5. What recent discussions has the Cabinet Secretary had about rural bus services in Mid and West Wales? OAQ52819

Well, this is an incredibly important issue right across Wales, and, I think, especially in Mid and West Wales. We continue to engage with and to fund local authorities to enable them to provide local bus services, and we also work very closely with them on a number of fronts to further improve bus services, particularly in Mid and West Wales. 

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his response. He won't be surprised to know that access to public transport is one of the issues most frequently raised with me by constituents across the regions that I represent. There are several specific questions that I could raise, and I will write to him about some of those. But, specifically today, I would like to ask what discussions he and his officials have had with Gwynedd and Conwy councils about the possibility of including the Blaenau Ffestiniog area in the route of the TrawsCymru T2 service, and what progress those discussions have made if they have taken place.

I'm afraid I will have to write to the Member with details of what discussions have taken place specifically with regard to the T2 service. I am pleased to say that we are utterly committed to improving and extending the TrawsCymru services across Wales. They have proven to be incredibly popular, and the pilot scheme that has seen free transport provided at weekends has proven to be particularly popular, with an increase in passenger numbers way in excess of 60 per cent. I think that the TrawsCymru service has also been able to complement rail services in areas of Wales that would otherwise be left stranded. So, I'm keen, as I say—and I can assure the Member I'm keen—to see that particular service, TrawsCymru, expanded further in the coming years. 

Cabinet Secretary, there is a local campaign calling for the reinstatement of a bus service from St Dogmaels in my constituency to Cardigan, which has recently been axed and replaced with a new route that sees the final bus back from Cardigan to St Dogmaels now at 4.24 p.m. I'm sure you will recognise the difficulties that this can present for the local community, and I appreciate the Welsh Government can't be involved in micromanaging bus services, but what specific work are you and your officials doing, working with local authorities like Pembrokeshire and like Ceredigion, to find workable, realistic solutions that actually can meet the needs of local, rural communities?

First and foremost, it's important to recognise that reform is needed, legislation is required, and we'll be bringing this forward presently. Clearly, I was disappointed to learn of the changes to the services that the Member has outlined. Each local authority, of course, is responsible for determining which services it supports and for using its own budgets, or our allocations from the bus services support grant, to supplement local authority budgets for the purpose of providing services that would not be viable purely on commercial grounds.

Where necessary, and where affordable, we have intervened, as exceptional, often one-off measures, to address particular efforts being made by local authorities. So, for example, we intervened in Denbighshire and Flintshire and Wrexham when GHA Coaches collapsed. We are working, not just with local authorities, but with the sector and with passenger groups in assessing how we can ensure that changes to services meet passenger expectations and passenger demands, and that changes can be reflected through full and genuine consultation with users. I think it's absolutely essential that whenever a service is stopped or is changed, it is done so on the basis of genuine and authentic consultation with those people who use those services.