Transport (Wales) Bill

I do not know that what I said supports the point made by the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin), but I agree that cross-border issues are extremely important. Earlier, I mentioned the Wrexham to Bidston line, but Wrexham is also served by the very important Chester to Shrewsbury line, which I believe should be developed to link Wrexham with the Chester business park, for example. Although that site is on the other side of the border, many of my constituents work there. Under the present arrangements, it is very difficult to take that development forward. English authorities looking west are not as interested as they should be in providing services in Wales to transport people from Wales to England. Sometimes, I also feel that Wales, looking east, does not work as hard as it should to liaise with authorities in England about service access. The problem is a difficult one, but I think that the best way to deal with it is to adopt a strategic approach through the joint transport authorities. I am very pleased with the public investment that the National Assembly is putting into public transport in Wales. I noted with great interest the opening of the Vale of Glamorgan line in south Wales, in which £17 million of public money was invested. It is tremendous to have a Government investing in public transport and the railways in that way, and I shall keep close to my heart my press cutting about the Vale of Glamorgan line when the Wrexham to Bidston line project is taken forward. I hope to have some very positive discussions in the future with my very good and hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, and with the National Assembly. We need to approach public transport in north-east Wales in a very different way in the future. Our attitude has been very unambitious, and my generation has fallen foul of what used to be called the great car economy. I was brought up in Tyne and Wear in the north-east of England, in a family where no one had a car. Between 1977 and 1979, however, I used to travel to school on a fully integrated public transport network, in which tickets could be transferred between buses and the Tyne and Wear Metro. In contrast, however, Arriva now runs both the bus and train services in the Wrexham area. I regret to say that I have been unable to persuade that company to arrange for buses to stop at the local rail station. That shows that we have gone backwards rather than forwards as regards delivery of public transport over the past 25 years. The Bill offers a real opportunity to adopt a much more strategic approach to public transport, and to persuade people that public transport is an option that they need to take in the future, for both economic and environmental reasons. We need to make public transport responsive to the needs of local industry and to make it a much more attractive option. I believe that the Bill will take us towards that goal, but we need to change profoundly the thinking on and approach to public transport in order to achieve that worthy goal for the future.