The campaign to abolish the second Severn crossing toll and the first Severn crossing toll, of course, are very long standing and long running and far pre-date the UKIP campaign that Gareth Bennet has just referred to. In fact, Labour politicians and politicians of other parties have been involved in this campaign for many years, so I think we should get that straight as a starting point in this debate.

What I’d like to say, Dirprwy Lywydd, is that there’s a great deal of effort at the moment to connect up regional economies, city regions, economic powerhouses and transport systems, and a great deal of effort has gone into doing just that for the Great Western Cities and the Great Western powerhouse. A report has been produced for Bristol, Newport and Cardiff, which looks at a population of some 1.5 million across the area and it’s all about connecting it up and removing barriers. A lot of that will be about public transport; it will be about the Bristol MetroWest system, the Cardiff capital region metro system, so there will be a big public transport element, which I very much welcome. But it’s also about removing the Severn tolls, in my view, which are symbolic, as I think we all know, as others have said. It’s an awful message that we give to people coming into Wales, the gateway to Wales, that this payment has to be made. It’s long been recognised that it’s a problem economically, socially and culturally. So, if we are to join up this wide area across the Severn more effectively, I think an important part of that is to abolish these tolls, and the sooner it happens the better.

But it is part of that bigger picture of connectivity in public transport terms, of the energy strategy, the general infrastructure strategy that’s been set out in that report and other work. You know, it’s about the universities, it’s about businesses, it’s about civic society—it’s quite a wide-ranging agenda. But within that, as I said, I do believe that symbolically and practically it’s important that we abolish those tolls and do so as quickly as possible. And it’s great to see, I think, a strong consensus in this Chamber today to that effect.

When we look at the issues and the long-running nature of the issues, Dirprwy Lywydd, those of us representing Newport and the areas around, know the strength of feeling locally that has existed for a number of years and is still very strong today. Local people, local businesses and organisations really do look forward to the day when those tolls are finally abolished. It’s been a long-running campaign; it has generated a massive amount of support locally and, as a representative in Newport East, I know that lots of others, such as Jayne Bryant representing Newport West, are very supportive of the abolition. So, I think we should recognise that. We shouldn’t look at this in terms of some new campaign that’s been generated in this Assembly—it far pre-dates that. And I think that’s a real strength, because it shows, over a period of time, the issues that have galvanised people to call for the abolition. As I said earlier, the sooner it happens, the better.