Statement in the Welsh Parliament by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change: Bus Reform

Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters

Diolch, Dirprwy Llywydd. Earlier this year, we published a White Paper, setting out our plans to bring bus services in Wales back under public control. Its title captured our ambition: 'One Network, One Timetable, One Ticket’. And to meet the urgent challenge of climate change, we need more people using sustainable forms of transport. To do that, we need to make bus, rail and active travel the most convenient and most attractive ways to make everyday journeys. In short, we need to make the right thing to do the easiest thing to do, because people will do what is easiest, and we've spent some 70 years making car travel the easiest and most convenient way of getting around, whilst public transport has been left to wither. This has been particularly acute in the case of bus use since privatisation in the early 1980s. The Tories said that this would bring lower fares, better services and higher passenger numbers, but the market has failed. From 1987 to 2019, bus journeys in Wales instead reduced by a third, whilst car usage has increased by 45 per cent since 1993. 186

So, as we look at the stark science of climate change, and as we reflect on the advice of the UK Committee on Climate Change, the move to electric cars is not enough. We need to see fewer car trips and a shift of travel modes from car to public transport. To reach net zero, we must acknowledge the centrality of the bus system. Buses already carry three quarters of public transport journeys in Wales, so we need to pay much more attention to the bus system if we are to achieve our legally binding targets. We have to face up to the fact that the commercial, fragmented and privatised bus system that we currently have makes it impossible to achieve our ambition of making buses the easiest and most attractive way to make everyday journeys. 187

Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm pleased that the people responding to our consultation on the White Paper agreed with us. We've published today the summary of responses to that consultation, which shows that 96 per cent of respondents agreed that we need to change how we deliver bus services to meet people's needs and respond to the climate emergency. We have a lot of bus operators in Wales doing their best to keep services running, especially those small operators working to make sure that their communities stay connected. However, they're working in a system designed to treat bus journeys as a commodity rather than a public service. Despite relying on hundreds of millions of pounds of public funding in Wales, private operators can still choose which services they want to run, leaving local authorities to pick up the bill for providing services to more rural and less profitable locations. Even with this support, across the UK, bus fares have risen by 403 per cent since 1987, compared to just 163 per cent for driving costs.188

We’re proposing instead to put people before profit and bring the planning and securing of bus services back under public control. This means that we can work with communities to design the best bus network we can within the funding available and planning services to improve coverage rather than competing over or cherry-picking the most profitable areas. It means that we can co-ordinate services, so that people can make their connections with trains or with other buses smoothly and easily to get to where they need to go, with all the passenger information they need freely available in one place. And it means that we can simplify ticketing, offering simple area-wide fares, so that people don’t have to navigate tickets from different operators, and don’t end up paying over the odds for tickets on routes that the operator considers marginal. As we have put in our White Paper, it means that we can deliver 'one network, one timetable, one ticket'.189

To deliver this in practice, we’re proposing a franchising model. This will need close working relationships with local authorities and regions across Wales to design our bus network and to let contracts to deliver those services. It allows us to create a guiding mind for the bus system in Wales, working in the public interest to determine when and where services run, and how much they cost to use. People agreed with this model in our consultation. Two thirds of people agreed with the need for franchising to improve bus services, and over three quarters agreed with the model that we’re proposing to introduce.190

There's still a lot of work to do and we are working with local authorities on their comments in the consultation responses to make sure that we build a system that lets the whole public sector come together and deliver the bus services we need. We’re working with Transport for Wales and the bus industry so that we can bring them with us to create attractive contract opportunities for all our bus operators, including the many smaller operators we rely on in Wales. We also want to allow more publicly owned municipal bus operators into the mix, a move that was supported by over 80 per cent of people who responded to our consultation. And legislation can only take us so far, Dirprwy Lywydd. There will still be difficult decisions to make about investing funding in services, improving infrastructure and making fares affordable so buses truly are a realistic alternative to the car. But legislation to change how we deliver bus services will be a vital first step on that journey. The response to our consultation has been emphatic that this change is necessary, and has given clear support for treating buses as a public service again in Wales.191

We have the opportunity, in this Senedd, to change course to tackle transport poverty, to build a public transport system capable of meeting our climate targets. And we'll keep working with our partners to make this a reality, and I look forward to debating legislation that can set us on that path in this Senedd. Diolch.192

