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.