet Secretary’s statement on free passes in Plenary yesterday, in the true belief that repetition gives emphasis.

Whilst it is true that the car is the worst villain in this debate, we must also acknowledge that, to some extent, buses themselves contribute to the problem. The sight of four or more buses lined up in a traffic jam, each carrying a pitiful number of passengers, is as frustrating as that of dozens of cars carrying just one person, the driver. As indicated yesterday, the idea that buses run to a strict timetable, irrespective of demand, is quite ludicrous. I’ve personally seen near-empty buses pass my home at intervals of just 10 minutes for much of the day. I had best point out here that I’m not often home for most of the day.

Of course, we must blame the bus companies themselves, who should have the data telling them of the usage of each and every bus journey. But an equal amount of blame must be laid at the door of local authorities, who, we are told, are responsible for administering bus contracts and making sure that the taxpayer is having the best value for money from the operators. I honestly believe there must be a root-and-branch appraisal of the supply of services by bus companies, overseen by the Welsh Government.

Again, as mentioned yesterday, we must explore the possibility of on-demand public transport systems using smaller vehicle units, preferably, of course, running on electricity, that can be deployed even to people’s doors. These units would also be far more suitable for many of the Welsh towns and streets, which, as we all know, are often narrow and restricted. New housing estates would have to make provision for access for such vehicles, which would, by definition, be easier than for the buses now deployed. If we are to eradicate, or at least fundamentally affect, the scourge that traffic congestion represents on our roads, we must adapt public transport to fit the needs of the people, and not the needs of those delivering this service.

As a member of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, it was a pleasure to take part in this inquiry and also in the ensuing report. I too would like to thank all those who took the time to contribute to our inquiry. Clearly, the bus is the most well-used of all our public transport services, but also is the most inclusive form of public transport as well. It’s the only form of public transport that can reach into all of our communities, whether urban or rural, and particularly into the northernmost reaches of the south Wales Valleys where, even when the metro arrives, the bus service provision will be a key part of that delivery. So, it is really important that we can tackle bus congestion and get the offer right.

Yesterday, Cabinet Secretary, you updated Members on concessionary bus travel and you told us that a key Welsh Government aim is:

to increase the number of people of all ages using buses for their daily commute to work, for education, for access to health services and for leisure purposes’.

So, to do this, it is crucial that we tackle congestion, due, crucially, to its intrinsically cyclical nature: bus congestion puts people off travelling by bus, leads them back into their car; this, then, causes more congestion, which, in turn makes buses slower, and the problem, again, worsens.

Figures quoted in the committee’s report scope out something of the shape of the challenge ahead. The number of local bus services has declined by nearly half in the 10 years leading up to 2015. The number of passenger journeys has also declined, but, despite this, as I said at the start, the bus remains the most crucial and well-used form of public transport. In 2015-16, there were over 100 million bus passenger journeys, and that’s around five times the comparable number of train journeys. In the 20 years prior to 2015, bus journeys have slowed by an average of two miles an hour: a 13 per cent decrease in speed requiring additional capacity just to maintain the service. This is one clear symptom of the impact of congestion.

More generally, congestion has a negative effect on the environment and on the health enjoyed by our communities too. I’m sure that Members will have seen the briefing provided by the British Lung Foundation, with some stark figures to back that up. One thousand three hundred early deaths per year in Wales can be linked to air pollution. Children, in particular, exposed to severe air pollution are five times more likely to have poor lung development and increased infection susceptibility.

It also impacts on our economy, and we cannot ignore the social justice dimension either. Just under half of all bus journeys last year were concessionary fares—an increasing proportion in contrast with the general pattern of decline of usage. For those households lacking a car, buses are indeed a lifeline. In my own local authority area of Rhondda Cynon Taf, we have the fifth highest number of households without access to cars—a little over 27 per cent. Many of those people would be living in communities that are not accessible by the train. Therefore, the bus truly is a lifeline. With the highest numbers of households without access to cars also being found in Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent, this is clearly a key issue for the south Wales Valleys. As we heard from witnesses at an evidence session of the economy committee, a combination of the topography and urban design found in the Valleys can exacerbate congestion. To quote a witness from RCT council, talking about the terraces found in the Valleys:

The streets are very narrow. There’s no space…for residents to park their cars, so there’s on-street parking.’

This can cause serious congestion on bus routes. Indeed, it’s a familiar problem in my own constituency, and I think about the terraced thoroughfares of Cwmaman, Penrhiwceiber and Ynysybwl.

Work can be undertaken to tackle pinch points, such as the much-needed remedial works currently ongoing on the A4059 at Cwmbach and Mountain Ash. I also note in the Cabinet Secretary’s response to our consideration his comments that only one highway authority had applied for and adopted the full discretionary powers available to them from Welsh Government to help tackle traffic congestion. I would ask: how else will the Cabinet Secretary encourage highway authorities to use this opportunity to seek local solutions to local problems?