Natasha Asghar MS15:46:04

I thank the Deputy Minister for his statement today, and I'd like to start off by saying that I do believe that it's important to reverse the decline in bus services across Wales. It's fact that the number of bus journeys in Wales has fallen from 100 million a year in 2016-17 to 89 million in 2019-20. With almost 25 per cent of people in Wales not having access to a car or van, this decline needs to be reversed to encourage commuters out of their cars, combat the isolation and loneliness of people, many of whom are elderly and vulnerable, who do not have a bus service, and also to ultimately fight climate change. I accept state intervention in the market through franchising has a role to play if it improves the quality and number of bus services across Wales.193

So, Deputy Minister, do you agree with me that, going forward, any new model for the delivery of bus services needs to be affordable, sustainable and deliverable? As such, do you also agree there needs to be certainty about long-term financial support, after years of underfunding of buses in Wales? And how will you ensure that unprofitable but socially desirable services will, indeed, be retained? Will bus franchise contracts, for example, contain clauses to ensure that vital facilities, such as hospitals, are served by bus routes as a priority, which many of my colleagues across this Chamber have said time and time again? How will your proposals, going forward, help those people in remote and rural areas of Wales who have an infrequent or non-existent bus service?194

If the new model is to work, it will require greater co-ordination between operators' timetables to ensure seamless journey times to make valuable connections. I'd like to know how will you ensure this is achieved. And could you update the Senedd, moving forward, on progress delivering one of my passions, the all-Wales travel card, to assist passengers to move from one part of Wales to another with ease and in a seamless manner? Previously, you've mentioned the creation of a supervisory board, to include a bus operator representative, to co-ordinate the regional bus networks devised by a corporate joint committee. Who will this board be accountable to? Who will scrutinise its actions? And how will it ensure consistent good service standards are, indeed, maintained going forward?195

Finally, Deputy Minister, moving people out of their cars and on to buses obviously benefits the environment. If this new model works, it will increase the number of buses on our roads. So, do you intend to maximise the benefit to the environment by supporting the use of electric buses by operators bidding for the franchise? These are all invaluable questions, Deputy Minister. We, alongside the public, would like to have those answers sooner rather than later. Thank you.    196

Lee Waters MS15:48:24

Thank you for those questions. There are many of them, and I'll do my best to answer them, but I warmly welcome Natasha Asghar's statement that she accepts the role of franchising and asks how we make it affordable, sustainable and deliverable, and this, I think, is at the crux of it, really. I think we need to decouple how do you make the system better and then the question of how do we grow the system and how do we run services, and I think those are two related but separate questions. And the latter will depend upon the funding that is available, and I must tell Members that, when they see the budget for next year, we are really struggling to be able to deliver our public transport ambitions, because of the, in effect, significant cut to our budget, and that is a real constraint for us. So, I think the system will improve the amount of money we already spend by making it more strategic and less fragmented, but the question of how we scale that in time will depend on the budget and the priority that this Senedd is willing to put on public transport. The question was about how we retain unprofitable but socially necessary routes, and that is a critical part of the need for this model. Because what this model allows is us to plan on a regional basis, or an area basis. It's to be decided what the footprint is. It could be carved up into smaller units. It could be done on a corporate joint committee basis. That's to be determined. But within that we will be able to cross-subside routes from the commercially profitable ones, and put the profit into less profitable routes, but socially necessary ones, as Natasha Asghar asks. So, I think that is the core of this approach. That's why this approach is so important, because it allows us to do that, whereas currently it is illegal do that, and that's one of the perversities of the privatised system we live with.197

Likewise, how do we link to hospitals and key public services? The exercise that TfW is going through now with local authorities—started already in Ynys Môn and Gwynedd and working through—is to sit down with their local experts and map where the route networks should go, what are the key trip generators they should link to, and make sure those routes are then part of the franchising tendering arrangements. So, it allows us to take a strategic, whole-area approach, again, unlike the current system where, for example, the Grange hospital in Cwmbran is very poorly served by bus routes. So, that wouldn't happen under this system. Similarly, in rural areas, and I've been having a series of meetings with local authorities from rural areas on what we can do together to make modal shift practical and realistic in rural areas, and there are a number of things that we've identified we can do. But having regular bus services—. Because, again, this is matter of choice. There are parts of rural Germany where they have a bus service every hour to every village. Now, that's doable, and we could do that in Wales, if that was the priority we set and if we put aside funding for that. In Germany they raise a regional tax on businesses to pay for that, for example. So, there's a debate to be had about how we do it, but it certainly can be done.198

