The next item on our agenda is the short debate. I will call the short debate once some Members have left the Chamber. Lee Waters.

Diolch, Llywydd. I’ve agreed to give a minute of my time to my colleagues Mike Hedges, Jenny Randerson and David Melding—Jenny Rathbone, I do apologise.

Let me start by saying that the M4 can be horrendous. At rush hour, I have regularly been sat in endless queuing traffic, and this isn’t just a problem at the Brynglas tunnels, but at several points along the motorway, and if there’s ever an accident, the whole thing can grind to a halt. And people are rightly fed up with the situation, in particular the fact that we’ve been talking about taking action for 15 years, and yet nothing ever seems to get done. I share the frustration.

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

But, we need to fashion a solution that will last—an M4 fit for future generations. And I just don’t believe that the proposed relief road will be anything more than an expensive stop-gap. In fact, as a policy approach, it manages to do something quite remarkable: it succeeds in both being outdated and premature at the same time. Outdated because the evidence of the last 50 years of transport policy is that building new roads, increasing capacity, only leads to more people using their cars, quickly filling up the new space. And premature, because it pays no attention to the game-changers coming our way. Now, I think it was Einstein who was meant to have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. In transport planning, we continue to do just that; we’ve become wedded to this so-called predict-and-provide approach, which, simply put, is that engineers predict that the traffic will grow in the future, so they build more roads to deal with it. And that’s a never-ending model of traffic growth, first set out 30 years ago, and, frankly, is nonsense.

Just think about it. If we were to take that to its logical conclusion and follow the trends, this approach has each of us earning an income of £1 million by the year 2205, and a lorry on the road for every man, woman and child. Now, aside from the pay rise, I don’t think this is a future that any of us want to live in and it’s certainly not the type of future we created the future generations Act to try and shape. Yes, there’s a problem at peak time around the Brynglas tunnels. Yes, something must be done about it. But we cannot build our way out of this problem. We’ve been trying that for generations and it doesn’t work. Traffic builds up, roads, once again, seize up and we rapidly find ourselves back at square one. If we’re not careful, we could end up with a £1 billion car park.

Already, the Freight Transport Association—the haulage industry lobby body—is saying that a new three-lane motorway at Newport will be inadequate to meet demand and we ought to be creating four lanes. Trying to relieve congestion by engineering ever bigger roads is no more than a short-term fix and an expensive one at that. The new stretch of M4 is currently estimated to cost £1,100 million for just 15 miles of tarmac. Bearing in mind that two years ago, people were insisting that the cost would be way below £1 billion, it may go up even further.

Yesterday, the Finance Secretary outlined the grim economic picture we face and how money will get even tighter in the coming years. Is it wise to tie up all of our borrowing capacity in one scheme in one corner of Wales? I ask my fellow Assembly Members: if the Government was to offer any one of us £1.1 billion to spend on something that would make Wales better, how many of us can honestly say that we would build a six-lane motorway over a protected wetland? Our entire line of new credit will be blown on a project that, in economic terms, will barely repay the investment over 30 years. Even using a formula that has been manipulated to exaggerate the benefits of road schemes, we’ll only see a return on investment of just £1.60 for every £1 spent, which the Treasury classes as low value for money. In that 30-year time frame, rapid technological development and a fully functioning metro project may well transform the way we travel.

Which brings me to my second point. We are trying to fit a fixed solution to a rapidly evolving problem. We’re so blinkered in our approach to transport management that we’re failing to look at the bigger picture, and there are substantial changes coming at us fast. If you speak to business people, they acknowledge that the world of work is changing quickly. Soon, we won’t need to be shuttling people back and forth between desks every day. Rapidly evolving technology means we need to be developing digital not transport infrastructure, but roomfuls of highway engineers in Cathays Park are never going to voluntarily face up to that. The formula used to justify a road as the best way to deal with congestion at the Brynglas tunnels takes the most optimistic view of the possible benefits. Meanwhile, the projections of the Cardiff metro take the most pessimistic view. Transport officials have suggested to the public inquiry that of the 11,000 journeys made every hour in peak times on the M4, the metro will, at best, only take 200 off the roads. I just don’t buy it. But even if this really is the case, if it will only have a minimal impact on rush-hour traffic, why are we not setting out to develop a public transport system that will tackle peak-hour M4 demand?

