Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Transport has a pivotal role to play in improving Wales’s prosperity, connecting people, communities and businesses to jobs, facilities, services and markets. It has a key role in delivering cohesive communities and against our 'healthier' and 'more responsible' well-being goals through the choices people make and a modal shift to more sustainable travel modes, including public transport, cycling and walking.

The Transport (Wales) Act 2006 imposes a duty on us to develop policies for the promotion and encouragement of safe, integrated, sustainable, efficient and economic transport facilities and services to, from and within Wales.  These policies are set out in the Wales transport strategy, together with how the Welsh Government proposes to fulfil these policies. The current strategy was published in 2008 and was reviewed in 2013, when the decision was taken that policies and interventions within the strategy remained relevant and appropriate to meeting the transport needs of the people of Wales. More recently, however, there have been a number of key policy and legislative developments in Wales that require that we revisit the strategy to ensure that our policies and actions taken to improve transport in Wales continue to make a positive contribution to delivering prosperity for all.

The Welsh Government’s programme for government sets out how the Government will deliver more and better jobs through a stronger, fairer economy, improve and reform our public services, and build a united, connected and sustainable Wales. To support our programme for government, which sets out the headline commitments we will deliver between now and 2021, our national strategy brings together the efforts of the whole public sector towards this Government’s central mission of delivering prosperity for all. Both the programme for government and the national strategy will help us maximise our contribution to the national well-being goals required under the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. We also need to consider the coming into force of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, which will lead to statutory emission and carbon reduction targets for Wales, of which transport represents the third largest emissions sector, accounting for approximately 13 per cent of total carbon emissions in Wales.

The demand for private vehicle ownership and use continues to increase. Private vehicles remain the dominant force for journeys and for freight transport. Indeed, 85 per cent of journeys made in Wales are by car, with bus and rail journeys each accounting for approximately 8 per cent. Walking is the highest mode chosen for the primary school journey, which is replaced by bus travel at the secondary level. Demand for public and private transport is forecast to increase significantly over the next 10 years. Forecasts show increased demand of at least 150 per cent for public transport and private vehicle modes by 2030. The potential impact on our environment, together with people's health and well-being, requires that we need to refine our policy approach that enables us to better tackle the challenges we need to address in the coming decade.