5. Will the First Minister make a statement on bus services from Aberystwyth to Cardiff? OAQ(5)0149(FM)[W]

Since the recent closure of Lewis Coaches, we have been working closely with local authorities to ensure that key bus services to west Wales are reinstated as quickly as possible.

I’m grateful to hear that it’s your intention to see this bus service return. May I say that, even in the days of Margaret Thatcher, there was a direct bus service from Aberystwyth to Cardiff? That ran uninterrupted until this summer, and it’s the first time we’ve lost that direct coach service, which was so attractive to pensioners and students—they were the main customers, certainly. I’ve already heard from people who’ve had to spend a night in Carmarthen because they’ve got on the train too late to actually get the connecting bus to Aberystwyth. So, when you say that you want to see this service reinstated, will you tell us when, and how the Government is going to ensure that this does happen?

We expect the service to be reinstated within weeks. I remember the TrawsCambria service in the 1980s and went on it a number of times, but there is a long-term question here. This Assembly will receive powers over buses in 2018. You, just as I have, have seen a number of bus companies going to the wall, and that is not sustainable. After the restructuring of bus companies in 2018, we hope that that will not happen. The same thing happened with Arriva, of course, in Ceredigion, as the services disappeared. Of course, other bus companies did take over those services, but we can’t continue with a system that sees services stopping because the bus company no longer runs. We have to have a better system, and there’ll be an opportunity to have one in two years’ time.

The five-point action plan on local bus services that your colleague the Cabinet Secretary for the economy published last week is very much to be welcomed. Bus service support grants have been cut already. Can you guarantee that the current level of funding for local bus services, as outlined last week, and any additional—. I’m sorry. Can you guarantee the current level of funding for local bus services and outline exactly what additional funding will be available to achieve the Welsh Government’s five-point plan?

We are considering, as part of the budget process, what’s appropriate in terms of the bus services support grant. What is clear, however, in the answer I gave earlier—. I have been in this Assembly for 17 years. Many, many times, bus companies have collapsed and their services have had to be replaced. The question must be asked as to whether that’s a sustainable system, to have bus companies that don’t seem to be able to make a go of it—not all; some do well, of course—and the subsequent gap that leaves, however temporary, for the users of those services. We know there are many, many services across Wales that are run by private companies, but can’t operate without a public subsidy. To me, that wasn’t the intention of his party when buses were privatised. They were meant to be in competition with each other. There are very few parts of Wales with any kind of competition. It tends to be one company operating the service under a public subsidy. We have to examine how effective that is in the future. Some of them have been effective, and some of them have clearly not been effective. But, after 2018, there’ll be the opportunity to reassess how bus services are provided across the entire country.

Following on from this discussion of bus services in a specific area, I understand that there’s been a preliminary assessment of the reintroduction of a railway line from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth. Can the First Minister inform us as to any future plans to institute a full feasibility study and, if so, when?

Something close to my heart, in principle, and others’; I know that. The Carmarthen-Aberystwyth line disappeared as a passenger line in 1964. It was in place, in the main, until 1975. I remember trains coming through Bridgend station having come down from Aberaeron and Newcastle Emlyn on the spur, carrying milk in those days. In an act of utter stupidity, the line was taken up very, very quickly. And, of course, that presents a problem. Some of it’s been reinstated by the Gwili railway.

We think that a substantial part of the permanent way is still intact, that there are, actually, very few gaps there. There are still many bridges in place; one or two are missing. So, that assessment has been made, but it’s also true to say that there will need to be an assessment of the cost benefit of reinstating the track. It’s a substantial cost, running into the billions, and that work will need to be done carefully in terms of seeing whether that line can be reinstated. That work is ongoing. We’ve seen it done elsewhere in the UK. We know that Scotland has done it with the Waverley line, but, as far as this line is concerned, the work will continue so that we have a good understanding of the cost, the practicability and the timescale.