I’m pleased to contribute to this Welsh Conservatives debate on transport connections within north Wales today. Many of the points I was going to make have been made, so I won’t go over old ground. I would say, unlike Hannah Blythyn, I have the disadvantage of not being a proud north Wales Member—I’m a proud south Wales Member—and nor do I have some of the more detailed local knowledge that Michelle Brown just expressed. So, I will be a little more general in my comments.

I would say, however, that I do think that, having been in this Chamber now for nine getting on 10 years, we’ve had many debates about north Wales and I do feel that too often the people of the north do feel left out, left behind, excluded, however you want to put it—isolated maybe—from this Assembly and the decisions that are often taken here. That may be a question of perception and it may not be the right view, but it is too often the view of people in the north, and we have to do what we can to bridge that gap. As I say, I say that as a south Wales AM, who lives just up the road and finds it pretty straightforward to get home, whether that be by road, rail, bus, car—whatever the means of transport might be.

So, too often north Wales feels left out. We need to make sure that they feel that the Welsh Government is looking out for them, and that’s why bringing on major projects such as the A55 improvements that have been mentioned and future electrification of the north Wales main line are so important.

You cannot deny that a large chunk of the population do live in the south-west and the south-east, and south Wales AMs will always—I see David Rowlands nodding—make the case for infrastructure spend to be spent here, and of course we need improvements to the M4, of course we need electrification of the south Wales main line, but the north needs to feel included and needs to feel that projects are being advanced there. As Mark Isherwood said, we need to capitalise on the opportunities of the north, and there are opportunities there and growing opportunities. We need to link the north into the north of England powerhouse as that develops, and perhaps develop our own north Wales powerhouse as well.

Transport improvements are, of course, key to this, and I completely agree with the comments made by Dr Dai Lloyd earlier, and the concept, as I said in intervention, of a single integrated ticketing system across north Wales is a great one. It’s one that we’ve got in our motion, and it’s one that Plaid Cymru and other parties clearly agree with. The problem is, to coin a phrase from the previous report of the Enterprise and Business Committee from the last Assembly, it is a devilishly difficult thing to achieve. So, yes, let’s have it as an ambition, but let’s not put all our eggs in that basket in the short term. Let’s work on developing things that are immediately easier to do, such as better timetabling and better reliability of the services we have. But, yes, you’re quite right, Dai: let’s make sure that over the medium and longer term, we do have it as an ambition to connect the north and the south and mid Wales, and to make it easy to go online and book your ticket from here to Ynys Môn—as easy as we can make it.

A north Wales metro: well, that’s part of this. It’s still clearly some way off and it’s understandable at the moment that the focus of the Welsh Government is on the south Wales metro. I understand that the transport infrastructure Cabinet Secretary—let’s get the terminology right—can’t do everything at once—you’re not Superman yet, Ken, so you have to prioritise—but that does not mean that we can’t start developing a business plan at this point for a north Wales metro. I think that the people of the north would look to that as a sign that this Assembly does have the interests of the north at heart.

Finally, Presiding Officer, it is important that we develop those east-west links and the Cabinet Secretary for transport and infrastructure has made these points over the summer. Yes, we all want to develop the links between the north and the south, but being realistic, many of those vital economic links are, and for the immediate future will be, east-west. In the south, they’ll be across to Bristol and London. In the north, they’re going to be to the major cities of the north, particularly as that Northern Powerhouse develops. So, let’s not take our eye off the ball on this. I ask you, Cabinet Secretary, to take this motion in the spirit that it was meant. As I said, you can’t do everything at once, but can we have a little bit more focus on the economy of north Wales, on developing those vital transport links, capitalising on the opportunities that north Wales does provide us? Let’s look to a future Wales where the north and the south can play an equal part in developing the Welsh economy, and the population of the whole of Wales feels included.