Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 10 November 2021.
I've recently met both with First and with the trade unions to discuss the range of pressures that the bus industry is facing at the moment. The specific issue that Natasha Asghar raises, I'm afraid, is a direct consequence of the privatisation of the bus industry back in the mid 1980s by the Conservative Government, and we're still living with the consequences. The way that the companies are incentivised in order to run routes that maximise their revenues and not invest in socially necessary routes remains a perennial problem for us. It's one of the reasons why we are developing our bus strategy this year, with legislation coming before the Senedd, because we do need to regulate the bus industry through franchising. We can't allow commercial operators simply to cherry-pick those routes that they wish to. So, I'm afraid, this is the result of the free market economics that the Conservatives insist we follow. This shows that it's failing to help people to make the necessary transition from cars to public transport, and until we fix that we won't be able to do it.