So, as we look at the stark science of climate change, and as we reflect on the advice of the UK Committee on Climate Change, the move to electric cars is not enough. We need to see fewer car trips and a shift of travel modes from car to public transport. To reach net zero, we must acknowledge the centrality of the bus system. Buses already carry three quarters of public transport journeys in Wales, so we need to pay much more attention to the bus system if we are to achieve our legally binding targets. We have to face up to the fact that the commercial, fragmented and privatised bus system that we currently have makes it impossible to achieve our ambition of making buses the easiest and most attractive way to make everyday journeys. 

Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm pleased that the people responding to our consultation on the White Paper agreed with us. We've published today the summary of responses to that consultation, which shows that 96 per cent of respondents agreed that we need to change how we deliver bus services to meet people's needs and respond to the climate emergency. We have a lot of bus operators in Wales doing their best to keep services running, especially those small operators working to make sure that their communities stay connected. However, they're working in a system designed to treat bus journeys as a commodity rather than a public service. Despite relying on hundreds of millions of pounds of public funding in Wales, private operators can still choose which services they want to run, leaving local authorities to pick up the bill for providing services to more rural and less profitable locations. Even with this support, across the UK, bus fares have risen by 403 per cent since 1987, compared to just 163 per cent for driving costs.

We’re proposing instead to put people before profit and bring the planning and securing of bus services back under public control. This means that we can work with communities to design the best bus network we can within the funding available and planning services to improve coverage rather than competing over or cherry-picking the most profitable areas. It means that we can co-ordinate services, so that people can make their connections with trains or with other buses smoothly and easily to get to where they need to go, with all the passenger information they need freely available in one place. And it means that we can simplify ticketing, offering simple area-wide fares, so that people don’t have to navigate tickets from different operators, and don’t end up paying over the odds for tickets on routes that the operator considers marginal. As we have put in our White Paper, it means that we can deliver 'one network, one timetable, one ticket'.

To deliver this in practice, we’re proposing a franchising model. This will need close working relationships with local authorities and regions across Wales to design our bus network and to let contracts to deliver those services. It allows us to create a guiding mind for the bus system in Wales, working in the public interest to determine when and where services run, and how much they cost to use. People agreed with this model in our consultation. Two thirds of people agreed with the need for franchising to improve bus services, and over three quarters agreed with the model that we’re proposing to introduce.

There's still a lot of work to do and we are working with local authorities on their comments in the consultation responses to make sure that we build a system that lets the whole public sector come together and deliver the bus services we need. We’re working with Transport for Wales and the bus industry so that we can bring them with us to create attractive contract opportunities for all our bus operators, including the many smaller operators we rely on in Wales. We also want to allow more publicly owned municipal bus operators into the mix, a move that was supported by over 80 per cent of people who responded to our consultation. And legislation can only take us so far, Dirprwy Lywydd. There will still be difficult decisions to make about investing funding in services, improving infrastructure and making fares affordable so buses truly are a realistic alternative to the car. But legislation to change how we deliver bus services will be a vital first step on that journey. The response to our consultation has been emphatic that this change is necessary, and has given clear support for treating buses as a public service again in Wales.

We have the opportunity, in this Senedd, to change course to tackle transport poverty, to build a public transport system capable of meeting our climate targets. And we'll keep working with our partners to make this a reality, and I look forward to debating legislation that can set us on that path in this Senedd. Diolch.