2. What discussions has the Minister had with rail operators about the potential disruption to rail services due to the Stereophonics and Tom Jones concerts in Cardiff this weekend? TQ638

Thank you for that question, Natasha. Following recent difficulties with travelling on event days, we've asked Transport for Wales to provide as much additional capacity and extra services as possible, alongside clear advice to customers to support events such as the Stereophonics and Tom Jones concerts this weekend. However—

Thank you for that—

Sorry, I haven't quite finished.

Apologies for that.

However, as a point of realism, no rail operator carries as standard the extra flexibility to provide exactly the same level of service on days when mass events take place as they would on other days.

Thank you, Minister. I'm sure that you're aware that legends Tom Jones and the Stereophonics are set to play this weekend, undoubtedly in front of thousands of people, in Cardiff this Friday and Saturday. Now, only a few weeks ago, we all witnessed the complete chaos when Ed Sheeran staged three concerts in the Principality Stadium. There were 15-mile-long queues on the M4, motorists were trapped in their car parks because the city centre was in gridlock, and many people were left stranded on train platforms for hours on end because our crumbling rail network couldn't cope with the demand. To put it bluntly, Minister, Cardiff and surrounding areas were brought to a standstill because the Labour Government failed to plan ahead, and you cannot blame the Westminster Government for this.

I am sure that many here in the Chamber will agree with me that the last thing we want to see is a repeat of recent events on this coming Friday and Saturday, but sadly it appears that lessons have not been learnt, with Transport for Wales getting their excuses in and asking people not to use its services. It really is a sad state of affairs when people are being urged not to take a train because the rail network isn't fit for the twenty-first century. The Tom Jones concert and the Stereophonics concert had been in the calendar for at least six months, and anyone with this much common sense would know it's going to draw in thousands of people into the city. So, Minister, what lessons have been learnt from the Ed Sheeran fiasco, and what action is your Government going to be taking to minimise the disruption ahead of the concerts this week?

And secondly, the Welsh Government's major events strategy, which expired two years ago, had the aim of, and I quote,

'Developing a balanced and sustainable portfolio of major events which enhances Wales' international reputation and the wellbeing of its people and communities.'

Do you accept that this strategy has well and truly failed? And what discussions have you had with your colleagues about publishing an updated plan that actually does what it sets out to achieve? Thank you, Minister.

Well, again, at least some of the righteous indignation that's perceived in this Chamber from the Conservatives could be rightly directed to getting the right amount of rail infrastructure investment into Wales, couldn't it? So, please do direct it in that direction occasionally.

However, we absolutely, of course, accept that the level of service provided to passengers by TfW over that weekend was not good enough, and we absolutely understand the frustration. We have a limited capacity in relation to current rolling stock, and you already know, and I won't repeat again, that the brand-new trains that are being built and tested now will increase capacity. The long-term solution to overcrowding on event days is, of course, increased capacity, and we're working hard to deliver that through the new trains and increased services in our timetables. None of those things can happen overnight, and TfW is one of the only services to go back to pre-pandemic timetables, just to be clear.

I also think you need to acknowledge that with events such as these concerts, there is significant demand for additional capacity and services for passengers travelling from and back to Bristol, Birmingham, London, et cetera, and those services are run by Great Western Railway and CrossCountry Trains, who only operate the level of service agreed by the UK Government. So, again, directing some of your apparently righteous indignation towards the UK Government would actually be very welcome here.

We are clear what we want to do, and we are clear that we want to introduce the new rolling stock across Wales. We are also clear that people who live locally should try and use other forms of transport on event days. I am also very clear that if you go to a major event, you cannot expect to simply vacate the car park in 1.5 minutes. I love attending live music events; I absolutely accept that it's going to take me longer to get out of the city that I've gone to, and that's any city that you go to those events in, because the transport system is set up for normal operation and some peak. It is not set up to empty Wembley Stadium, for example. So, if you go there, you wait in queues to come out because that's part of the experience; that's what happens. I don't understand what you think we would do with the increased capacity on all the other days of the week. That's not an efficient way to run a railway service. 

Nevertheless, it was very disappointing to see the overcrowding on TfW services in north Wales over the weekend, and we have asked them to make every effort to focus resources at the busiest services and ensure that passenger communication is absolutely timely and to point. We're also in the process of loaning two additional trains from Northern Trains, in addition to the brand-new CAF trains planned to enter service later this year, which will enable that additional capacity to be provided on busy services and to support events.

Thank you, Minister. I was pleased to hear you saying about the weekend, because it's one thing to talk about international bands coming here to Wales, but when our national team is playing in our capital city, I would hope that we could have public transport so that everyone in Wales could come to support their national team, if they chose to do just that. I think there's also a point about connections not just in terms of people from the north coming to south Wales, but people from south Wales need to be able to go to the north, so we have more events there, and that will pose challenges, if we have major events happening in places such as Wrexham, and so on, that people can travel there. That does mean having public transport that does respond to these kinds of major events.

