6. How is the Welsh Government working to improve public transport infrastructure in North Wales? OQ61444

Thank you for the question. Our priority is to develop reliable, affordable and sustainable public transport services that deliver for people and communities across Wales, including, of course, North Wales, which the Member represents. We will empower our regions to develop regional transport plans that meet the needs of their area and provide practical support to help deliver them.

Diolch, First Minister. The recent investment of new carriages by the Welsh Government through Transport for Wales is making a huge difference, as is the Welsh Government bus grant, which has kept services running over the last year. As you said earlier, the UK Government did not sign off the letter for £1 billion to electrify the north Wales coast line, and they twice rejected bids for EU replacement levelling-up funding for railway infrastructure in north Wales. First Minister, working with the new UK Labour Government cross-border, would you consider using some of the structural funding—the replacement funding—for integrated public transport and a bus pilot in north Wales, developing clear information and services, which is really important, based on passenger need, working in partnership with Transport for Wales, local councils, operators and residents to develop the network and sustain and return services, such as recently happened in the village of Llandegla in north Wales? Thank you.

I’m delighted to see the return of services to Llandegla, which the Member has highlighted, but also to confirm again that the pre-election pledge by the Conservatives on north Wales electrification was never a real plan. It was not an honest statement to make to the public. Network Rail, as the Member knows, have confirmed that, despite the promise, no formal development work was undertaken. They were not given a remit and no formal work has been undertaken with them since 2013.

When it comes to what we could do in the future, delivering our manifesto pledge to restore decision making over former EU funds is one of the big opportunities that we have. To go through that, we will need to work with partners to understand what those priorities will be and work with what we’ve been able to do already. I’m very pleased the Member has highlighted the bus grant that has kept services in play that could otherwise have fallen away. We’ll probably talk more about buses in the statement later on this afternoon. But that does mean we have opportunities to look again at the regional investment framework that was co-produced with a range of partners before the last election, to update that and to make sure that we have a clear understanding of what we can do with that, in addition to other areas of future devolution.

I’m very excited on the skills front about what we can do in restoring money into apprenticeships and in the devolution of employment support funding. There are big opportunities to make a real difference in every community. What we’ll have to do, though, is decide what are our strategic priorities and how we choose to use those. That is quite properly in the remit of this Government, to be held accountable by the Senedd, and to do that work with our partners is what I intend for us to do.