Plaid are hopping mad that Tory Alun Cairns is grabbing credit for giving free transport to pupils attending Welsh-medium and church schools.

A Measure setting out new Welsh laws on school transport has begun its passage through the Assembly, and Mr Cairns is furious because it is not strong enough.

A Measure is a law within an area where the Assembly already possesses legal powers. In years BA (Before the Assembly), they were within the remit of the Secretary of State, and then, after 1999, within that of the Assembly itself.

Mr Cairns is furious that the Measure contains no statutory right at all to free transport (beyond the existing three miles for secondary and two for primary schools) to church schools, and that the right for Welsh-medium schools is so general “that it would be very difficult to enforce through the courts”.

At present, most local authorities voluntarily pay the charges, but Mr Cairns – who has a personal interest in that his Welsh-speaking child is at primary school – is scared that councils may axe the concession as their budgets increasingly get squeezed.

But Ieuan Wyn Jones doesn’t quite see it that way. His office pointed that it was Mr Jones, when leader of the opposition, who spotted the gap in government thinking when the issue was considered by the Assembly before the election – at that time, nothing at all was said by the previous Labour administration on the issue.

Only after he had made a fuss was the point accepted – leading to the paragraphs written into the present Measure.

IWJ’s office get really furious when they point out that at that time, when Mr Cairns was a member of the relevant committee, not a peep issued from him.

So, if Mr Cairns guilty of a smash-and-grab raid on a Plaid-obtained policy ? Or does he want to the policy to be even stronger than that which Plaid obtained from a negligent Labour government ?