I fear this project, the metro, is being set up to fail. It’s being starved of investment by the UK Government cancelling electrification, and with the disappearance of EU grants because of Brexit, and by the road-building lobby who are trying to minimise its impact. It’s for policy makers to tell engineers what society needs, not the other way around. The other innovation that is upon us is the development of autonomous vehicles. We simply don’t know yet what the impact of driverless cars will be, but it is highly likely that this new technology, which will see cars driving side by side and bumper to bumper, will allow us to use existing road space much more efficiently, making the extra capacity unnecessary.

But perhaps the biggest development this approach fails to factor in is the law that this Government and this Assembly passed just two years ago: the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. On 13 September, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales—the person this Assembly empowered in law to be the independent watchdog of the Act—made a significant intervention. She said the Welsh Government, in its approach to the M4, was setting a dangerous precedent in its interpretation of one of our newest pieces of legislation. In its evidence to the public inquiry, the Government admitted the new motorway will cause harm. But, it argued, that harm is justified because of the immediate economic benefits it will bring—a good old-fashioned trade-off, or, as the Government QC beautifully put it, in a way that only a QC would, a balance between different desiderata.’

This, Llywydd, is the standard line: there are four elements to sustainable development, the argument goes. One of them is economic, and so a project that brings economic benefits is, by definition, helping to bring about sustainable development.

Sophie Howe’s challenge to the Government is that this is wrong as a matter of law. One pillar of sustainable development cannot override the others. Trade-offs are no longer lawful in Wales. Under the future generations Act, we can no longer bargain the long-term interests of future generations for the short-term benefits of today. I don’t see how an initiative that not only builds in traffic growth, but rises emissions for generations to come, whilst also saddling them with the costs, can be labelled as anything other than harmful for Wales’s future. This is a substantial challenge from the future generations commissioner, one I believe should not be confined to a debate amongst lawyers at the public inquiry, and today’s intervention was a catalyst by me to try and bring this debate onto the floor of our National Assembly, where it belongs.

Once the future generations Act became law, the Welsh Government should have looked afresh at the problem of congestion around the Brynglas tunnels and developed a solution consistent with all the principles of the Act, not just the one that suited its predetermined plan. And there are solutions to the problems of congestion. There’s lots of evidence of how improvement in public transport and, for short, everyday journeys, can cut car use, can reduce congestion, can alleviate pressure on the road network. On top of an ambitious metro project, congestion can be cut by a battery of interventions, and I just offer a few as an example—this is not an exhaustive list: bus priority lanes; traffic signals that give precedence to sustainable transport; park and ride; workplace car parking charges; targeted and tailored information about bus routes and times. Combining policies to encourage behaviour change with hard infrastructure to improve public transport has been proven to work. This is not revolutionary. This happens in successful cities all over the world. It’s just for the last 50 years we’ve turned our back on it, and now we’re paying the price, through poor air quality, congestion and the highest levels of childhood obesity in Europe.

There’s a way of tackling the problems on the M4 that does not harm the needs of future generations. In fact, it can help a whole range of policy interventions that we are trying to make work, and I would ask the Cabinet Secretary to quickly set up an expert group to find a solution to congestion issues on the M4 that doesn’t involve trading off the needs of future generations with the short-term aims of today. The public inquiry isn’t doing that. It’s looking at a series of road options to deal with the problem of congestion. And who have we asked to adjudicate the best answer? A civil engineer.

I would urge the Government not to reject the independent commissioner’s judgment on this. If they fight her in the courts, they risk undermining their very own landmark legislation we have told the world we are so proud of. We created this Act. It requires a new approach, not a retrospective defence of what we were planning to do all along. Diolch.

I can be convinced that we need a relief road for the M4, but I’m currently unconvinced. We always talk here about decisions being evidence based. Do we know where people join and where they come off the M4, using number plate recognition technology? Do they need to be using the M4, or are there alternative roads? Has any thought been given to signposting Neath, Swansea and west Wales, as well as Abergavenny? People like myself keep on coming down to the M4 and turning on to the M4 when we would probably be better off going across the Heads of the Valleys road, but it says ‘Abergavenny’, and I know I don’t want to go to Abergavenny—no offence to Abergavenny. Can we model the effect of the south Wales metro on the M4 traffic movement? There’s an awful lot of thought and study that could go into this. Yes, I’m convinced if we need it, but I really do need convincing.