Consideration 8 is also really important. We need to promote our bus network as a convenient, affordable, and, above all, reliable option for journeys. I was really impressed with the standard of the Stagecoach bus service, their new gold service, and, equally, things like TrawsCymru show what can be done with a comfortable mode of transport that promotes facilities like Wi-Fi. Again, key to this is ensuring we tackle congestion so buses really are a first choice and not a last resort.

Can I echo the thanks that other committee members have extended to witnesses who came and gave evidence to the committee? It was an interesting inquiry. I hope and believe its conclusions were useful, and I welcome the approach that the Cabinet Secretary has taken to the recommendations made in it.

It’s always good to participate in a debate on buses to which the Cabinet Secretary’s responding because I know he’s a committed and enthusiastic supporter of the bus industry sector in Wales. The bus services summit that he convened I think was welcomed by all parts of the sector. He will recall the discussions we had about the Neath area economic forum report, which I presented to him and Cabinet colleagues earlier in the year, one of the asks in which, if you like, was for a new deal for bus users, and I think the question of the impact of traffic congestion on the bus service is a vital component in offering that new deal. It’s vital that we recognise the adverse effects on our bus service of that level of congestion. As Jenny Rathbone and others have indicated, you can’t really expect people to use buses if they’re not moving fast enough. There’s a vicious circle and cycle that is created by that, and yet our current model requires us to make sure that buses are as full of paying passengers as they can be.

My constituency has a number of areas, as with other Members in this Chamber, that are very poorly served by bus services because, in a sense, they’re caught in that no-man’s-land between local bus services not being commercially viable on the one hand and there not being adequate levels of subsidy on the other hand to deliver a publicly subsidised service. So, that challenge between profitability and public subsidy is inherent in our current system, and indicates clearly to me and to other Members that it doesn’t work on the current model, if you like—the current business model.

But I have one plea, really, to the Cabinet Secretary, and I know I’m absolutely pushing at an open door here, which is to see the question of bus congestion as part of a much larger whole, really. What’s required here is obviously a solution to bus congestion, but also a strategic view of a number of factors that are at play in delivering to my constituents and other constituents the kind of bus service that they need and deserve, quite honestly. This’ll take us down the road of technology and bus priority and planning issues, which are well aired and well explored in the report. But we also need to look at whether the bus service support grant, the local transport fund, the local transport network fund, and the investment that local authorities themselves make in bus routes, are being best deployed at the moment in pursuit of the Government’s objectives here—and, of course, the role of bus operators in choosing the right kind of fleet, and a green fleet. We recognise that bus transport is a more environmentally friendly option than car travel, but actually that continues to be the case only if the quality of fleet is maintained and is improved and it becomes the most environmentally friendly fleet that can be supported by the model.

There are many perverse incentives in the current system that are very well understood, so really it’s a plea to find a joined-up solution to a number of related challenges, and to look at it from a strategic perspective.

I’d support the general thrust of comments that have been made so far. If we are going to connect east and west, trains are not going to be the answer, as has already been recognised. In his response, accepting consideration 1 of the report, the Cabinet Secretary specifically mentions pinch-point removal funding to address congestion on the bus network, and this funding is very welcome.

Caerphilly council has received a portion of that funding to help carry out improvements on the busy Pwll-y-Pant or Cedar Tree roundabout in Caerphilly. On the council’s website they’ve said:

The improvements will increase capacity at this key strategic location, as well as reduce congestion and improve journey time reliability for local bus services.’

Throughout the report, however, there’s the discussion of political risk, and one of the problems with carrying out this kind of fundamentally needed improvement works is that the work takes time. Caerphilly residents are currently up in arms at the delays that are happening at the Pwll-y-Pant roundabout, which go right back through to Ystrad Mynach and Bedwas and towards Penyrheol. It’s a huge problem, and my intention is to meet with Caerphilly council and to talk to them about how further actions can be taken. I know local councillors have met today with the council to address these issues.

Will the Member give way?

Yes, of course.

Will the Member accept that the evidence shows that, in order to achieve modal shift, when you are making capacity changes like removing pinch points, the most effective way to do it is to use road space reallocation? So, rather than that space filling up with cars again, you’re locking in bus lanes or traffic light changes or wider pavements to try and build in that behavioural change.

And this is part of the improvements that are being carried out. In order to achieve that, you also need a modal shift. But, if you’re going to achieve a modal shift, that doesn’t happen quickly, and some of the improvements that are being introduced at this point will actually address some of the things that you’ve mentioned. However, my point is that there is political risk involved in that because you’re creating change, but, also, even creating these improvements creates a huge amount of agitation in the community, and I think what policy makers need to do is demonstrate the clear benefits of this.

