The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Jane Hutt.

We now move on to item 6, which is the Welsh Conservatives debate on cities and urban areas. I call on David Melding to move the motion. David.

Motion NDM6215 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the international trend to evaluate cities on liveability, green and sustainability criteria.

2. Believes that cities and urban areas are a key driver for economic resilience and prosperity.

3. Commends the value of the following objectives and strategies to promote urban renewal and regeneration:

a) access to clean, open space;

b) availability of affordable housing;

c) effective traffic management and the provision of high quality public transport;

d) the development of active transport routes, including the re-designation on some existing routes for cycling and walking;

e) high standards of air quality;

f) investment in the design quality of public and landmark buildings;

g) the involvement of citizens in plans to improve amenities, both on a city-wide and neighbourhood basis; and

h) the centrality of the city-region concept to the regeneration of hinterlands, such as the South Wales Valleys.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I say that we brought this motion in a constructive spirit? We want to examine the place of our cities and urban areas in our national life, particularly as a driver for growth and something that should be at the very heart of our ambition for a future prosperous, more sustainable Wales. Can I say that we accept the Government’s amendment, which adds to our motion, and we’re happy to accept that?

The Llywydd took the Chair.

Liveability and citizen engagement are key to the success of modern cities and urban areas in general. All over the world, cities are enjoying a renaissance, people are moving back to cities, their place in national life has never been more emphasised. One notable trend is a growing preference for smaller and medium-sized cities. We hear mostly about the mega cities and their challenges and the place they have in the world economy, but actually, the more innovative cities, the cities that are growing and are doing most to transform their economy and the economies of their hinterlands, are the smaller and the medium-sized cities. Here, Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, and I would also include Wrexham, have great potential. They’ve already done much—and I don’t want anything in today’s debate to take anything away from that—but I think that we need to recognise what great assets they are, and do even more work with them.

Another key factor is the issue of sustainability. In the last generation, I think we’ve seen this concept being deeply embedded in our national consciousness, and the need for sustainable, good urban design and vision is now, I think, accepted by all. To have that, there are some key qualities that we require: access to clean, open spaces, for instance, and I don’t just mean Bute park, though that is a magnificent example, but also those neighbourhood parks, particularly, perhaps, in the poorer parts of cities and urban areas, where there is the chance for recreation, particularly for younger people and children. This, I think, is often overlooked, whereas quite small interventions can open up the spaces that are there, can enhance the ones that have existed for many years, and we need to place a real priority on that.

Air quality has been discussed quite frequently in the last months here in the Assembly, and I’ll just touch upon that, but it’s always a challenge. In an urban area, you’re going to have more potential pollution and the result of that, if it’s not properly controlled or if unintended consequences of certain public policy like encouraging diesel 10 or 20 years ago is not effectively managed, is that it’s the very young, the old, the most vulnerable who suffer and are effectively driven out of the urban area.

High-quality eco-friendly housing—I think that’s probably one of the areas of particular renovation that we have seen. There are some good examples in Wales, but I think we need to realise that Cardiff, Swansea and other cities could really be marketed as places to come to see that carbon neutral, or carbon minus, even—I’m not quite sure if I get that term correct—housing is possible. Deputy Presiding Officer, the National Assembly itself as a building remains one of the most eco-friendly public buildings in the world, and I think we should be very proud of that. Green is best. Green really interests people as well, and if you’re achieving these great national priorities, and being green about it, I think that is a sign of great quality, which is not overlooked when people come and see us in action.

I was interested that some American cities now are turning very much to this concept of marketing themselves as green spaces and areas where there is this great potential for a green economy. Pittsburgh, which some of you may know, in Pennsylvania, this old steel-making town and a coal mining area around it, and was for many years regarded as perhaps the hardest city to turn around, has now gained much in recent years from marketing itself as the USA’s greenest city, or the greenest emerging city, and it has stressed that it has the first green convention centre, the first green children’s museum and the first green public arts facility. I think that’s the way we need to be looking at, for example, Cardiff. We can really aim for that and be leading the way in Britain and, indeed, in Europe.

This brings me on to the whole concept of design quality. There are some cities around the world that have invested in design particularly, so they, for instance, give support when people are designing whatever it is—small housing estates, public buildings or commercial buildings. You can have help hiring architects, for example, that will place a lot of emphasis on the design quality. Those are the sorts of schemes, I think, that we need to be looking at.

