5. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport: Funding for Buses

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:16 pm on 20 October 2020.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 4:16, 20 October 2020

Thank you, acting Llywydd. Some short questions, Minister, in the light of the acting Llywydd's comments on time. Firstly, I welcome this opportunity now for a much greater regulation and planning of the bus service, which we very much want. I, for example, cannot travel from Tonyrefail to Pontypridd without having to change buses. That makes absolutely no sense. If I want to go into Cardiff, I have to take a bus that takes an hour and a half to get there—so, at peak times, the need for direct buses, fast buses that don't, basically, go around every single potential stop there could be, to get you to work on time as efficiently as possible.

And the other issue is, of course, as I'm sure many of the Senedd Members have had, representations from people going to work who have difficulties accessing buses at the right time, going early enough, able to get them back, to fit in with the nature of a lot of work—a lot of hospitality work, for example—that works at very awkward hours. I'm just wondering what the mechanism will be to feed in those examples and those representations from communities where we know something better can actually be dealt with with an integrated bus service than what exists at the moment. What would be the mechanism for ensuring communities have a real voice in the types of bus service that they want?