Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:52 pm on 22 March 2023.
Can I just begin by thanking Plaid Cymru for bringing this debate, as Jenny indeed did, and also to agree with many of the comments that have been made, both by Delyth in her introductory remarks, and also by Heledd? They stressed very much that this is a matter of social and environmental justice, or if you want to put that into layperson's terms, it's the individual at the top of the Garw valley who works in a social care job, who needs to get there for a late evening shift and then get back very early morning to their family and get into bed, so that they can get back to the next shift. So, I agree with all of that.
The questions that they put are the right questions. The problem is—looking to the Minister—I'm not sure we have heard the answers. Because the question that I put to Delyth, and it's a genuine question—and I held back from intervening, asking you exactly the same, Delyth—is to recognise that the emergency fund has already been withdrawn in England and we've seen already the impact there on services in England. It was a pity that I couldn't actually intervene on the Conservative speaker to ask that, as she wasn't taking interventions. I welcome interventions, by the way, if anybody would want to.
The problem is there was no uplift whatsoever in terms of bus services or transport within the provision of the budget that we just heard. There should have been. There should have been, absolutely, to absolutely give us a longer transition, so we could have these discussions, but there was none. So then, 18 months, the question is: how much additional will fall on Welsh Government to do it, and where do Plaid Cymru believe that should come from? Because that is the real hard choice. So, I agree with the questions you posed. The answers are not, unfortunately, that straightforward.
It is undoubtedly true—as anybody who's been involved with the bus operators over the last two and three years in tense discussions, as I have been in Rhondda Cynon Taf and Bridgend with First Cymru and with other providers, as we've seen services go, by the way—but none of those services would be there, frankly, at this moment, unless that £150 million of additional support had been put in by Welsh Government. That's a simple fact. They would have gone to the wall. There would have been none of those people, even with the reduced service, accessing their jobs, accessing their surgery appointments, being able to socialise, to deal with the issues of isolation we often talk about in this Chamber. It has kept it going, and it's welcome and it isn't reflected, curiously, in the Plaid Cymru motion. It was reflected in Delyth's comments, but not in the motion, that, actually, Welsh Government has gone further and has extended it to have those further conversations. [Interruption.]
I will indeed give way to the Member, although noting that she didn't want to enter into a debate earlier, but I am happy to enter into a debate.