Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:56 pm on 6 December 2022.
Well, thank you for that series of well-targeted questions. So, as I say, we need to make bus use normal again. It used to be normal. It's stopped becoming normal. Over half of people never use a bus. It is by definition something that lots of people have no experience of, and that is critical to change if we want to meet our climate change targets, because, without tackling transport, which is some 17 per cent of our emissions, we're not going to be able to reach net zero. So, how do we get people back? We need a turn-up-and-go system. We need to make them affordable and attractive. We need to make them feel safe. And we need to connect up to places where people want to go. This is all doable. In fact, it is perfectly normal in many European countries. It's just become abnormal here, because we've let the privatised system put the interests of the commercial operator first. That is no criticism of them; that's how the system was set up. They're working within the system. But when you ask about not being interconnected and not linking up to key services, well, the system is not designed to do that. In fact, there's a disincentive to do that, because many bus operators will say that they don't want to link up to the nearest train station, because that then creates competition to the bus route from the train and they would lose customers. So, they sometimes will avoid a bus stop near a train station, because that is against their commercial interest. Now, that is clearly not what we want to see. So, having a strategic system that is linked up is a key part of the appeal of the franchising model, and essential for achieving our vision for buses.
And your point on transport poverty was very well made. Buses are an essential lifeline. TfW surveys suggest that some 80 per cent of bus passengers don't have an alternative to the car, so we need to see this not just as a climate investment but as a social justice investment, and it's particularly acute for those on lower incomes who rely on buses for essential journeys to work and so on. And the issue of fares you raise is critical to that. We have an ambition to lower fares, and we've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes over the last year to look at modelling of different price points and what modal shift that would bring. It's a great frustration to us that the financial settlement we've got makes it very difficult to advance that agenda in the short term, but I'm clear that we do need to do that if we're going to achieve our modal shift targets and if we're going to make the potential of this legislation. The legislation is ultimately just a framework. It's an essential framework, but it is not sufficient; it is simply necessary. And we do have to, all of us, collectively address—[Inaudible.]