I think it is important that we have an opportunity to debate these points in this forum, as we do this afternoon. And it's important, I think, that we debate these points, that we listen to what each other has to say, and then that we take interventions from each other so we have a debate, rather than just reading out a preprepared contribution. Because if this debate is to mean anything, it means listening, that we're in receiving mode and not simply transmission mode. This Minister, to be fair to him, is. Sometimes the First Minister wishes he wasn't. But I'm sure he does listen to all these different things, and then replies in his own way. [Laughter.] 

There are three things I would like the Minister to address in his contribution to the debate this afternoon. The first is Government policy, because the Government has been very clear in outlining what its policy is, and we’ve heard Jane Dodds just describe some elements of that, and Sioned Williams beforehand addressing that. But surely, if the Government is serious about the use of buses and public transport, then it will ensure, when it is planning the delivery of public services, that public transport is a part of that. For five years I’ve come to this place and argued for bus services linking my constituency to the Grange hospital, and for five years not a single Minister has ever disagreed with me. Not one. And not one bus has been delivered. Not one. To be fair to the current Minister, he replies to my correspondence, and points out there are buses running from elsewhere, and that’s very comforting, of course, but it’s not the answer to the question. If the Government is serious about what its ambitions are then it must ensure that public transport—in this case, buses—links in to all the delivery of public services, and public services should not be reorganised without a public transport plan to sustain and to support that reorganisation. That means the lady I spoke to in my constituency this week, who told me that when her mother was unwell and in the Grange hospital over the last weekend she not only felt vulnerable and unwell, but isolated as well, and nobody should feel like that when they are facing treatment in a hospital. The Government needs to recognise that.

The second issue I’d like to address to the Minister in this debate—. I smiled when Jane Dodds mentioned how impressed she was with Fflecsi. I would also advise her to come to Ebbw Vale, because in Ebbw Vale, where we’ve had the programme on Fflecsi over the last couple of years, there have been some good elements to it. Let’s not beat about the bush: the access to industrial estates and to more outlying communities has meant there’s been a service that wasn’t delivered before. One of the issues, of course, with the use of a bus pass and subsidised transport is that passenger patterns have changed, and so there isn’t always a commercial model available to us to deliver public transport for people who are going to work early in the morning and coming back late at night. Fflecsi has worked there, and it’s worked to connect areas such as Garnlydan and the Rassau industrial estate. It’s worked there. But what it hasn’t done is to deliver the public transport needs of the town of Ebbw Vale during the day. The local authority there is saying, ‘Actually, what we want is flexi Fflecsi, so that we have the Fflecsi service at the beginning and the end of the day to enable the service to deliver’—[Interruption.] I will give way—'at those times of day, but during the core hours of the day, we want the town circular back’, which is just a bus running round the town providing opportunities for people to catch that service, which gives them the certainty of knowing when the buses will be there. I’ll give way.