Can I turn now to transport, because I think this is, perhaps, one of the things that traditionally has let down a lot of cities, because of the choices that were made after the second world war in particular? But there’s also a lot of hope with new modern systems that are available to us, and technology also improving. I think public transport is itself enjoying a remarkable comeback as people see the advantages—a lot of people don’t really need to own and run a car. I’d be delighted if I could get rid of my car. It’s not quite feasible, given my job at the moment, but living in Penarth, it would be quite feasible for me to have a very full life without a car, just relying on public transport or occasionally hiring a car if I needed specifically to do that, and also relying on active transport like walking and cycling. The south Wales metro offers a great prospect of an integrated transport network that will do much and do much for some of the poorest in our society. The upgrading of the Cardiff rail network and the resignalling that’s going on—. Just another point here on transport: electric vehicles will revolutionise much of what happens, not only cutting pollution, but you’ll need a new tax base, for a start, because you’ll no longer be able to tax petrol and diesel. It is likely that concepts like road pricing—I’m not talking about ridiculous levels, but that’s more likely to be the way that motorists will get taxed, and that opens up all sorts of possibilities of managing more effectively the flow of traffic in cities.

I want to talk now about citizen involvement, because I think that’s something that is at the very heart of achieving the sort of change that citizens really want, and giving back urban places to people, to our citizens, because I think there was a trend not to see the citizen as central, really, to the life and work of cities. Here, I’d like to stress some schemes we’ve had for a while now, but I still think they are very, very effective—community asset transfers, for instance. I was pleased to see recently that the Welsh Government is stressing the need for best practice here to be more aligned with the objectives of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, but it can empower communities, and I think it’s very, very important. Incidentally, there, I would like to see systems whereby we can get, perhaps, some of the wealthier neighbourhoods to twin with some of the poorer ones and transfer some of the knowledge base that they have, and perhaps some of our grant mechanisms ought to be depending on that type of lateral thinking.

Neighbourhoods, I think, should be involved in identifying priorities. Is it litter reduction? Is it ensuring safety and perhaps having a few more police on the beat? Speed limits—perhaps they’ll want a 20 mph speed limit as a top priority in their neighbourhood. Why, indeed, do we have 30 mph as the assumption in urban areas? Why should it not now be 15 mph or 20 mph? Or they may emphasise playgrounds. I’d like to commend here the work that’s been undertaken in Atlanta, Georgia, which has made citizens central to their urban strategy. They call it the Atlanta BeltLine, where they try to integrate transport, open spaces, public art and affordable housing—all taking note of and involving citizens and the citizens’ priorities.

Can I conclude by saying that I think the policy framework is pretty strong, but we need to make sure that it’s integrated and works together effectively? The future generations Act, I think, is very, very important. Co-operation with the UK Government: we look at the Cardiff city region deal, for instance, and the Swansea bay and the north Wales growth deal. These are very, very important developments. Vibrant and viable places: I agree with the main focus there, with job creation and investment to be levered in, and people assisted into employment. So, there’s good scope there, but I think now that we need to raise our ambition also. Our cities can not only be best in class, they could be amongst the best in the world. There’s a lot of potential, but there’s also a lot of competition, not only internationally, but within the UK. I do believe that there’s going to be a profound adjustment in the levels of economic activity currently crowding into the south-east, as a lot of those in the new generation—those people who can’t afford family homes—will be wanting to move to places where they can enjoy a much better quality of life. So, I think, for all these reasons, we should be optimistic, but we should also realise that our game needs to be raised, and our ambition greater. Thank you.

I have selected the amendment to the motion. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Amendment 1—Jane Hutt

Add as new point at end of motion:

Notes the proposals of the Welsh Government contained in Taking Wales Forward to develop a stronger and fairer economy and recognises the importance of measures to develop sustainable regional economies that serve every community across Wales.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

I welcome this debate. I think it’s a very timely debate, given the discussions we have ongoing in Wales about the role of cities and the role that cities can play in regenerating regions of Wales. I want to make the case for two approaches in this discussion today. The first is the case for looking at city regions, not just cities themselves. I obviously speak as a Member for a constituency that is within one of our city regions, but not at the geographic centre of it. So, these issues are important to those constituents of mine who are looking to this debate for economic opportunities in the future.

The strategy focusing on cities is based on the idea of agglomeration: that the more businesses and economic activity you have in geographic proximity, the more likely you are to have growth. That is a very well-established economic theory. It’s not without its doubters and, in some sense, it’s increasingly contested with the role of technology and digital connectivity and so on. There’s a question as to whether that geographic, physical proximity is still the glue that has been so useful in the past. But it seems to me, whatever the outcome of that debate is, the idea of a city region where you have a core city that drives economic growth, from which we hope policy will then spread out to the surrounding areas, is clearly, it seems to me, a commonsense, practical way forward.

The other aspect that I want to make the case for today is that the kind of growth that we see in cities and city regions should be inclusive growth, where all the residents are able to participate fairly in the opportunities that come from successful economic policies and successful economic activity. I would draw Members’ attention to a report published only yesterday by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation into inclusive growth in cities. Just as David Melding was citing a number of international examples, the JRF looked to cities like Barcelona, Helsinki, Malmö and New York for some of their successful strategies in ensuring that all residents are able to participate in growth.