What concerns me most is these stories about overcrowded, late-running trains, or those that don't run at all, when there aren't major events, and also, how do we get not to London, but to the Valleys and areas of Cardiff via public transport. We know that there are new developments in the capital, such as the new arena in the Bay, which will have a capacity of 15,000. We know about all of the housing developments in the north of the capital, and so on. And we know that traffic is in gridlock at the moment. I think about the major challenges that are facing us—the metro isn't going to solve all of those either. So, how are we going to ensure that we now get people out of their cars—if they have cars, and can afford to use them—so that they use public, affordable transport, so that we, as you have already said in your response to the first question today—? How are we going to tackle the climate crisis if there are so many barriers facing us, preventing people from using public transport?

Thank you very much for those remarks. I agree with all of them, really. The big issue for us is how to calibrate the change in modal shift that we are seeking to do, and to shift investment away from support for the car, which is a culturally ingrained concept for all of us. We've had this culturally ingrained in us since the middle of the twentieth century, and in a raft of legislation that went through in the mid 1980s, deregulating buses, and so on—an absolutely catastrophic economic model, which has clearly failed across the country. As my colleague Lee Waters said in committee this morning, it's not at all a surprise that Transport for London works—it wasn't deregulated. And it shows that you need a regulated, joined-up service, with a public service ethos and not a commercial profit ethos, to make those things happen. So, we have a journey to get there, we need to take people with us, we need to make it easier and easier for people to do the right thing and not do the wrong thing.

In response to Rhun on the last question as well, we need to work hard to ensure connectivity all over Wales—north to south, of course, west to east, of course; people in my constituency, in Swansea, have real serious issues with getting to events, and so on. We need to make sure that we do get people out of their cars, onto public transport, and, where possible, locally, into active travel routes. TfW, for the events at the weekend, have been appealing to people who could get there by active travel to do so, and for people to just be sensible about how long it will take for things to happen. As I say, I love an international match myself, it's one of my favourite things to do, but you factor into the equation how long it's going to take you to get there and park and get in, and how long it's going to take you to get out. Because we know that cities, especially if there's a stadium right in the middle, have issues with the peak right at the end of the concert. It's not unique to Cardiff or Wales, that happens all over the world, and if you're sensible, you regard it as part of the experience. And that's not to take away from the fact that we are not satisfied with the passenger experience and the overcrowding—of course we are not. We have a range of measures in place, and it will take a little time to bed in to make those things possible.

Minister, thank you for your answers so far. What is disappointing from your answers so far is that you're deflecting to say that you can't plan for peaks and troughs. These events are well advertised, well understood, because Cardiff hasn't suddenly become a destination city; the Principality Stadium has been there since 1999, and hosted many major events. There are simple things like the flow of information to customers at Cardiff Central railway station, which wasn't evident during the Ed Sheeran event, and people just standing in queues oblivious to what could happen—frustration is bound to be created in that situation. It is not acceptable for people to have to wait two to three hours to get out of car parks. I accept the point that you've made, that you wouldn't expect to get out in a minute or two—no-one would expect that—but two to three hours, Minister, that is not acceptable.

For people to come from London and other parts of the country and arrive in our capital city after allowing extra time to travel here, but only arriving at 9.30 p.m. or 9.45 p.m. after leaving London at midday, that clearly is unacceptable. So, from these benches, what we're asking is what lessons have been learnt, what measures can be put in place. I appreciate there's a limit on how much rolling stock is available, but when TfW say they're going to run rolling stock and that rolling stock does not materialise, that adds to the exasperation that people feel when they're in those queues at Cardiff Central station. So, please, can we have something positive to take away from this session that shows that there will be better messaging, that where the timetable is published it will be kept to, so that people can have confidence that they can make a reasonable journey in and out of our capital city? 

Yes, absolutely, Andrew. I'm not in any way saying that we can't do better. My answer to the question—I'll just repeat a little bit of it—is that we have asked Transport for Wales to provide as much additional capacity and extra services as possible, alongside absolutely clear advice to customers about the nature of the service and what we're looking at. I completely agree with that. I do not want people standing in lines not having any clue what's going on or anything else. I completely agree with that and I am not in any way sliding away from the fact that we should have done that better last time. We've had stringent conversations with Transport for Wales to maximise that, absolutely.

But, as I also said, we don't run all of the services coming from Bristol, Manchester and London. Those are UK operators, operating to UK rules, and only the UK Ministers can talk to them about increasing capacity and increasing rolling stock. Genuinely, I'm not trying to make a political point. Genuinely, they need to be asked to make sure that Cardiff runs as a destination properly with those other services too. And you on those benches, you could add your voice to that, because that would be helpful. But I am not sliding out of saying that we can't do better. We absolutely can and should do better, but we do need all the services coming—to Cardiff in this particular instance, but as Heledd just said, to all over Wales—to step up to that as well.

I agree that two or three hours is not acceptable, but nor should we be expecting the whole thing to clear in 20 minutes, as it does not in any stadium in any place in the world. This is about some realism, about people planning their journeys properly, about local people being sensitive to how long that's going to take and using alternate means of transport, where that's possible. If it's not possible, then, clearly, they should be relying on public services and everybody being sensible about it. But I cannot emphasise enough that I started this answer by saying that we have had those conversations with Transport for Wales and asked them to provide that additional capacity and extra services as much as possible.  

Thank you, Minister.