6. Beth mae'r Llywodraeth yn ei wneud i hyrwyddo teithio cynaliadwy yn Nwyrain De Cymru? OQ59163

Llywydd, implementation of the Burns commission proposals provides the most effective way of promoting sustainable travel. Publication this month of the Burns delivery unit annual report sets out the real progress already made, and future plans for walking, cycling and using public transport in south-east Wales.

Diolch yn fawr, Prif Weinidog. The recent news that road projects in Wales would not be funded was a bitter pill to swallow for some. It would have been a bit easier to understand if it had not been accompanied by the announcement a day later that the bus emergency scheme is going to be phased out in June. For many of the communities I represent, the bus service is a lifeline. For older people, it represents independence; for young people, it represents education; and for people who do not have a car, it represents employment. I fear your Government's decision is going to have a huge detrimental impact on people's lives. It would also run counter to efforts to promote sustainable transport at a time when we should be doing all we can in this field. First Minister, what impact studies have been conducted into this decision, and will you reconsider the decision on behalf of the many communities that will be worse off as a result, until the full consequences of the decision are known?

Llywydd, I think it's important just to set the record straight here: it was emergency funding, as the Member said. And emergency funding cannot be indefinitely extended beyond the point where the emergency led to the millions and millions of pounds that have been found by the Welsh taxpayer to support the bus industry while the emergency was in operation. Over £150 million, over and above the millions of pounds that are already invested in bus services, have been provided to the industry since the COVID pandemic began. It was always going to be gap funding to help the industry while the pandemic was having its impact.

We have already announced an extension of that scheme for a further three months—an initial three months, as the announcement said—while we are able to discuss with the industry, with local authorities, how we can focus the bus services support grant for the future, moving the industry away, as it has to move, from reliance on emergency funding and towards the future that the bus Bill that we will bring forward to the floor of the Senedd will fashion for bus services, a future in a way that matches the money that the public provides with the public's interest in an effective bus service in all parts of Wales.

First Minister, after your Government's economically damaging new policy on roads, it's becoming clearer than ever before that we need to promote and have functioning sustainable travel in place, yet we are seeing bus services cut in reality, as my fellow Member for South Wales East has just outlined, and rail services that have become a laughing stock, as I'm sure north Wales Members will also agree. This is without even mentioning the fact that you're refusing to build new roads and are way behind on electric vehicle charging points. Promoting the use of a few bus lanes here and there really isn't going to cut the mustard, as much as the Member for Llanelli would like to think it does. My question is simple, First Minister: how are you promoting sustainable travel without roads being built, without bus services increasing now, and without a functioning rail service?

Llywydd, the Member's party went to the people of Wales in the last Senedd election promising the largest road-building programme ever in the history of Wales, and that proposition was roundly rejected by the people of Wales. Of course, the Member can continue to put in front of people the thing that people have rejected many times already. There is a fundamental difference of view between the sort of future that she sees, in which Wales will be concreted over and the climate emergency ignored in the process, and the proposals of the Welsh Government, which, by the way, Llywydd, are never that no new roads would be built—it is just that the roads we will build will be roads where there is a safety case for doing so, and where roads contribute positively to the reduction of emissions and make the contribution that Wales has to make to tackling the greatest emergency that our children and grandchildren will see.

As part of that, I reject entirely her idea that we don't have a functioning rail service here in Wales. It is a great shame that her party in Wales has not succeeded in persuading their Members at Westminster that the £5 billion we miss out on because of the misclassification of the high speed 2 line should come to Wales; that would help us to provide a better rail service in Wales, wouldn't it? In the meantime, just this week—just yesterday—in the Member's own region, new Stadler trains began work on the Rhymney line. There will be eight such trains in May. It is a small demonstration of the major investment that is being made in Wales in the rail service, despite the deliberate denial of the investment that people in Wales ought to have and that is being provided to people elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

I thank the First Minister.