Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:31 pm on 4 October 2016.
Oh, good grief. I’m not sure where to begin, other than to say I’ve already outlined what happened in late July. The Member seems to think that you can probably calculate with a Casio calculator and an abacus, in a few seconds, for what is an immensely burdensome project. It cannot be done overnight, and as I’ve already said, normally—normally—Department for Transport officials will engage with us a year ahead. On this occasion, we had three days’ notice. During the period between late July and today, my officials had to scrutinise the data. They had to make an abundance of calculations, they had to assess the data, and it then became apparent that the data, as my friend and colleague Jenny Rathbone has highlighted, clearly did not support the case for a relief road as the previous data—what I believe to be more accurate data—supported the case. Given that, we then secured legal advice on the likelihood of the public inquiry being adjourned or, indeed, the case being accepted for building a relief road. The answer that we had was that an adjournment is probable, and the case simply isn’t there. Now, the Member said, ‘Why have you ignored the evidence, and why don’t you get building?’ Well, the fact is, it’s that the Department for Transport has given us evidence that can’t be ignored, because if we do, it won’t get built. My point is: we now need to get the data right, because the Department for Transport has clearly not done that. And I don’t believe—as I say, it’s not a conspiracy, I think it’s probably incompetence. But the fact of the matter is that the UK Government have really done a disservice not just to this place but to the people of Wales—to the 100,000 plus people who use the M4 on a daily basis. Now, I know that the Member clearly has lengthy delays on a daily basis in using the M4, but so do the tens of thousands of people who are hoping that this local public inquiry will begin on 1 November and who regrettably now will have to wait until potentially March before it gets going. But that is as a consequence of the Department for Transport not engaging with us as they should have done and has they have done in the past. And surely—surely—given the scale of this project, given the publicity that this project has had, the Department for Transport should have recognised that it needed to give Welsh Government more than three days’ notice.