In terms of the all-Wales travel card, I completely agree. That is an aspiration we share, and this will allow that to happen. The interoperability of tickets between different modes of transport in different parts of Wales is something very much we'll be able to do under the legislation.199

Who will the board, the supervisory board, be accountable to? Well, it'll combine different elements. So, we absolutely want to have local accountability retained. So, local councils will still be accountable to their voters and to their ward members for the things that local councils are best in charge of—so, local bus stops, routes and so on. At the regional level we'll have the CJC structure, which has its own accountability routes, and then, of course, the Welsh Government will continue to be accountable to the Senedd.200

And electric buses, finally, are absolutely essential for the modal shift agenda, as well as meeting our carbon targets, where we have targets to reduce the 50 per cent most polluting vehicles by the end of decade. And I think that is going to be key to the franchising system and the conditions we set for awarding the contracts.201

Delyth Jewell MS15:52:59

Thank you, Minister. Bus services are an essential means of travel for people all over Wales, but the reason that we're discussing this today, evidently, is the need to reform the system. Fewer and fewer people are opting to use bus services, which is putting the system under strain. We've heard already this afternoon many of the reasons why people are less likely to use buses—changes in behaviour, such as online shopping; too many cars on the roads; COVID; and many other factors—but, as you've set out, Deputy Minister, buses serve an entirely essential role. They offer an alternative way of travelling for people who don't own a car, but they are also so much better for the environment. As it stands, around 14 per cent of Wales's carbon emissions stem from transport. I'm sure you will be very aware of these figures, so we really do need to see a drastic change here. And I welcome the fact that a drastic change is being promoted here.202

What I want to know from the Minister is—. You've said a lot in terms of your vision for the electrification of buses across Wales. You said that you want to do the right thing and the easiest thing. Is that the way that you would summarise your vision for this system, particularly, perhaps, in a way that people would understand and support, to try to get people to buy into the need for change?203

Another thing that needs to be addressed is transport poverty. Transport for Wales has found that 13 per cent of households in Wales are households that don't have access to a car, and that 25 per cent of people who use buses are living with a disability or a long-term health condition. Providing access to public transport for people facing those kinds of difficulties is vital.204

Minister, would you be able to outline how any reforms would improve the affordability of buses and also how accessible they are? I have previously raised concerns about improving how safe women feel, not only when using public transport, but also when getting to the bus or the train, and this is especially the case at night. I'd welcome some comments from you in that.205

And finally, the transport system in Wales is not sufficiently interconnected. This has already been raised this afternoon; we all know about that. Too often, walking and cycling routes, and essential services such as schools and hospitals, as you discussed with Natasha Asghar, are not sufficiently connected to the transport system. This all needs to work around the reality of people's lives. So, Minister, what are you going to do to deal with not only that but to ensure that we can try to have behavioural change to accompany the structural changes, because they need to go hand in hand? I know that that is one of the biggest challenges that you will face. Thank you.206

Lee Waters MS15:56:30

Well, thank you for that series of well-targeted questions. So, as I say, we need to make bus use normal again. It used to be normal. It's stopped becoming normal. Over half of people never use a bus. It is by definition something that lots of people have no experience of, and that is critical to change if we want to meet our climate change targets, because, without tackling transport, which is some 17 per cent of our emissions, we're not going to be able to reach net zero. So, how do we get people back? We need a turn-up-and-go system. We need to make them affordable and attractive. We need to make them feel safe. And we need to connect up to places where people want to go. This is all doable. In fact, it is perfectly normal in many European countries. It's just become abnormal here, because we've let the privatised system put the interests of the commercial operator first. That is no criticism of them; that's how the system was set up. They're working within the system. But when you ask about not being interconnected and not linking up to key services, well, the system is not designed to do that. In fact, there's a disincentive to do that, because many bus operators will say that they don't want to link up to the nearest train station, because that then creates competition to the bus route from the train and they would lose customers. So, they sometimes will avoid a bus stop near a train station, because that is against their commercial interest. Now, that is clearly not what we want to see. So, having a strategic system that is linked up is a key part of the appeal of the franchising model, and essential for achieving our vision for buses. 207

