Schedule - Local transport plans
Transport (Wales) Bill
11:45 am
Bill Wiggin ((Also Shadow Secretary of State for Wales), Environment, Food & Rural Affairs; Leominster, Conservative)
The Minister is coming on in leaps and bounds: he is agreeing with me more and more, and I congratulate him on that. His answers satisfy my concerns to some extent, and I am grateful that he shares those concerns. He is right that it is inconceivable that a local authority should fail to understand what its existing plans are. However, later in Committee we will talk about subsidising transport. I do not want to be out of order, but one of my concerns is that subsidy cannot be given until a business has failed. The nature of the Bill does not necessarily take into account what is existing.
I have a genuine concern about that, but I am not sure that we could meet it with a properly worded amendment. If the Government were to consider my point and perhaps look at ensuring that local authorities and the Assembly take into consideration their existing commitments, I shall be satisfied and will have done my job in ensuring that the existing network is maintained as well as possible. I have no difficulty in accepting what the Minister said, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.