Thank you, Llywydd. I’m pleased to move our amendment. 

We need to do things differently if we want to reach net zero by 2050, and certainly if we want to be more ambitious and reach it by 2035, as we in Plaid Cymru have declared. We must make difficult decisions. Before I elaborate on the emphasis that we want to see on improving people's choices in terms of public transport provision, I want to state clearly once again that the ambition and the impetus behind this decision by the Welsh Government is something that I welcome. This is not a decision that is going to be popular everywhere. But if we only make easy, popular decisions, there won't be a planet left for us. So, I want to just make that clear.

In saying that, we must also acknowledge the importance of taking the people of Wales on the journey to the new future ahead of us. The purpose of our amendment is to refocus the discussion on the need for more investment and for more security for our public transport providers. This is in order to further improve and strengthen people's choices, to offer them more agency. I think a lot of people feel scared or concerned about these changes. So, we need to find ways to allay people's concerns, to satisfy those who are concerned, and to give them confidence about what this will mean for them.

At the moment, there are a number of places in Wales where the option of taking a bus or train is just not available, or the option is not realistic in the context of people's lives. This is particularly true in the Valleys and in rural areas of Wales, and we need to ensure that the necessary new future here will not lead to isolation and loneliness. Again, we must take people on the journey with us. And we have to make the option of travelling on public transport an easier thing for people to do. Between 2019 and 2020, bus fares were raised by 3.5 per cent, and in the same period, around  690 bus stops were lost, making it even more difficult to catch a bus. A constituent contacted me this week, pointing out that it costs £2.20 to get on the bus on the outskirts of Caerphilly and travel into town. That's a journey of 1.5 miles. And they also said that, if they wanted to go to a concert in Cardiff in the evening, it would not be possible for them to get home by bus, because the last bus is at 9 o'clock at night, and the constituent does not feel safe walking home from the train station. I think we have to look at the reality of people's lives and make it possible for people change their ways of living, because, again, we can't just carry on having more and more roads. I want us to achieve a future where this is not only possible, but normal.

Before I finish, Llywydd, I will just say something about trains, because that's already been raised in this debate. A lack of investment in our railways is holding us back as a nation, and the Conservatives in Westminster are to blame for that. There is no justification for the decision to deny Wales the billions that we are owed for HS2. It represents an attack that is both constitutional, environmental and ethical, and there is no justification for that. We have to find new ways of living, but we have to find ways of reaching our greener future with everyone on the same journey as each other. We can't disregard or deprive communities that don't fit the model, but we must make the investment, demand additional powers from Westminster, and create a new reality. That's the way of creating any new pathway, and that's the way for us to ensure that this is a change for all of the people of Wales.