Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 14 February 2023.
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.