There have been two broad strategies. One is better distribution of the existing opportunities, which is through better, enhanced connectivity, be that transport or be it digital connectivity. The second strategy—perhaps a more ambitious strategy—is to try and change the economic model itself to try and change the nature of the jobs market, the labour market locally, and really focus on increasing the number of semi-skilled job opportunities. Those cities that have succeeded have used a blend of reasonably well-established policies, for example, promoting the use of social enterprise in the local economy, using social clauses in the public procurement process, and place-based intervention, which David Melding touched on, which looks at all the expenditure, for example, happening in a particular neighbourhood or a particular part of the city region, and looking intelligently at how that can be spent to perhaps achieve greater impact.

The last point, very importantly, is the question of engaging citizens. That can be from a commissioning point of view. Lambeth, for example, has taken the very bold step of creating a co-operative to deliver youth services, for example. So, there are some very bold examples out there. Building on that, I just want to look at one particular aspect, which is the role of public bodies in our cities and city regions, and the capacity they have to drive some of the things we’ve been touching on today. Often in Wales, people comment on the scale of the public sector being larger, proportionally, than in other parts of the UK, and usually that’s commented on in a negative way, but actually it’s one of our assets. Public services deliver public services, but they are also significant economic actors in their local economies. And if you look at them as anchor institutions, I think we should be looking for a framework where they procure not on the basis of the cost of the contract, or even really on a transactional basis, but more ambitiously, looking at how their economic activity, perhaps in conjunction with other public bodies, can actually nurture local supply chains and develop local suppliers. That will require collaboration between the health boards and the universities and local authorities, but I think we should be looking for that sort of ambition. We’ve seen examples of that in the States, for example, in Cleveland, where that has worked successfully.

I would also like to see us looking at the data that are available to us in terms of public expenditure. We should be in a position to look on a postcode basis at all the public expenditure happening in that area, and seeing what we can do to make sure that is getting as much impact as it possibly can. Lastly, briefly, again on the question of data, wouldn’t it be fantastic if we had an opportunity to make available all the data that we have about how our cities and our city regions work, to hand that over to the public and ask people to bring their ideas as to how they can improve—or how they can ask public services and the Government to improve—the areas in which they live? So, I think there is an agenda here that is an imaginative agenda, and I hope that Welsh Government will take up some of these challenges.

Thank you, everyone, for taking part in this debate. I’m pleased to take part as well. I think it’s going to be a rather thoughtful debate about what we want urban Wales to look like, not just literally, but philosophically as well, because this is very much about the place of the citizen in designing our environment.

While I want to speak directly to the motion today, I did first want to reference yesterday’s debate and the contributions made on air quality, simply because I want to reinforce a point about political will. David Melding mentioned in his opening contribution the frameworks, but frameworks only go so far, and without political will, really good ideas don’t happen. I’ll just give this example: Members may well remember my protestations about the airborne gunk that finds its way periodically in through my bedroom window as it crosses Swansea bay. There are some mornings when I really feel like an Emily Brontë tribute band, I must admit. But this same airborne gunk surrounds our glorious new university building in Jersey Marine. It affects our world-class tourism attraction: our fantastic south Wales coast. It’s the same fug, basically, that creeps across our seaside cycle paths. It mingles with exhaust fumes when I’m sitting there in traffic playing join the dots with the many, many traffic lights that seem to infest Swansea city centre. None of this does anything to stir life into those nowcaster diversion signs that cost us all £100,000 to help us avoid areas of high pollution. They’re still functioning as very little more than rather dull roadside sculptures.

So, when Simon Thomas yesterday said that Governments really need to take their environmental regulation enforcement responsibilities seriously, he was right. Those enforcement opportunities aren’t just like the nowcasters—just decorative things on the side of the road. It isn’t all about regulation, either. I think it would be a mistake to play down the opportunities—responsibilities, even—of our citizens, and that’s not just for things like recycling, as we rehearsed here last week, but about those plans to improve amenities as indicated in the motion, and as both David and Jeremy have mentioned. It’s a week when we’ve been discussing the difference between people and prerogatives and Parliament and the Executive, but we can’t just demand a right to be heard if we’re not prepared also to take our responsibility seriously to do.

I think there’s another debate here to be had about what consultation looks like, but it’s part of a much bigger question, which this debate touches on, about citizen engagement as a gateway to citizen participation. Are we raised as a population to think that our surroundings are somebody else’s responsibility? Are we raised to think that we should do something about it? Is it somebody else’s job to worry about it? Have we reached a stage where our citizens don’t have confidence that our ideas are valuable or relevant or influential?

I think it’s worth remembering that the driving philosophy behind the Swansea city of culture bid was that it would help to change how we think about our environment and our communities, and make them part of tackling problems rather than abandoning those problems to be solved by councils. I think the Swansea bay tidal lagoon is a good example of what I’m talking about. Political will has been galvanised, not just by academic arguments but by creating advocates out of the people who live locally—getting them to think about a big new idea in quite a complicated policy area and believing that they were powerful enough, brave enough and confident enough to help to make this visionary change. The same may well be true for electric cars in due course, David.

