, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Inter-institutional relations agreement
So, with that being said, we'll go on to the first substantive part of our business today, which is item 2, and that is the inter-institutional relations agreement. Under item 2.1, you'll note that we have correspondence from the First Minister on the…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest
Welcome to this virtual meeting of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee. You'll notice this is a virtual meeting, and on our screens today we are fully quorate, but we have a substitution today. We are delighted to have with us James Evans as a…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest
Welcome to you all.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Introductions, apologies, substitutions and declarations of interest
Prynhawn da. Good afternoon, everybody.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 3
Thanks, Chair. Just one final question, and it is to Gemma, and you've partly answered this, because I get from your answer the excitement around being engaged now within Wales transport policy for the first time in years as a serious player, embedded within…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 3
Thanks, Chair. One of the benefits of running a whole day of sessions hearing evidence is that you get different views. I just want to push back to you what we heard earlier this morning, in an earlier session, where I raised exactly this issue, that it could…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 3
Yes, thanks, Chair. There seems to be a consistent pattern coming across now from all of our evidence sessions of the need to do the whole piece there, including ways to incentivise people to get out of their cars and to incentivise people to get on to public…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 3
Thank you, Chair. Just briefly, Josh, I wonder if I can pick up on your point about the 2030 idea of getting back to where passenger numbers are. Why so long? And have you run different scenarios on this to see if anything could be done to change that, and to…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 2
Okay.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 2
So, on fares and so on—sorry, Chair, we're up against time—that argues for greater control here in Wales, about knitting together our fares structure, including an element of the devolution of management of fares within Wales.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 2
Thanks. Is there anything else from the other panellists in terms of what we should be saying to Welsh Government about making sure that they advocate for within Great British Railways?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 2
Thank you, Chair. Great British Railways: have you got any views on whether this works for Wales, whether it fits with all the things we've been discussing and our reforms, or is it a hindrance? What do you think?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 2
Okay, thank you.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 2
No, we'll probably come to that but, Sylviya, thank you. That's an encouraging response. Do any other panelists—? Have you crunched the numbers to see whether doing that modal shift and the demand reduction will get us to where we need to be on greenhouse gas…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 2
Thank you, Chair. I loved those points by Silviya there on what we need to do, but can I ask the panel—you don't all need to answer this—but if, and it is an if, we achieve the modal shift targets that the Welsh Government has, will those be enough to get the…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 1
One of the comments that was just made a moment ago by your colleague was about innovation. Sometimes, we do see innovation coming through where very small local operators will run routes that are simply off the track for either a larger operator or even for…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 1
Yes, just a quick follow-up, Chair. You've talked about the massive investment that's needed in fleet in terms of decarbonisation, and we've touched on the approach of a franchise model. All of these things suggest to me that that would mean a quite radical…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 1
No, that's very comprehensive; that's very good. Thank you very much.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Bus and rail transport in Wales - evidence session 1
Thank you, Chair. Let's dive a little bit deeper into this, and I want to look at this issue of modal change here, and Professor Barry, some of your previous comments, and you've touched on it today, that there's no getting away from the need for demand…
, Plenary
Short Debate: Biodiversity: The big picture. Seeding the future—the importance of managing grass verges and grasslands
Thank you, Carolyn, for introducing this debate—a great contribution there. I just want to say a few words, and it's picking up on the themes that you said. We can all play a role within this. This morning before I came in, I just happened to be flicking…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: Post-Brexit funding
I have hardly started—[Laughter.]—hardly started. So, I want to touch on a couple of the challenges that have already been flagged on the forum. One is the additional burden that it adds to local authorities, because they have to manage the competitive bid…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: Post-Brexit funding
Look, I'd hate to say it is going to be that way, but it is indeed a danger, and the fact that we can't scrutinise—so it's already been flagged by the forum members that they have concerns that some of the proposals being brought forward will actually…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: Post-Brexit funding
That's actually part of the lessons that we took through in the framework that we put forward and that the OECD worked with us directly on over those three years. The OECD, by the way, is still working with Welsh Government on these matters, and I think that…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: Post-Brexit funding
I'm going to try today not to make any political points whatsoever. The only thing I will do, when I intervened on you earlier, Paul—. It is interesting the approach that has been taken, in that the only people excluded to a high degree from this are the…
, Plenary
Plaid Cymru Debate: Post-Brexit funding
Thank you for giving way, Paul. I appreciate what you're saying about getting some of these decisions down to a local area. In fact, that's what the strategic group looking at regional funding within Wales was looking at, based on the very best OECD models. I…
