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.