I think this motion, which suggests that the city region concept is central to regeneration, might well be correct, but I think that both the bids in Wales could learn a thing or two from the story of the lagoon about bringing citizens right into the heart of visionary change. That visionary change can be very neighbourhood based, of course. I understand that the Welsh Government is publishing a housing report soon. If that doesn’t talk about making citizens part of housing policy by encouraging them to think about how they’ll plan for their needs over a lifetime then I’ll be disappointed. I’ll apply the same to town-centre planning, if you like. Some of the Vibrant and Viable Places plans in my region reflect elements of this. They’re not just about affordable high-street starter homes and then nowhere to go. Thought has been given to real lives, to intermediate rental properties, as well as to accessible downsizing properties, so that people can find new homes in later life in a familiar community, freeing up larger properties to allow new families in, reinvigorating community cohesion and, of course, encouraging new participants in the local economy.

But just when I think that the real needs of real human beings are starting to be very visible at the heart of a big transformational idea, it runs up against the blunt instrument of target-driven local development plans. Maybe the citizen isn’t quite yet powerful enough to make all visionary changes when Government policy development data-gatherers are switched off to those important data that really are central to informing political will. Thank you.

I declare an interest, because some of the matters will touch on Cardiff, and I’m a Cardiff councillor. I’d also like to wish everybody ‘Diwrnod Santes Dwynwen hapus’—happy Santes Dwynwen Day. I hope everyone’s taking their partner out tonight and will treat them very well to a meal and so on.

Back to this—green cities. I welcome the debate on green cities. My party will be supporting the motion, but I think that, if Labour vote in favour of this, it’s going to be the ultimate hypocrisy, really. It’s true that the international trend is to evaluate cities on liveability, green, and sustainability criteria, but that’s not happening in Wales. Labour councils up and down Wales have planned to destroy greenfield areas through local development plans, as my colleague over there mentioned. But I think that local destruction plans, as they’re more accurately known—. Here in Cardiff, there are plans to build tens of thousands of dwellings on green fields. It’s going to ruin access to clean open space, it’s going to destroy ancient woodlands, and it ends any hope of effective traffic management within this city, because there will be at least 10,000 extra cars on the roads. With ‘carmageddon’, you can forget all about air quality. There are so many people already dying from air pollution in Wales, and Labour’s plans in this city will ensure that more people die before their time, because air pollution is the new smoking.

Citizens’ involvement in local development plans all across Wales has been ignored. Again, in this city, the Labour Party was elected to protect greenfield sites—they said they would. It turned out to be a lie, because, within months of winning the 2012 election, they announced plans to build over huge swathes of green fields in the west of this city. Consultations were held in Cardiff, and almost everybody rejected Cardiff’s local development plan. There were referenda, thousands—thousands—of people voted against the local development plan, but they were ignored.

The centrality of the city region concept is non-existent, with these very disjointed plans all over Wales. Local councils are ploughing ahead without any regard to the city region here, without any regard to what is happening in neighbouring authorities. Thankfully, through the activity of Plaid Cymru activists, Caerphilly’s LDP was thrown out. In the Vale, our councillors have huge concerns there as well about Labour’s plans to destroy countryside. In the north, Bodelwyddan will be consumed by a new housing development, the green fields will be gone, and maybe the Welsh language will go also. Regional planning is the solution, but the simple truth is that it’s not happening.

The thing is that Labour just won’t address the issues, either. When I raise the local development plan in Cardiff, I’m smeared as being an anti-incomer, even by the First Minister. Is that what Labour think about the thousands of people who voted against the local development plan in the referenda votes? I’m a localist, and I put my constituents first. We should be catering for local need, which is common sense—and it makes sense environmentally as well.

I look forward to seeing how the Government votes on this motion, and if they’re prepared to support a Conservative motion here calling for green cities with open spaces then I can only assume they’ll be supporting Plaid Cymru’s motion tomorrow evening on Cardiff Council, calling for the local development plan to be revoked, because we want to protect the green fields and green spaces and green lungs of this city. Because if you vote for one, and your colleagues across the road vote against the other one, then that just reveals a huge hypocrisy, really. I think, really, it would dispel any kind of idea that your party believes in sustainability at all. We won’t be voting in favour of Labour’s amendments, because we don’t vote for empty words. You do one thing in here—you talk about air quality—and yet you’re going to put 10,000 extra cars on the roads, with no public transport infrastructure. The metro is years ahead, and we’ll see if that even materialises. What we should be doing in this city is looking at green solutions, how everybody can live in Cardiff and enjoy our city, rather than just dumping houses on greenfield sites and destroying communities, like it’s the 1970s. We’re in the twenty-first century now, and we should all be thinking about how we can protect our local environment, and live in truly green cities. Diolch yn fawr—thank you.

