Integrated Public and Community Transport

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 7 June 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:19, 7 June 2022

Well, I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for that, Llywydd. He's right that the long-term answer—and by 'long term' I mean during this Senedd term—is the radical reform of bus services that we will bring forward through the bus Bill, to reverse those 30 and more years of marketisation in the bus industry, which has left communities of the sort that Huw Irranca-Davies has referred to without a service because there isn't a commercial case for doing so. And yet millions of pounds of public money is put into the bus service every year here in Wales. I hope I'm not anticipating an announcement that my colleague was about to make, but on top of the £130 million that we have provided to sustain bus services during the pandemic, I know that my colleague has agreed a further £43 million to go on sustaining those bus services over the rest of this calendar year, and that does give an opportunity to do what the Member for Ogmore has suggested. I know that Bridgend County Borough Council has been one of those councils where reductions in funding from the UK Government has constrained their ability to sustain those community services, but now, with a new Labour-controlled authority in Bridgend, it will be a very good moment to meet and to discuss with the local authority how that investment that we will provide can go on making a difference to the places that the Member has highlighted this afternoon.