Public Transport

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 16 October 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:02, 16 October 2018

Well, I believe this will take legislation, because we know—and many of us will have had constituents come to us complaining about a bus service being cut, but of course there's nothing we can do about it because it's a privately run service, it's not subsidised, there is no leverage. So, in the next few years, the Government will be looking at introducing legislation to ensure greater consistency of supply in services, to ensure we don't see a situation where services suddenly stop because an operator has gone bankrupt or decided not to run the service any more. And I think creating that certainty for passengers will create better numbers for the buses, because people won't be thinking, 'Well, I might take the bus, but will it turn up? Will the service still be there next year?' It's absolutely crucial, because in most parts of Wales we have what's, in effect, a private monopoly. There is no real competition along most routes. This is not what bus privatisation, even if you agreed with it in the 1980s, was meant to do, so we must now look at a new model that looks upon bus services as just that, services rather than something delivered entirely through competition that doesn't really exist.