I’m pleased to speak on what I thought was a consensual motion—I’m not so sure now, having listened to Neil McEvoy’s comments, but, hopefully, all parties in this Chamber can come together around certain key tenets of this motion. This has been an historic week, after all: the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Milton Keynes new town—a brave new world of freedom, or the frustrating godforsaken land of the roundabout, depending on your viewpoint and your opinion of what we’re trying to achieve in our cities, and have been since the war. We debate many different issues in the Chamber, many of which have an impact on people’s lives—some more than others. But the environment immediately around us plays a profound role in our lives, in our development as human beings, our happiness and our well-being. It’s because of this that urban renewal and regeneration is so closely linked to well-being, and has been recognised to be so for such a very long time, going back to the development of the first garden city in the UK at Letchworth, in the early 1900s, and then again revisited in the renewed post-second world war development of new towns in the new town programme of Clement Attlee’s Government.

We’re today debating this subject in this incredible building, referred to by David Melding in his opening remarks as a beacon of sustainability, in Cardiff Bay, in an area that has been transformed as a result of inner city regeneration polices begun in the 1980s, spearheaded in those days by one former Environment Secretary, Michael Heseltine. So, this is probably a very appropriate venue to discuss where we go from here and how we make the most of our urban environment in Wales and deliver the type of benefits we know are within our grasp, with the right approach and the right mindset.

I think it’s fitting that we’re debating this in the wake of the historic signing of the Cardiff capital city deal, so important for the regeneration of parts of south Wales, such as the south Wales Valleys and, indeed, some of the poorer parts of our rural areas, so often neglected when we consider regeneration. It’s not just an issue of regenerating urban areas; our rural areas need regeneration as well and, as a result of the city deal, their destinies will be in many ways linked.

David Melding set the scene for this debate with a wide-ranging introduction. If I can just focus on the transport aspect of the debate, which he did mention and, specifically, the transport element of the city deal, because they’re closely related, I think, first and foremost, the Welsh Government must do more to promote walking and cycling in Wales. This, at the end of the day, takes the strain off other transport, forms of transportation, higher up the chain. So, if you can’t get the walking and cycling right, we can’t get the other aspects right, either, because they’ll be overly relied upon.

Infrastructure improvements must be made if the Cardiff city region is going to successfully promote green travel, and it’s been a while now since we passed the Active Travel (Wales) Act—I think it was back in 2013. As Chair, then, of the Enterprise and Business Committee, my concern was that the Active Travel (Wales) Act would languish on a shelf somewhere, not actually improving things out there in our communities. Okay, well, we’re two years in and I think the jury is still out on how successful it will be, but I think one thing we all realise increasingly is we do need that Act to succeed; we do need walking and cycling to be promoted and encouraged.

The former Enterprise and Business Committee also looked at integrated ticketing—as Professor Stuart Cole described it, a devilishly difficult thing to achieve. Integrating services makes travel on public transport simpler, flexible, and more convenient for passengers, who can have a seamless connection between bus and rail travel. In that situation, passengers would have a greater knowledge of how extensive public transport can be in their area and it can encourage more people to begin using public transport. Sadly, as we know, pilots like Go Cymru were scrapped before they could really get going—pardon the pun. In future, we do need to develop more integrated ticketing, whatever form that may take, and new technology will allow for new forms of integrated transport of a type we haven’t really yet considered.

I would say, in moving to conclusion, that Neil McEvoy painted quite a bleak picture of where we are at the moment in Wales, and in Cardiff specifically. Well, if you think things are bad now—you did mention the 1970s, Neil, and it’s hard to believe that the Buchanan report, back then, advised the opposite to what we’re talking about now. That advised the closure of railway lines in Cardiff, the demolition of thousands of houses, and the creation of an urban motorway network, including the notorious and hated Hook Road. That was so extensive, all of that would have taken until 2001 to complete. Only Eastern Avenue in Cardiff was actually finally built of that programme. So, I think the moral is that planners aren’t always right, Governments aren’t always right, but I think Governments try, and I’m sure that this Cabinet Secretary will do his best to make sure that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past, that we take stock of where we are and we move on to a brighter, better, greener, more sustainable future.

Thanks to David Melding for bringing the debate today. A lot of the issues under discussion today were also touched on, to some extent, in yesterday’s Government debate about creating better local environments. These terms ‘creating better local environments’ and ‘liveable cities’—this kind of thing—I do find a rather all-embracing subject matter, so it is sometimes difficult to know where to start in these kinds of debates.

