Bus Services

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 11 February 2020.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 2:34, 11 February 2020

The First Minister will know that for me, and many of my south Wales Valleys representatives here—we don't have the options for trains in many of these valleys; it is the bus that is the critical one if we want to encourage people to make that modal shift across onto public transport, with the climate change gains, but also a different way of travelling as well. But the reality is, I think, that unless we actually reverse the absolute disastrous deregulation of buses that happened decades ago, and we can put in place, alongside the south Wales metro, the type of planned, both strategic and local, network of buses that will get people to work on time, to their hospital appointment, and this surgery, and to socialise, and deal with isolation as well, then we cannot do it.

So, I would like to ask him what his thoughts are on that emerging scenario around a more planned regime, a reversal of the deregulation that we saw. And can I also ask him whether, now that we've had the announcement from the Prime Minister on the multi, hundreds of billions of pounds potentially here for the HS2, and what I understand may be additional money for buses in England, it has been communicated to Welsh Government that we have a Barnettised consequential that can be passed into public transport in Wales?