There is a role for the M4. If I’m travelling to west Wales to go camping with my kids, my cat and my canary, I’m going to, obviously, go by car—I’m not going to go by public transport.

There’s a picture. [Laughter.]

But if you’re travelling through parts of Wales that are not connected by the rail service, you are obliged to go by car. So, obviously, we need the M4 to connect that east-west part of south Wales. But the M4 was not intended as a bypass around Newport or a commuter route into Cardiff.

The new natural resources policy promises a modal shift away from roads for people and freight, aimed at reducing emissions and the impacts that transport has on the environment and people’s health. The M4 relief road would do the opposite. The Welsh Government even admits it would increase the traffic, but tries to argue that it would reduce congestion and, therefore, air pollution. However, it might temporarily reduce congestion around Newport, but it would simply move the problem west to Cardiff. Cardiff already has highly congested areas in my constituency, affecting at least five schools having illegal levels of air pollution. The M4 relief road would make that a whole lot worse. This is not an effective use of over £1 billion. Instead, we could and should be investing that money in the metro, which would deliver the modal shift that our growing capital city urgently requires.

I do hope the canary is not the cat’s lunch. It sounds an interesting journey you are making.

As a terribly wicked Tory, I am sceptical about free goods, and, of course, one of the freest goods we have are the roads. I think when we are making a really huge public investment like this, we need to look at all the evidence and anticipate what’s likely to happen in 10 or 20 years. Within 10 years, I confidently predict there will be comprehensive road pricing. We will no longer be able to tax motorists as we always have done through fuel prices, and technology will allow us to do that. We will get much more rational use of the roads once we have road pricing, and I do see an age where, possibly, what is now congested won’t be so congested in the future. So, we do need to think very seriously about these matters.

I now call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to reply to the debate. Ken Skates.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start by thanking all Members for their contributions, and especially the Member for Llanelli for bringing forward this debate today? I wanted to begin my contribution by also thanking Lee for the discussions that we and other Members have had over the last few months around this issue. We may not have always agreed, but I have appreciated the practical challenge that Lee and others have provided to this project. In that same spirit, there are a few key issues that I want to address in my response today.

It’s vital that we start by recognising the continued and worsening problems on the M4 around Newport and that they must be resolved. These are problems not simply faced by commuters on the motorway, but problems faced by the residents of Newport and the wider economy of Wales: problems of congestion around the Brynglas tunnels; problems when buses are regularly delayed or the police and council are impaired in doing their jobs by people simply seeking to avoid the congested motorway; problems of air quality, worsened by stop-start traffic; the reputational and economic impact of a gateway to Wales that is unreliable; and a disincentive to inward investment. The inadequacies of the existing M4 around Newport are clear for all to see.

The road was first designed in the 1950s not as a motorway but as the Newport bypass. It falls far below modern motorway standards, with lane drops, intermittent hard shoulders, poor alignment and frequent junctions. Central reserve enhancements and a variable speed limit have improved the situation, but ‘make do and mend’ is no longer a sustainable policy choice to meet the long-term needs of Wales. Tackling that congestion and modernising what is a vitally important piece of infrastructure in Wales is a key priority for this Welsh Government. That’s why the last Welsh Government made it very clear in the last Assembly to deliver a relief road for the M4, and my party reaffirmed that pledge in its 2016 Assembly election manifesto. That commitment was then voted on by the people of Wales, and entered into our programme for government. These commitments and endorsements do not give this Welsh Government a blank cheque, but what they do give are promises, and we have a democratic mandate that should be respected and delivered on.

The proposed M4 corridor around Newport would represent a significant infrastructure investment in Newport, and comes with a strong business case and a suite of embedded environmental mitigation and compensation. The economic appraisal shows that the scheme provides good value for money. The adjusted benefit-cost ratio, which captures benefits from increased economic density, greater competition and enhanced labour market access, is greater than 2. That means that over the 60-year appraisal period, there is more than £2 of benefit for each pound spent on the scheme, without touching on the wider economic benefits likely to flow from the scheme, such as a stronger perception of Wales as a place to invest, which cannot be captured. It would complement and integrate with our plans for the Cardiff capital region metro, providing a holistic transport network fit for the future.

The public inquiry into this project by independent inspectors is allowing open and robust scrutiny as to whether it is the sustainable long-term solution to the serious problems associated with this gateway into Wales. The rigour of the inquiry process is appropriate to the importance of the subject, and the outcome of this inquiry really does matter for Wales.

