Russell George AM has called for the First Minister to ditch the partisan point scoring and provide more informative responses to questions during his weekly questions in the National Assembly.
He has raised concerns about the quality of the First Minister’s answers to questions with the Leader of the House, Jane Hutt, in this week’s proceedings in the National Assembly for Wales.
After raising his disappointment with Mrs Hutt, Mr George said:
“Last week, I raised a perfectly legitimate question to ascertain whether the Welsh Government had explored withdrawing the half a million pounds subsidy for the successful Cardiff Airport bus service in favour of supporting other local bus routes such as those which are struggling in Mid Wales.
“But instead of providing a mature and informative response, the First Minister took the opportunity to score party political points about Cardiff Airport, ignoring my question altogether.
“This prompted constituents to contact me to complain at the First Minister’s answer which did little to alter the perception that his Government is Cardiff-centric and has no concept of the needs and concerns of Mid Wales residents.
“I sincerely hope that the Presiding Officer and Welsh Government looks carefully at improving the quality of the First Minister’s and other Ministerial responses to ensure that they are as informative as possible.”
ENDS
Please find below the transcript from last week’s question to the First Minister.
Tuesday, 7 March, 2017
Russell George
Well, I’m going to give another welcome this afternoon. I’m going to welcome the growth in passenger numbers on the T9 bus service. I think that is fantastic news to welcome. Now, given the fact that this service is such a success and is now proving to be sustainable in the long term, will you commit to scrapping the £0.5 million Welsh Government subsidy for this service and instead offer subsidies to other bus services that have been axed by cuts to the bus operators grant?
Carwyn Jones
What he seems to be suggesting is we shouldn’t have a bus service to the airport. I can’t agree with that position. It comes back to the position his party took—they didn’t want the airport to succeed. At the end of the day, the Welsh Conservatives didn’t want the airport to grow, they were happy to see the airport decline, they would have sat on their backsides and seen the airport close down. [Interruption.] They’re still not happy at the fact that the airport is doing well in reality. They don’t want to see a bus service to the airport, and we want to make sure there are public transport links to our airport in Cardiff, and they will continue. Having public transport links, surely, to any airport, whether they are bus or rail, are hugely important to the future development of any airport.