Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 11 October 2016.
Yes, that is the aim, but it is not helpful when we have Government departments in Whitehall that are acting in this way. They knew that there was a public inquiry that would begin in the autumn of this year, and yet this data was—we had to ask for it, we had to ask for it; it wasn’t even provided, and we were not notified that it even existed. And then, of course, officials worked very hard through August to look at the data, to see what it would mean for Welsh road schemes. It’s not just Wales that’s affected; it’s everywhere outside the south-east of England that is adversely affected by this data. So, as far as the Department for Transport are concerned, I would urge them to revisit this data, to have a proper process, where data is published in draft and then opportunity is given to examine that data, to examine its robustness, rather than adopt the strange and unusual approach that they’ve adopted so far.