Can I thank the Minister for his statement this afternoon, and for the advance copy as well, which was appreciated? I am a bit disappointed, Minister, that you haven't brought forward a statement on the last Wednesday before half-term. Instead, I and Members had to read about it later that day in the media. But it would be useful if you could set out why you weren't able to bring forward a statement to the Senedd before the half-term period.

From my perspective, people generally don't care who runs a train service, or what name is on the side of a train; they tend to care more about the service, they tend to care about whether the train is going to arrive on time, or is it going to arrive at all, are they able to get Wi-Fi, are they able to find a clean toilet or a toilet at all on the train. These are some of the issues that passengers tend to care about, rather than who is running the service. But Welsh Government's decision to take control of the operation, regardless of the right or wrongs of that, doesn't fill me with great optimism. I think of Cardiff Airport and the cost implications for the Government and the risk associated with that, and this is on a whole new level in terms of taking on the operation of rail.

Now, it's the cost implications that I think we do need to have answers on, and I'm specifically thinking of the long-term costs of the decision that you've made. Putting aside the rights and wrongs, you've made the decision and there are going to be huge cost implications for not just your Government department, but across the whole of Government. When I raised this with you 10 days or two weeks ago at the Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister, you said that you're going to be working through the cost implications as part of those detailed negotiations, and that when you made the oral statement in two weeks' time, which is now, you'd be able to provide us with the costs moving forward. I appreciate your statement today talks about not being able to do that at this stage, because negotiations are still going on and you're asking Members to have patience with that process because of the commercial sensitivities, but perhaps you could tell us when you will be in a position to conclude those negotiations and answer questions around the costs. Ultimately, tell us, Minister, what it is that you won't be spending money on in the future to meet the costs of this decision two weeks ago.

Perhaps you could also tell us, Minister, what other options were Welsh Government and you considering before reaching this decision—what were your other thought processes? What were the other options on the table? Perhaps you could talk about those. Also, what are the Welsh Government's long-term aspirations in terms of public ownership of rail services in Wales? Is it the case that, ultimately, you believe that it will stay in public ownership and be operated by Welsh Government, or do you envisage that the operation will go back to private ownership at some time in the future?

And finally, and probably back to my opening comments, really, passengers care about the implications of the service for them, so what are the implications in terms of new rolling stock and station improvements, which, of course, are what passengers and the public particularly care about?