The funding is welcome and it shows that the Cabinet Secretary is serious about tackling the impact of congestion on both buses and the wider road network, but it has brought other issues to the fore. There are a whole range of problems associated with the shape of our Valleys communities and the fact that we are, effectively, tunnels into Cardiff. It’s a real problem.

One of the issues I’ve mentioned many times in this Chamber is the overdevelopment of housing and the resulting pressure on transport infrastructure. You can’t deliver homes if you can’t deliver effective transport infrastructure. I’m concerned that we are addressing both of these things in parallel, but the connection needs to be better.

One of the things that I noted from some of the evidence we received was how unimpressive, frankly, some of the evidence was from local authorities. I won’t name and shame, but there were local authorities that treated bus operators as other stakeholders alongside car users, and that, frankly—to answer your question again—is not good enough. You need to have a proactive engagement with bus operators in your local planning if you’re going to achieve the kind of changes we want to see. Local authorities that we saw evidence from were not achieving that. They must get better at engaging with bus operators. And, by the way, I’m not counting Caerphilly county borough in that one, just to be clear.

That’s also recognised in the Welsh Government response—more and closer partnership working with bus operators and with neighbouring local authorities. I think we need a cross-border approach to all kinds of planning issues, including the strategic development plans that I’ve been calling for, which should replace, in my view, the narrowly focused and parochial local development plans, which are not allowing the movement across Valleys communities.

The city deal in my area and region gives an opportunity for this kind of working to happen. It’s a good footprint for regional working and I’m pleased that the Cabinet Secretary has recognised that with a call for joint working. But I think, really, we’ve got to say that housing, wider planning issues and transport are the three biggest connected matters that the Welsh Government must have in its mind when addressing these things. If they are simply addressed in parallel, we won’t achieve our objectives. What we’re looking to do, particularly with regard to regional growth deals, is to get those three areas aligned and co-ordinated. I’ve no doubt we can achieve it, but it requires that connected thinking.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, Ken Skates.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Firstly, I’d like to thank the Chair and members of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee for their report, for their scrutiny, and for their recommendations. I’m pleased to be able to accept all of the recommendations, and I think it would be very difficult to disagree with much of what Members have said today.

In response to Jeremy Miles, I’m afraid that my enthusiasm for this particular subject led me to be mildly reprimanded yesterday for taking more than the allotted time during the bus concessionary fares statement, so I promise today that I will be as concise as possible. And I would agree also with Jeremy and other Members who spoke about the need to see bus services part of a much bigger picture.

Congestion affects the economy, it affects the environment and the health of the people of Wales, and I recognise that demand forecasts indicate that road use will continue to grow. That’s why tackling congestion is a priority focus for Welsh Government, and why it’s integral to the Wales transport strategy and, indeed, the national transport finance plan, as well as to the recently launched ‘Prosperity for All’ national strategy. The national transport finance plan, published in 2015, sets out an ambitious five-year programme of transport interventions that will take forward, across Wales, the measures that we are taking to ensure that Wales is connected via a reliable, modern and integrated transport network. Actions to alleviate congestion on the roads of Wales include developing our suite of models, so that we can better direct and predict future demands and plan well ahead. We have also made available to local authorities powers to adopt civil enforcement against a range of road contraventions, including parking, bus lane and certain moving traffic offences. And I think it is important that local authorities use these powers to ease congestion.

As Hefin David identified, we are working with local partners to identify pinch-point areas and to deliver infrastructure improvements to smooth traffic flow. Recently, we announced £24 million for pinch points, which will provide an opportunity for us to do more to tackle the junctions causing congestion, and to look at improving overtaking opportunities on key routes from north to south. In addition to this, another £15 million will be allocated through our local transport network fund, aimed at increasing safety resilience and movement along strategic bus corridors. This substantial funding forms part of an additional £83 million of Welsh Government capital funding to support road and transport schemes in Wales.

Presiding Officer, active travel infrastructure is a core component in modernising our transport network and delivering on an integrated transport system for Wales, helping to reduce vehicular emissions and helping to tackle congestion. Now, in an answer given to Jenny Rathbone a little earlier today, I indicated how I would like to ramp up investment in active travel infrastructure, and I look forward to updating Members accordingly. We do fund several behavioural change interventions, for example through our support for travel plan co-ordinators and pedestrian and cycling training, such as the Cymru Travel Challenge and the Active Journeys programme. We’re also investing in systems that support active travel management, such as the monitoring of networks through our national traffic control centres.

