Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and thank you for this opportunity to update Members about our plans for concessionary bus travel in Wales. Now, as Members will know, I issued a written statement before the summer recess providing an update on our plans for bus reform in Wales and a transport-related Bill. The proposed legislation contains several elements, all of which are being created to improve bus travel in Wales. It will put in place provisions that will provide a suite of tools for local authorities to consider using when planning and delivering bus services, including improved partnership working arrangements, franchising and local authority-run bus services.

It will put in place new information management and sharing arrangements so that information to the public will be more accessible and reliable, and local authorities will be in a better position to make arrangements to address changes in service provision. It will also amend the eligibility age for the mandatory and discretionary concessionary fares schemes, which I would like to take the opportunity to talk about to you in more detail today.

The mandatory concessionary fares scheme has been a huge success. It was introduced in 2002, when Wales became the first country in the UK to introduce free bus travel for retired people here in the United Kingdom, and we remain committed to the principles that have underpinned the scheme in Wales for all of that time, providing older people and disabled people, which includes some of the most seriously-injured service veterans and service personnel, universal access to free bus travel anywhere in Wales on local scheduled bus services.

The number of mandatory concessionary passengers has increased since the introduction of the scheme in 2002. Currently, pass holders represent around 47 per cent of total bus journeys, and there are nearly three quarters of a million passes in circulation.