Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:34 pm on 8 January 2020.
Well, obviously, there have been difficult decisions that have had to be made within individual portfolios in terms of whether or not they're able to increase funding for particular elements of their budgets or simply maintain those areas of spend. And, as Alun Davies quite rightly says, the spending of £25 million has been maintained rather than increased in terms of the bus services support grant. But, of course, the bus services support grant is only one of the ways in which we support bus services in Wales, and local authorities are generally responsible for deciding which services should be supported financially out of public money, based on their assessments of the local circumstances and needs. And local authorities very often do put in funding from their own revenue support grant in order to support those local bus services and community transport schemes as well. And, of course, every single local authority across Wales will have seen an increase in their budget in the next financial year, as set out in the draft budget, which I think is something to be recognised. But, alongside this, we support the bus and community network through our funding for Wales's TrawsCymru network of longer distance bus services, the all-Wales Traveline Cymru line, which provides information and journey planning, and the work of Bus Users Cymru, which represents passengers, and of course the Community Transport Association and the Traffic Commissioner for Wales's office as well. And, importantly, we are continuing to support the bus travel scheme for 16 to 21-year-olds, and of course our hugely popular bus travel scheme for older and disabled persons. And those are important of course, because they do increase demand for buses and help to keep those services sustainable in the longer term.