The motion specifically mentions city regions as drivers of economic development, which theoretically, yes, could be a central concept, although it’s not a new idea, as the coastal cities of Cardiff and Swansea always had their economic hinterlands in the Valleys, where the iron ore and then the coal was being mined. So, the city region concept is, up to a point, merely recognition of these long-established economic hinterlands. The problem is that, since the closure of the extractive industries, like coal mining, more and more people living in the Valleys have been obliged to travel down to the cities for work. This is causing major problems of road congestion and overcrowding on trains. In the Cardiff city region, we know that the metro is coming at some point, so this may ultimately alleviate these problems. But, in the meantime, travelling into Cardiff is something of a nightmare.

The dreadful congestion also worsens the air quality for everyone, including the city’s residents, which we were discussing yesterday. Tree planting and other schemes can alleviate this problem, but I fear these programmes will ultimately provide only a small mitigation from the extra environmental pressures caused by major house building in Cardiff suburbs, much of it, indeed, on the green belt, as Neil McEvoy was just alluding to. And although his synopsis may have appeared bleak, I must confess I do share most of his foreboding about the future for Cardiff. The house-building programme is caused by the city’s population expansion. Is this expansion a good thing or a bad thing? To me, it appears to threaten the very liveability of the city as green spaces disappear. So, on reflection, I don’t regard it as a good thing. The house-building programme: does it even bring much in the way of affordable housing, another issue mentioned in today’s motion? Well, often, alas, it does not. Most of the housing schemes are largely private developments with only a small element of social housing.

Yes, we know there are cycling and walking schemes being pushed by the Welsh Government as part of their active travel programme. But this clashes with the reality of successive school reorganisations forcing parents to send their kids to schools further and further away—hence the traffic chaos of the school run. I note that schools do have the ability to be flexible with the time of the school day. I wonder in what ways local councils can encourage them to do this more often, because this could help mitigate the congestion if enough schools could be persuaded to be more flexible.

Another major impact on population expansion is the rapid increase in the student population, which also takes up a lot of space and is by no means a development to be unreservedly welcomed. Many students drive these days, hence more traffic and parking problems ensue. We do acknowledge that the aims of the Conservative proposal are laudable ones. Hence, we in UKIP support the motion. But we do also have to acknowledge that it is often difficult to translate laudable aims into effective practical measures. Thank you.

Wales’s population is expected to increase dramatically over the next decade, with the number of elderly persons over the age of 85 expected to double. The suitability and practicality of our urban design, our housing and the transport connections of our towns and our cities to fit this demographic need must continue to evolve in line with growing need and greater expectation. Age Cymru have highlighted the requirement for public buildings to comply with specific access considerations, especially for those with disability need or sensory impairment. The demography of our ageing population is fast-changing and Government must move at a similar pace.

In order to cope with increased congestion and more commuters, the Welsh Government must do more to promote walking and cycling in Wales. The Welsh Government must fully embrace new technologies and invest in the future of a modern transport infrastructure on a Wales-wide scale, not just in Cardiff. An essential enabler for many of our older population is access to robust and reliable public transport providing connections between our rural communities, urban areas and public services: hospitals, libraries, community centres and shops. Transport that is effective and accessible to all is essential to eradicate the impact of isolation, loneliness and despair.

The housing crisis must be confronted if Wales is to cope with population demand in our cities, but also in our towns. Furthermore, measures must be taken to guarantee that all new housing projects are energy efficient and adapted to the needs of the local demographic. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 is designed to bring about a new and exciting agenda of change. So, we do need schemes to improve the energy efficiency of our existing housing. We need measures to reduce the current rates of fuel poverty. The average dwelling in Wales falls within energy performance certificate band D, which is not high enough to protect households from fuel poverty. Here in Wales, 23 per cent of households—that’s 291,000 homes—were estimated to be in fuel poverty in 2016, a lot of this in Cardiff. That is more than twice the percentage of those in England. The future generations Act should be used as a lever to work in tandem with Nest to offer support to UK Government initiatives that have been successful in reducing energy poverty, such as the energy company obligation, ECO. So, any new properties in our cities—in Cardiff or elsewhere—should actually be fuel-poverty-proof.

The Conservatives, in 2013, brought out a scheme that provides obligations upon energy suppliers to provide energy-efficient measures to households across the UK. This is important to help us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, for which the residential sector in Wales is responsible—a quarter of our annual 3 per cent reductions target. This week, I’ve been doing some work on air pollution and, again, for our towns and cities it’s vital that, as we grow them, we don’t grow the pollution that comes with them.

I welcome the provisions of the Wales Bill, which will give the Assembly the opportunity to develop a specifically Welsh feed-in tariff scheme to support the installation of solar panels. Welsh Conservatives have warned against an overdependence on wind energy, and we wholeheartedly welcome the findings of the Hendry review in its support for tidal lagoons in north and south Wales. Our cities and urban areas will be some of the key drivers for Wales’s economic resilience and prosperity in the years to come, and it is essential that the Welsh Government works to ensure that they are suitable to the longevity and well-being of our unique demographic here in Wales.