And your point on transport poverty was very well made. Buses are an essential lifeline. TfW surveys suggest that some 80 per cent of bus passengers don't have an alternative to the car, so we need to see this not just as a climate investment but as a social justice investment, and it's particularly acute for those on lower incomes who rely on buses for essential journeys to work and so on. And the issue of fares you raise is critical to that. We have an ambition to lower fares, and we've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes over the last year to look at modelling of different price points and what modal shift that would bring. It's a great frustration to us that the financial settlement we've got makes it very difficult to advance that agenda in the short term, but I'm clear that we do need to do that if we're going to achieve our modal shift targets and if we're going to make the potential of this legislation. The legislation is ultimately just a framework. It's an essential framework, but it is not sufficient; it is simply necessary. And we do have to, all of us, collectively address—[Inaudible.]208

Lee Waters MS16:00:15

I mentioned the point of transport poverty—I'm not sure if that was recorded—which is critical. The issue of women's safety, which Delyth Jewell mentioned, is a really important point too, and there is work going on on a collaborative project with Gender+ Bus Wales, to tackle harassment and violence against women and girls in public transport. But, the other thing I'd say about safety and perceptions of safety is there's safety in numbers. The more people we get using public transport, the safer it becomes and the safer it feels. So, this whole agenda is interconnected, and that's where the final point on behaviour change is so important, because it's not good enough just to provide the services, we have to nudge people who have fallen out of the habit of using buses to get back onto buses again.218

Carolyn Thomas MS16:01:18

I welcome that the Welsh Government's focus remains on sustainable public transport, despite significant real-terms funding cuts from the UK Government. The title of my petition to the Senedd three years ago was, 'Buses for people not profit', and as you said, it's a real social justice issue, ensuring that no-one is left behind, and that's the difference a Welsh Labour Government makes here. I remember using European funding for the procurement of rural buses and services, and that's no more, and councils may look at withdrawing bus subsidies to fill the funding gap. Deputy Minister, how will the cuts impact on this plan you've presented here today, and would you consider looking at bulk fleet procurement, working in partnership with operators as one solution? Another would be providing some public transport as social value through the procurement of maybe a highway resurfacing contract through local authorities and also possibly active travel contracts, and then that could be used for medical appointments and access to free swimming through schools, where I know transport has been raised as an issue—accessing swimming. Thank you. 219

Lee Waters MS16:02:29

Well, thank you to Carolyn Thomas for her continued championing of buses. It has been a neglected policy issue for too long, and not seen as fashionable, and I think it's time we changed that, and she's doing great work leading the cross-party group on public transport to that end. The question of how the cuts will impact is a very relevant and current one. I would say that what we're talking about in the White Paper and the Bill is about how we organise the system, and that system then can be flexed and it can be scaled. So, obviously, the more money we put into it, the better the services we're able to offer. But even if you simply put in what we're putting in now, we would still get a better, more planned, more joined-up, more coherent and fairer system. So, I think the argument for the system in the White Paper stands on its own merits, the question for public funding for buses is an allied one. And, as I said, the budget for next year is going to be very challenging for us to be able to sustain services, let alone expand them. And we'll be going through that when we publish the budget and we go through scrutiny. I and many others are concerned about that, but we will do our very best to preserve a network, as we have done over the last few years, through COVID, to allow that to be expanded when we have a more enlightened Government in Westminster.220

In terms of the bulk fleet procurement point, it's a very interesting one. I'm quite concerned about the impact on SMEs. We know, in parts of rural Wales, that the small family bus operator has been key to the public transport ecosystem. That business model is coming under significant strain. Many operators are failing, local authorities are struggling to procure providers for key services. So, I think we are going to need to look creatively at how we fill that gap. The White Paper talks about an operator of last resort, just as we have currently on the trains, and the case for something equivalent on the buses. And one way we could de-risk small family businesses being able to participate could be the central procurement of the buses themselves, which we could then lease to an operator who could run the service for a fee. I think that's the sort of thing that we need to work through with local government and with the sector to understand the practicalities of that. But, Carolyn Thomas identifies a really important point.221