We’ve already provided substantial support by commissioning an all-Wales walking and cycling infrastructure survey, and have developed an active travel data mapping system that all local authorities are using for their maps. We believe that improving our public transport system is critical to raising the quality of life for the people of Wales. We’ll continue to support rail and bus services and modernise the public transport offer in Wales, including the development of integrated public transport networks such as the metro. The proposed south Wales metro will comprise a multimodal integrated rapid transit network, including improved bus and rail services. It will provide faster, more frequent and joined up bus and rail services. Enhancing connectivity is needed to support population growth and to tackle increasing road congestion. The metro project will be a blueprint for integrated transport across the whole of Wales, transforming the country’s economic and social prospects. I’ll give way.

Thanks for giving way. I fully support you, Cabinet Secretary, on the metro. I wonder if any more thought or discussions have been had over the potential of a metro hub at the Celtic Manor. I’ve raised this with you many times before and think it would be a good development in the metro network.

The Member has raised this on numerous occasions in this Chamber and outside of this Chamber. I think the idea has great merit, especially as we see the development of the convention centre at the Celtic Manor. The metro is being designed in such a way as to be extendable, so that additional services and additional hubs can be created as necessary. So, it’s certainly something that is being considered within Transport for Wales, and it’s something that I’m particularly keen to see considered as part of the potential extension of the metro network.

I do think that there’s no doubt that traffic congestion impacts negatively on the reliability and the punctuality of bus services, and that this, in turn, makes travel by bus less attractive. We fund and action a number of interventions for congestion, as outlined previously, and I remain committed to an integrated transport network that I believe will tackle the challenges such as traffic congestion and environmental pollution.

Presiding Officer, we also need to encourage motorists to use buses more often, by making buses more attractive in terms of the price of travel, through competitive and straightforward fares, through multi-operator ticketing regimes, underpinned by transparent and fair revenue sharing arrangements, and, of course, by publicising how good our bus network is already. Building on the bus summit that was held in January, a number of workshops are to take place this autumn to undertake further work to consider how best we can improve the passenger experience at bus stops by providing improved facilities, consistent with passenger information provision, to develop funding solutions that offer greater stability to the bus industry in Wales, and deliver an integrated transport system that provides improved accessibility and ticketing solutions that are fit for the twenty-first century.

Presiding Officer, I am also considering the responses from the consultation on local bus services in Wales, part of a national dialogue and call for evidence, following the success of the bus summit, on the longer-term direction for local bus services, and proposals, I believe, that could make a significant improvement to services in Wales.

I call on Russell George to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I first of all thank the Cabinet Secretary for his words at the beginning of his contribution? As a committee, of course, we’re pleased that you’ve accepted our recommendations, but we’re very pleased that you’ve taken this issue seriously, and we’re grateful that you’ve accepted the conclusions of our report.

Adam Price—his experience as a younger person chimed with the situation or the experience of many today, who are absolutely reliant on a bus service, with no family car, or a train service that isn’t always suitable. And I absolutely agree with Adam Price in his remarks around integrated transport. I’m sure we all have as AMs in this Chamber constituents contacting us with examples—and I know I often get it myself—of a bus that leaves just after the train has arrived. Or have I got that the wrong way round? But you know what I mean.

Also, David Rowlands, I think, makes a correct point as well, in that this isn’t just an issue for Government to resolve. This is an issue that our local authorities and the bus operators themselves—they’ve got a stake in resolving this as well. We’re certainly not as a committee suggesting that it’s just Government’s responsibility to resolve some of these issues.

Vikki Howells and Hefin David highlighted the evidence that we had in our committee from local authorities. I have to say that was quite an eye opener, and perhaps there was some unexpected evidence that influenced the conclusions of our report. And of course, a recurring theme, which I talked about in my opening comments but also raised with Jenny and Jeremy Miles, was also that there’s that vicious circle—that catch-22 situation—that has to be overcome.

I’m very pleased that the Cabinet Secretary shares the committee’s vision for effective and efficient bus services and has committed to improving bus services across Wales. Long may it continue that the Government accepts our recommendations in full to our committee reports. I should also like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for his invitation to AMs to attend the bus summit, and although I couldn’t attend, I was grateful for the invitation last year. I should also thank fellow committee members for their work on this report, and of course the committee clerking and research team who always support us to a very high standard, and of course to all those who gave evidence to our committee. And thank you to all those who contributed today, especially to Jenny Rathbone, who often, I notice, comments and contributes to our debate despite not being a member of the committee. I’m grateful that we’ve got Members around this Chamber who keep an eye on our work and read our reports but aren’t necessarily on the committee. I hope our report has been an effective contribution to the debate about bus travel and how to unclog our roads. Bus services in Wales may not yet be able to shake off the tag of being the Cinderella of public transport, but we should do all we can to ensure that they can get to the ball.

The proposal is to note the committee report. Does any Member object? The motion is, therefore, agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.