The future generation commissioner’s input to that inquiry is to be welcomed; I want to make that point very clearly. The role of the commissioner in ensuring that the interpretation of the well-being of future generations Act is robust is hugely important. I think it only fair, however, that I correct what I feel to be a misinterpretation of the commissioner’s recent letter in the press. The fact of the matter is that the commissioner has expressly not commented on allegations made by others that the M4 project is not compliant with the Act. I can assure all Members that the principles, the ways of working and the goals of the Act have been considered in the development of this project, and will continue to be fully and equally considered in the final decision making on this project.

As part of the evidence submitted, an evaluation of the overall sustainability of the scheme has been presented to the inquiry. Undertaken by John Davies, that review was a thorough evidence-based assessment of the scheme in the context of relevant legislation and policy, including the well-being of future generations Act. His conclusion is that the scheme is essential to the well-being of the people of Wales, and should proceed.

The sustainable development principle, first enshrined in the Government of Wales Act, and then reinforced in the future generations Act, precludes decision makers from taking a short-termist approach at the expense of future generations. The five ways of working set out clearly the obligations on the Welsh Government to avoid compromising the interests of future generations. The ways of working acknowledge the fact that there may be trade-offs between desirable objectives and goals. The sustainable development principle involves striking a balance. The principle clearly states that public bodies must take account of the importance of balancing short-term needs with the need to safeguard the ability to also meet long-term needs.

Recently, Deputy Presiding Officer, the Welsh Government stepped in to provide financial support to help the steel industry in Wales, when Tata put its UK sites up for sale in 2016. The support we have provided has been vital in keeping steel jobs and steel production in Wales, at its sites in Port Talbot, Shotton, Llanwern and Trostre. The decision we were faced with was a trade-off. Steel as an industry today is not the low-carbon industry we want it to be, but our decision to provide financial support to save jobs at the plants in south Wales, and in north Wales, in the short-term was a trade-off to give us the time to plan for more energy-efficient future techniques and a future for the industry that I’m sure we all want to see—an outcome more sustainable for future generations than putting thousands of Welsh workers out of work in the short term. The sustainable development principle requires that these difficult decisions are made in light of their social, economic, environmental and cultural implications in both the short term and the long term. That case is very different to the one we are discussing here, but it is another example of the balancing act that must be struck.

I’ve heard those who say that the funding allocated to this scheme would be better employed expanding public transport options in the region. In developing detailed traffic modelling for the project, we have anticipated the impact of scrapping Severn bridge tolls, and examined the impact of implementing our metro vision. We have taken a long-term view of what is required to prepare the south-east Wales transport network for the future; however, there is a limit to what an expanded metro would do. As our detailed analysis makes clear, the metro’s greatest positive impact will be on north-south patterns of travel, and not the east-west journeys catered for by the M4. The public transport overview report has assessed the impact of all the rail elements of the metro, up to 2037, and of the proposed Llanwern park-and-ride station, and it found that less than 4 per cent of traffic on the M4 would be extracted from the road even on the set of assumptions most favourable for modal shift.

The outcome of the M4 inquiry will inform a decision on whether to proceed with construction next year. I’m unable to comment any further on the ongoing statutory process other than to say that the final decision will be made with a fully informed view based on all legislation, including the future generations Act. Looking more widely than just the M4, I am keen that we see that particular road in the context of the wider ambitions we have as a Welsh Government to decarbonise the transport system. One of the key developments in this work will be the national infrastructure commission, which we’re setting up to play a key role in planning Wales’s infrastructure needs—needs planned over the long term, independent of Government, and helping to prioritise strategic investment decisions. We are continually developing our transport planning so that it can plan for growth in a sustainable way. The future generations commissioner has herself welcomed the new WelTAG model we have developed for planning and transport projects.

Deputy Presiding Officer, we must continue to strive to achieve modal shift in our transport system, and to ensure more balance in the way we plan transport solutions. However, I do come back to the central issue at hand: the existing infrastructure on the M4 around Newport is not fit for purpose. That has been our conclusion for some time. Piecemeal and useful improvements have been undertaken over time, which will improve the position, including a variable speed limit and modernisation of the Brynglas tunnels, but they’ve only postponed the issue. This piece of infrastructure needs a major, long-term upgrade. The inquiry will conclude soon and I will commit to keeping Members informed of progress. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That brings today’s proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 18:26.