8. Will the Minister make a statement on how Transport for Wales responds to railway line disruptions in Mid and West Wales? OAQ54967

Yes. Transport for Wales responds to disruptions depending on a number of factors, such as the time, the location and the resource availability at the point of an incident. TfW will always endeavour to run services where possible, utilising cancellations if necessary to recover the service and to avoid further disruption later in the day.

I thank the Minister for that reply. I'd like to raise with him a constituency case that he might have seen. A constituent of mine was travelling by train from Birmingham to Aberystwyth, had to get out at Shrewsbury because of a single failure on the line from Shrewsbury to Welshpool, but the bus replacement missed the connection for the train at Welshpool and then had to continue the whole journey to Aberystwyth, three hours long, by bus, but the bus was a double-decker bus, which was a hundred seater with no wheelchair access, and this doesn't seem to me to be a suitable vehicle for a rail replacement service for such a length of time on such roads. So, I wonder if the Minister could tell me how many of these old and unsuitable buses TfW operates or contracts for with external companies and what plans there might be to phase them out and replace them with more suitable vehicles.

Can I thank the Member for his question? I'm aware of the case, and I believe that apologies have been relayed to the constituent in question. Clearly, on that occasion, it was a signal failure. That is a responsibility that is out of the hands of TfW; it's with Network Rail. But the Member is right that bus replacement services are not always what passengers should expect—not up to the standard that they should expect. For that reason, I've asked Transport for Wales to examine the possibility, when they're able to come out of the contract that was arranged by their predecessor, Arriva Trains Wales, to establish themselves a fleet of buses for rail replacement services, because I think it's absolutely essential that passengers know that if a replacement service via a bus is to be deployed, it will carry them in the way that a train service should have carried them, in a timely way.

Thank you to the Minister.