This statement today by the Cabinet Secretary for economy will be met with disappointment and dismay by everyone who has experienced delay in their journey time due to congestion on the M4, including myself, who travels virtually four times a week. If I leave before seven o’clock, it takes me still more than 40 minutes from Newport to this place. Lord help those who come after half past seven and spend more than one hour on the M4 just to reach Cardiff, only 10 to 12 miles. That is actually congestion every day.

Just two weeks after Labour’s programme for government—[Interruption.] Just two weeks after Labour’s programme for government made a commitment to building an M4 relief road, they have kicked the project, once again, into the long grass. This is a fact. Poor transport infrastructure and lack of capacity means that the south Wales corridor is not fit for purpose and is discouraging businesses locally, nationally and internationally from investing in Wales. So why has the Cabinet Secretary chosen to ignore the existing evidence of the need for a relief road and delay the public inquiry? CBI Wales, the Institute of Directors, the Engineering Employers Federation and the South Wales Chamber of Commerce have all called for a quick decision to be made in this respect. The Cabinet Secretary has tried to blame the Department for Transport. He claims the department only advised him of the new matters of projecting the amount of traffic three days before they were introduced. The department denies this and says that it warned Welsh officials of this change earlier this year. Will the Cabinet Secretary agree to publish all correspondence between his officials and the Department for Transport to clarify this issue? Changes to the system of traffic forecasting were introduced over the summer, so why has it taken the Cabinet Secretary so long to announce the delay in starting the public inquiry?

South Wales East, this Assembly, sporting events and businesses: people travel on the M4 in not tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands, Cabinet Secretary. We need the M4 to be completed as soon as possible—2021 is not good enough here. The unreliablity of this stretch of road will increasingly generate additional costs and uncertainty for business, harm tourism and cause frustration for motorists. The Welsh Labour Government has once again let down the Welsh public here. Thank you.