I particularly wanted to contribute to this debate, having been a volunteer with two community charities who provided or worked with community transport in rural areas. The experiences that I had completely reinforce what other Members have already said today about the purpose and outcomes of often co-productive community transport organisations. As we’ll know from examples from our own constituencies and regions, some of those organisations go beyond being a straightforward on-call service and become very proactive in their communities in meeting the challenges of loneliness and isolation.

One of the organisations I was involved with worked directly with volunteer drivers using their own cars. In that one case, we came across resistance to our work from a local taxi firm, which complained that our drivers were undercutting them and depriving them of business. I suspect Kirsty Williams knows what I'm talking about here. It’s pretty similar, I think, to the argument that commercial transport companies are running in order to prompt the review of the permits granted under section 19 and section 22 of the Transport Act 1985. You can see why they make the case: they are subject to more restrictions, and they have to pay their workforce. But, in my view, it is a completely false argument, and one that gets particularly complicated where a community transport organisation is asked by stranded residents basically to fill a gap left when a service is dropped by a commercial operator because it's unprofitable. That is a position in which DANSA, which is operating in the west of my region and in the Amman valley, effectively finds itself in today. To quote them, the removal of the sections 19 and 22 permitting regime would be 'catastrophic'.

Section 22 permits are issued to bodies concerned for the social and welfare needs of one or more communities. If those communities are abandoned by commercial operators, the needs of that community do not disappear overnight. In fact, I would argue that the social and welfare needs of those communities are likely to increase if people are stuck in their village, because taxis are expensive and you only use them when you absolutely have to. 

We’ve already heard from other Members how community transport can help tackle loneliness and isolation. DANSA is a particularly good example of such an organisation, which proactively arranges trips and events for older or other vulnerable people who are at risk of just that. So, they are not just a reactive, on-call bus service. This is why I’d like Welsh Government—. I appreciate that it's the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport responding to this, but this isn't just a debate about transport competition, which is how it's been presented to the Department for Transport. As the Bridgend council consultation on buses is already revealing, community transport can’t always fill those gaps anyway. And, as we argued with that Powys taxi firm, we are talking about passengers who would, effectively, be stuck if not for community transport, sometimes just for reasons of cost.

Members may have been reminded by the NHS Confederation that community transport operators can be contracted by the ambulance trust to provide non-emergency trips to and from hospital. This can be a very useful arrangement, and a good core income stream for many community transport providers. To be honest, I cannot see the philosophical difference between this and a local authority contracting community transport to serve difficult-to-reach communities. Even so, particularly in rural areas, the car journeys can be quite long between home and hospital, and made longer by the fact that the car or, sometimes, the bus will be picking up and dropping off other patients as part of the run.

I remember a particular case of three women travelling from rural Brecknock to Velindre hospital. Their cancer treatments only took a few minutes, but they spent a considerable part of the day stuck in a car, in the company of strangers, feeling pretty lousy, and travelling from house to house collecting the carload. For those women, they were basically told that this was the service that the state could provide for them, albeit in a car not in an ambulance. It wasn't really what I would consider to be person-centred. Direct access to community cars would have given those women—and I think they could have had it, actually—the chance to make the journey alone, even if they had to a pay a modest contribution towards the trip. This is where organisations like the Pontarddulais and district community car scheme come into their own: cheaper than a taxi and run by volunteers who perhaps have the time to respond to a passenger's needs without watching the clock, which, unfortunately, taxi drivers do have to consider.

Three-year funding rounds would be a huge help to organisations, there’s no doubt about that. But I urge you, Cabinet Secretary, to look at point 3(c) of the motion in particular, which is why I want you to consider this as a debate about the well-being of present and future generations and not just about transport. As we heard from Mark Isherwood and Angela Burns, the decisions of Welsh Government have affected the provision of public transport. But it's not just about Welsh Government and being cross-sector within Government departments, although they obviously need to sit up and take notice. It's about the public, private and third sectors—society itself—recognising that mobility, connectivity if you like, creates choices and freedoms to exercise those choices. So, funding that connectivity is a responsibility that all need to share, and it's not just for a silo departmental budget.