7. What plans does the Welsh Government have to improve bus services in North Wales? OQ57332

I thank the Member for that, Llywydd. Transport for Wales is working with the local authorities in north Wales to prepare a comprehensive plan to improve local bus services as part of our recent announcement to create a fully integrated public transport metro network across the area.

Diolch, First Minister. Much of north Wales is rural, unlike large city areas such as Cardiff. It is a complicated web of transport hubs consisting of many isolated rural communities, a large amount of historical town centres, health facilities, railway stations, and it's intrinsically linked with education to make it viable. How will Welsh Government ensure that the vast knowledge of local authority expertise and good relations with operators of this complicated network are shared effectively with corporate joint committees and built upon for this vital service, while retaining local choices?

I thank Carolyn Thomas for that, and she's right to point to the complexity of planning transport services over a geography that includes urban concentrations, but many, many rural areas as well. As the Member knows, the Welsh Government will bring forward legislation during this Senedd term to reform bus services across Wales, making sure that they are organised and delivered in line with the public interest, rather than being driven by the pursuit of private profit. But the way that we have designed corporate joint committees, Llywydd, I think does offer that flexibility, because each corporate joint committee, able to employ staff directly, to hold assets and budgets, will be the product of the local authorities who form part of that CJC. And it will be for that CJC to make sure that it acts in ways that reflect the nature of the area that they are serving, and that its staff are able to discharge its functions in a way that reflects the particular needs of that CJC area. 

Now, I am very committed to the fact that we have asked local authorities to deliver CJCs in the first instance that are in the fields of transport, strategic development and local economic planning, because I think those are three clearly interlinked responsibilities of local authorities, and making each one of them come together across those geographies in a CJC will allow for exactly the sort of local flexible intelligence to be applied in discharging those responsibilities on those new footprints.