The Bus Emergency Scheme

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:27 pm on 15 February 2023.

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Photo of Mike Hedges Mike Hedges Labour 3:27, 15 February 2023

Thank you, Presiding Officer. As you know, I wasn’t going to speak in this debate, but I think there are three issues that have come up now that I feel I've got to make. To many of my constituents—in fact, most of my constituents—public transport is buses. Eighty per cent of transport is by bus. Morriston Hospital, as you know, Presiding Officer, or Deputy Presiding Officer, is incredibly difficult to get to, but it’s good by bus, because we’ve got the No. 4. I have two questions, really, for the Minister. Why do trains take priority over buses? To the poorer people, buses are their form of transport. Trains are for the wealthier people. And you say: where do we get the money from? Well, you’ve going to give additional rate relief to large hotels, out-of-town shopping centres, fast food outlets, supermarkets. You've never asked me about that as a Government. In fact, if you had, I’d have said, ‘No, we don’t do that. We should spend it on public services’, and I think that there’s a whole range of things that we could not be spending money on. Spending money on rate relief for large companies who are very profitable is not my idea of a priority, and certainly not a socialist priority.