In welcoming the city status in particular, I would just like to add St Asaph in north Wales, the little town that became a city. Having passed the legislation for the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act last term, I believe it is incumbent on us as politicians not to be looking to duplicate legislation or further complicate the aims of this Act. Fully interpreting, implementing and adequately resourcing the aims of this Act by this Welsh Labour Government will, in my opinion, move Wales forward in great strides. That is in our urban areas, our rural areas and certainly in our cities. Thank you.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, Ken Skates.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’d like to thank the Conservatives for tabling this debate today and welcome David Melding’s introductory contribution, along with his acceptance of the Government’s amendment.

I’m just going to quickly pick up on his final point, because I think that’s particularly important, and that concerns citizen involvement, which was raised by a number of Members around the Chamber, of course. Citizen involvement is of immense importance to people because it conveys a sense of control over their lives, over their environment, over the place that they value, their town, their city, and it relates to, of course, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where control is a fundamental need of every person if they are to live in a way that eases despair and anxiety and that embeds a sense of well-being in their existence. Of course, it’s reflected as well in the well-being of future generations Act the ways of working in which consultation with the public is provided as an essential component of all the decisions that public sector bodies should be making.

I think that a number of important issues have been raised today by Members, and I’d like to address each one. The first is the very important question, I think, and that is: what role do our cities and also our other major urban areas play in supporting economic growth? Well, we’ve long recognised that cities are fundamental in driving a nation’s prosperity, given the abundant evidence. It demonstrates how larger urban areas generate economic growth faster than rural areas. We first recognised the potential for city regions back in 2011 when we commissioned a report and established an advisory group to consider the evidence for city regions, and this led us, of course, to setting up the Cardiff capital region board and the Swansea bay city region board undertaking the foundation work that has led to the city deals being developed.

Of course, deals offer Wales and our regions an important opportunity to unlock additional Treasury funding to support interventions that can deliver economic growth, but deals should not be seen simply as project delivery and funding vehicles. They offer an opportunity for citizen engagement and they are critical tools in providing a framework that allows regions to drive a new way of collaborative working, setting priorities as a single voice that supports local economic ambitions and objectives and, of course, delivers key functions at a strategic level. They are critical to realising the vision of genuinely sustainable, clean, well planned cities and wider regions that the motion points to.

Genuine collaboration amongst stakeholders and local authorities in particular as a consequence of the deals should not be underestimated if we are to achieve the vision of lovable, prosperous cities—cities that we’d wish to see defined not just by how wealthy they are, but also by the quality of place that they command, by how urban environments can enhance rather than inhibit well-being and happiness levels. I think each of the points within the motion are proven to contribute to this.

Many examples of cities around the globe have been quoted today. We could actually celebrate close to home, right here, the fact that Cardiff is known as one of the best places for young people to grow up in. We have just next door the Wales Millennium Centre, which has received an award for being the friendliest theatre in Britain. I think it’s fair to say that we would wish to see our cities and towns known as the friendliest places that people can visit, because that’s what’s going to draw people here from places like the south-east, that David Melding pointed to, which will grow and expand to a point where many younger people will seek out other cities and other towns to establish families and seek work in. So, we need to make sure that our cities and towns are amongst the most attractive places in which to work and live.

Will the Minister take an intervention?

Yes, sure.

I’m grateful to the Minister for taking the intervention. Will he recognise the importance of this regional type of planning and, in particular, making our cities and towns very attractive? Because with the directly elected mayors now that have huge regeneration powers and responsibilities in Bristol, Birmingham and Liverpool, right across the border—north, mid and south—there are going to be these engine rooms of redevelopment, regeneration, directly controlled locally by those cities.

I think whether it’s through directly elected mayors or other forms of policies, it’s essential that you have democratic processes that convey a sense of control by the citizen but that are also streamlined, efficient and effective. That applies not just to cities, but also to more rural areas, I believe. But of course, we also have to recognise the limits of cities as much as their potential. I think it’s fair to say that, looking back over the last few years, the Welsh economy has performed exceptionally well. We know that unemployment is at a record low, that employment is at a record high and last year, the Welsh Government helped to create and protect 37,500 jobs.

So, there’s no doubt that parts of Cardiff and Swansea and other large urban areas have achieved impressive growth. But, as I’ve said today in an article in the ‘Western Mail’, I think our challenge in 2017 is to build those fundamentals of a strong economy in all parts of Wales and our approach must go beyond, in my view, simply focusing on developing our cities to a more nuanced approach that better reflects the needs and the opportunities for economic resilience and prosperity right across Wales. This is something that was recognised in part (h) of point 3 in today’s motion, which several speakers have touched on, including Nick Ramsay, who also championed, rightly, the need for integrated ticketing—and I do believe that with the new franchise and the ability of Transport for Wales to control the ticketing mechanisms, we will be able to realise that vision that has eluded us in many places.