Huw Irranca-Davies MS16:04:58

I really welcome this statement, and again setting out the vision of where this Welsh Government wants to go, but would he agree with me that one of the acid tests of this will be whether we, here in the Senedd, support the prioritisation of public transport and also of active travel in this? And there will be hard choices to be made on this, because that means squeezing space on the roads for bus lanes, for faster buses, and it means deprioritising other areas. But would he also agree with me that in terms of this one network—one timetable, one ticket, one network—if that network is going to be the main veins, these arteries of bus transport—going, for example, in my area, up and down the valleys connecting with Bridgend, connecting with the Vale, connecting on to Cardiff—we also need those capillaries to be reached as well, and that will require either community transport or Fflecsi bus and so on? If there's one timetable, that needs to be at the times that all these communities need for work, for playing, for socialising and for hospitals and so on. And one ticket: I'm glad to hear you're continuing with the work looking at how we make it really affordable, and for me, affordable needs to be cheap as chips. That price point needs to make it desirable to get onto a bus instead of investing into the sunk costs of another second car.222

Lee Waters MS16:06:20

Well, I completely agree that flexibility is the key here, and as we do the work with TfW and the local authorities identifying where an optimum bus network goes, there will be a place for standard scheduled services and there will be a place for complementary, flexible, demand-responsive services. As Huw Irranca knows, we've been trialling the Fflecsi service across different parts of Wales and we've now completed the pilot in Newport. I took part in a journey in Llanberis last week on the Sherpa service, which also linked in to the local Fflecsi service, which has been hugely successful in Snowdonia, not only helping to serve the visitor economy in the summer, but then using that success to be able to fund a regular service for locals through the winter months.223

Now, that'll be horses for courses of where that best fits in. What we found in Newport is the provision of a Fflecsi service has generated new customers, new demand, which in turn has shown that there is in fact viability for a fixed scheduled route, rather than a Fflecsi route. So, I think we need to be flexible—dare I say it—in the way that we apply this model, but it definitely has a very important part to play. And I'd agree with him entirely on his last vision: this is about giving people a genuine alternative to the car.224

James Evans MS16:07:48

In your response, Minister, to my colleague Natasha Asghar, you outlined that the Welsh Government had identified ways in which we could address rural public transport. As you're well aware, rural public transport in my area is a massive issue, and if you could please give a bit more detail about the areas that you said you've identified, I'd be very grateful. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.225

Lee Waters MS16:08:11

Certainly, and I'd be very happy to brief Members and encourage Members to take part in a round-table themselves with me on any ideas they have to help shape our thinking. Essentially, this is part of the Wales transport strategy. We set out some initial thoughts, looking at other examples in other parts of the UK and on the continent of how rural areas addressed the need for sustainable transport, and, in fact, we've asked the Burns commission in its work on north Wales to specifically look at solutions for rural areas. They'll be looking at it in the context of north Wales, of course, but they will have applicability to other rural parts of Wales. And with the exception of parts of Cardiff, every local authority in Wales has rural areas, so this is not a mid Wales agenda; this is for the whole of Wales, and it's a really important one. Sustainable transport absolutely is achievable in rural areas, but it takes a slightly different approach to urban areas. So, for example, you could have Fflecsi buses, but you could also have car sharing, you could have car clubs, you could have electric bikes alongside safe infrastructure away from traffic. There is a whole range of different schemes that have been tried and shown successful, so that's the work we're doing at the moment is to try and flesh that out, and I'd be very keen to engage with Members for them to feed in to help us shape that together.226

John Griffiths MS16:09:36

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for your statement, Minister. As we've heard, it is a social justice issue to make bus travel more affordable and more available here in Wales, and the relative affordability of bus travel versus car has been going in the wrong direction. We have various initiatives around free bus travel, Minister—some Welsh Government schemes, some local authority schemes—and I just wonder whether you have any plans to build on that with more universal free bus travel, perhaps, in defined geographical areas. It's something we're very interested in in Newport, doing further work on that in the wake of the Burns committee recommendation.228

Lee Waters MS16:10:26

I've been very encouraged by the work in Newport, in Swansea and in Cardiff on offering free bus travel at certain periods, and it's worked. We now have data to show that it is successful and there is plenty of international evidence, as well, from Dunkirk to many cities around the world where free bus travel is effective. The reality, though, at the moment, given our financial settlement, is that this is not something that we are able to draw upon. As I mentioned, we've been doing a lot of work, we have a manifesto and programme for government commitment to look at fairer fares, and we've been doing considerable work, detailed modelling options to take that forward, and the Cabinet is very keen to pursue that. But when our budget is falling, in effect, by £3 billion next year, very frustratingly, that is not something that we're going to be likely to be able to afford in the short term.