7. What steps is the First Minister taking to support public transport in Aberconwy? OQ59113

Public transport connects people to one another, binds communities together and enables businesses to grow and expand. The Wales transport strategy sets out our plans for an accessible, sustainable and efficient transport system across the nation, including in Aberconwy.

If only. Trefnydd, in the Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru co-operation agreement, you make a clear promise to ask Transport for Wales to work with local authorities in north-west Wales and the Welsh Government to develop plans for an integrated transport system. Now, rather than seeing progress, Conwy County Borough Council, Gwynedd and Welsh Government have failed to deliver for my communities in the Conwy valley. We have had a petition signed by over 700 very concerned constituents, and that was to save the T19 between Llandudno and Blaenau Ffestiniog, and also I've written several letters to Conwy council and Gwynedd outlining some different solutions. I've met with all the bus operators, who actually want to keep this service in place. So severe is the situation now that students and pupils are having to rely on private transport to get from the Blaenau Ffestiniog area to a school in Llanrwst and the college in Llandrillo, and staff cannot get to work. Solutions should have been in place before this service ended. For example, the Fflecsi service could be extended up the A470 corridor. But, TfW are dragging their heels. First Minister—or Trefnydd, in this instance, what urgent steps will you and your Government take to address the serious problems caused by the termination of the T19? And don't you agree with me that, in this day and age, it is a crisis when children cannot get to school? Thank you.

As the T19 service was operated commercially by the bus company, they have told us that, unfortunately, passenger growth has not matched the operator's expectations and driver shortages have impacted on their ability to continue to operate the weekday and the Saturday service on a purely commercial basis. So, I go back to an earlier answer: this is why we're trying to bring forward the bus Bill, and this is what happens when you have privatisation. [Interruption.] Well, unfortunately, that's what we've got. It might be too late, but unfortunately, the privatisation was there. 

I think it's a bit unfair to say that Transport for Wales have failed. They work very closely with the local authorities to ensure—[Interruption.] Your question was around Transport for Wales, and you said that they had failed. I'm just telling you they haven't failed, they've been working very closely with the local authorities to ensure that communities in the Conwy valley who were served by the T19 bus service are provided with suitable alternative travel arrangements. Your last point is very important: there need to be alternative travel arrangements to ensure—the example you gave was children getting to school. Those alternatives have been publicised and, as a Government, we're working with Bus Users Cymru to hold further passenger consultation events in the area over the next few weeks. So, I hope you'll publicise that to your constituents. And, of course, we are working on a new model for bus services in Wales, which will allow us to work with local authorities so that we can design together the bus networks that their communities need, because they're the ones best placed to enable us to work with them and make sure that we put contracts in place to deliver them. What we'll be doing as a Government is putting people before profits.