1. Will the First Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government's strategy on a modal shift to sustainable transport? (OAQ51080)

We’re promoting sustainable transport by investing in our rail and bus services, by developing integrated public transport networks such as the metro in the north and south, ensuring active travel becomes more mainstream, and working with local partners to identify pinch-point areas and deliver infrastructure improvements to smooth traffic flow.

Thank you, First Minister. I just wanted to specifically focus on how we’re getting more people to bicycle, because I was very shocked when I had a delegation of year 12 students from St Teilo’s, all of whom are 16 or 17, and none of them were bicycling to school. One of them even said, ‘Oh, I live four miles away’, as if that was a long way to bicycle. If we look at the statistics, less than 3 per cent of children aged five to 16 go by bike, but 30 per cent, or more, go by car. If we can’t start with the current young generation, we’re never going to get the modal shift they’ve got in places like Holland, where 40 per cent go by bike, and, in one city in Denmark—the second city—80 per cent go by bicycle. So, what do you think the Government can do to really get that change in culture?

The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, of course, is the basis for doing this, recognising that cycling, while important for health, is a mode of transport, and it’s important, as is walking, of course. I’ve always thought that in trying to encourage people to get onto bikes, it’s important that they feel safe, and a lot of people won’t go on the roads and mix with cars. In the countries that the Member’s mentioned, in the Netherlands, for example, and in Denmark, there is segregation between bikes and cars, and that’s one of the ways in which people can be encouraged to use bikes more. There’s a lot of work to be done, particularly in our cities, to establish bike routes into the cities. We have some bike routes that tend to take people away into the countryside, but we’re not yet in a position, I believe, where we can say that we have a proper network of urban cycle routes that will encourage the more reluctant cyclists to actually use a bike rather than feel they’ve got to compete with cars on the roads. But the active travel Act has begun the process of changing attitudes and encouraging local authorities to put in place proper provision for bikes.

First Minister, a year ago, the Welsh Government’s position was that there were no immediate plans to use public funds for electric vehicle infrastructure. Now, since then, of course, the UK Government has stated its position to phase out diesel cars by 2040. Would you agree with me that it’s now essential that the Welsh Government does invest in electric vehicle charging points in town centres initially, and then further afield, to make that transition from diesel to electric cars a reality?

Well, we already do: for example, the on-street residential charge point scheme, which supports local authorities with 75 per cent of capital costs of procuring and installing residential charge points, and with an associated dedicated parking bay. It is a challenge now for all Governments to put in place the network of chargers that will be needed before 2040, and in particular ensuring standardisation as well of chargers. As somebody who drives a hybrid, there are several different sockets that are used, and it’s quite difficult to find the right charger. But I expect, over the next four or five years, particularly with intervention from Governments, including ourselves, building on what we’ve done already, we will see an expanding network of chargers, which will encourage more people then to look initially, I suspect, at hybrids, and then at fully electric vehicles.

I agree entirely on the point on electric vehicles. Perhaps I’ll turn back to cycling and how important it is that cycling is a part not only of the active travel plans, but also of the local authority travel plans. I have seen too many of these local plans referring to cycling in the context of leisure and sport and don’t put cycling at the heart of the plans as a means of transportation, and Carmarthenshire is an example of that. So, will you urge local authorities to ensure that cycling is a central party of planning for local transportation?

It is central. Every local authority has to submit its initial maps of the new routes that they are going to develop within their area. They are now working on integrated network routes, and they have to submit them by 3 November this year, and then it will be possible to measure how much progress the authorities have made and how much more support they require in order to go at the right speed in the right direction.