Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 11 October 2016.
It is a fact that the blue route goes past many, many homes and would affect, we think, up to 4,000 people. That’s the reality of it. It would pass very, very close to their houses and, in fact, some buildings will have to be demolished, both commercial and residential. There’s no avoiding that, and I doubt very much whether any Government would be looked upon favourably if it were to move ahead with the blue route without proper consultation. We’ve said in the public inquiry that the public inquiry will look at both the black and blue routes. We want the inquiry to be as wide-ranging as possible and to be as open as possible so that people can see that the process is one that they can have faith in. But I have to say once again: any suggestion that the Welsh Government was involved or knew of the data that was provided on 25 July is wrong—wholly wrong and wholly untrue. I don’t accuse him of saying that, but I’m saying that the information he has received is simply wrong. What happens is that they work on this and they inform people of what they’re doing. On this occasion they did not even tell us when the figures were going to be published. They shared them with Highways England first. They didn’t even tell us they’d done that. We had to ask for them and, when they were shared with us, they were shared with us on the basis that is abnormal. Normally, the data is shared and nine to 12 months is available for the data to be examined carefully. That was not done at this time, and here we have a set of data that at the moment would benefit London and the south-east of England at everyone’s expense, and that we cannot accept.