I think it’s also essential for us to support economic growth and prosperity in a way that recognises that Wales’s economy has a significant regional dimension, again raised by a number of Members. In doing so, I think we need to grow our regional capitals—those towns and large urban areas that are not necessarily cities, but that are major attractive areas that can have the potential to create the sort of agglomeration that Jeremy Miles spoke of, which acts as a driving force for economic prosperity.

I think it’s also essential that we do all we can to share the wealth and to address head on the structural and economic problems that still blight too many communities. That’s why we’ve not only encouraged and supported the development of city regions and city deals, but also have been strong supporters for the work of the Growing Mid Wales partnership, the north Wales growth deal and north Wales’s relationship with the Northern Powerhouse.

In north Wales, of course, there’s an opportunity for greater collaborative working within the region and across the border, and it’s something that I am very much encouraging. I think the debate today has touched on some very important themes, and it’s clear that a co-ordinated and cross-governmental approach is essential in achieving growth and prosperity right across Wales.

One final point—and it’s something that Janet Finch-Saunders raised in her contribution—is the importance of how the built environment should be designed and constructed to reflect the needs of an ageing population. I believe that Janet Finch-Saunders is absolutely right, and I would go one step further and say that design should be based on a people-first basis, not at all on a vehicle-first basis. For that reason, I think Nick Ramsay is absolutely right in his assertion that the active travel Act must be successful.

I call on David Melding to reply to the debate.

Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. Can I thank everyone who has taken part in what I think was a very constructive, insightful debate? And lots of common themes have emerged.

Can I just start with Jeremy Miles? I think this point that technology can out-trump geography is correct, but I think the other side of that is that it has made all of our urban areas a part, then, of the actual cities we’re talking about: Neath Port Talbot into Swansea, but by the time you get to Bridgend, it’s Swansea or Cardiff. This is, I think, a great liberation. Gareth Bennett made this point that we’ve always looked at the hinterland—that is true—but now I think it’s much more on the general urban offer, rather than extractive industries in particular. And cities are very popular. I think that’s one thing we’ve really got to remember—very popular with younger people; that’s where they’re moving, generally. Jeremy also talked about this concept of involving citizens and inclusivity, and it was picked up again, by several of today’s speakers, but the Minister mentioned this as well and related it to well-being. I think that’s really important and is something I completely agree with.

Suzy talked about her own direct experience of poor air quality and pollution wafting over Swansea bay, and mentioned the great new university campus on Swansea bay. It was remiss of me not to mention universities, because they really are key players in our cities. But, yes, this is a real issue. You mentioned the citizen engagement in the tidal lagoon, and I think those of us who listened to Charles Hendry earlier—he said that it was one of the remarkable things that there was obvious citizen support for the concept.

Neil McEvoy, I think it’s really important that we preserve green areas, and I’m glad you mentioned woodlands, because I think urban woodlands are very, very significant. However, I think cities have to develop. We do need more housing and I think Janet mentioned the housing crisis. But perhaps we need to ask questions now, and engage with the people who are going to be, say, in their mid or late thirties in 10 years and say, ‘Well, what sort of housing offer would be acceptable to you now?’, because we will have to change. The old view of a fairly large semi-detached house with grounds surrounding it: we can’t build that sort of dwelling. It may be more—. An alternative is a more densely compact one, but, still, it’s bigger than what we have at the moment. A lot of apartments are not suitable, really, for family life. Go to the continent: large apartments. You go to one of the great cities of central Europe—Prague or Vienna—and what strikes you, if you go to someone’s home, is how large they’re apartments are, and then they’ll have a communal garden that everyone can enjoy. That may be something we need to look at, so that we use our land more effectively.

Nick Ramsay mentioned Milton Keynes, which is 50; you mentioned the roundabouts, but not the concrete cows, which, I’m sure, was a good choice. Cardiff bay is in that sort of category, I think, in terms of the ambition of its transformation, and I think Milton Keynes, you would say, is actually an example of good planning, generally, but there have been past planning howlers. You were right to mention that. The great Sue Essex, of course, was an Assembly Member in the first two Assemblies, and I believe she was a town planner. She was certainly chair of the planning committee and brought great insight to these matters, but humility, sometimes, is also quite important.

Can I thank Gareth Bennett for talking about road and rail congestion? That really is a major, major issue. It can be managed, but, again, it needs lots of flexible solutions. I think the students in Cardiff add a lot to our city. There, the university has been very flexible and innovative in the housing offer, and they’re building some really striking new buildings, and students are quite demanding. Why young people are not as demanding as students about their housing is a mystery to me, but perhaps we should find out.

Janet then also mentioned the demographic challenge of elderly and disabled people in particular. We need to remember them in our urban design—very, very important—and she and several others talked about alternative transport—walking and cycling. Can I just say—I go back—we need to look at our road networks again? Some of them should be designated to just public transport. Some should now become cycling and walking routes. We need real ambition to change our wonderful urban spaces so that they will become world beaters.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? The motion without amendment is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.