Diolch, Llywydd. Yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary told the Assembly that demand for public transport is predicted to grow by 150 per cent in the next 13 years. If that’s correct, then it's vital that we make the investment now to ensure that there's an attractive alternative to car use in place. 

Evidence from the most successful cities around the world, where public transport is thriving, is that people will use buses and trains if they are easy to use. Passengers need to be able to turn up and go. But, in many of the communities I represent, people’s experience of public transport is very different. They turn up, and it’s gone. We’ve got bus services like the L1 from Morfa to Llanelli, which stop at 4 p.m. If you live in Kidwelly or Trimsaran, there are just three bus services a day to Llanelli, and the last bus from Tumble leaves at 6.30 p.m. There are just four trains a day from Bynea to Swansea, and, if instead you take the number 16 bus, it will take nearly two hours—a trip you can make by car in 30 minutes. 

My constituents have been telling me that, when they do take public transport, it often turns up late, the heating will have packed up or buses will only accept exact change. I accept that may not be most people's experience, but anecdotal evidence like this is commonly cited by people who drive as a reason for not using public transport. And, if they can be persuaded to give it a try, it only takes a couple of bad experiences to put them off for good.

There is cross-party support to build metro systems. Our motion today welcomes the commitment to taking forward the Cardiff and the Valleys metro, the pledge to develop one in north-east Wales, and for a study of one for the Swansea bay city region. I am holding a meeting with businesses in Llanelly House on Friday to build support for the metro in my region and to get ideas of how to shape it to make things better for the communities I represent. We quickly need detailed blueprints now for all three metro projects, and for these to be ambitious—not just good services for the main towns and cities, but to reach out and link in outlying communities. It's crucial too that we design the metro with the whole journey in mind, door to door. So, as well as buses and trains, we need to think about how this links with walking and cycling for the journeys to and from stations and to design them in. Otherwise, we could end up blowing a huge pile of money on a series of massive car parks at each station. 

So—so far, so familiar. But the purpose of today’s debate, I hope, is for us to look at metros differently, to look beyond their transport benefits to their wider regeneration benefits too. By improving transport connections to key settlements, we are opening up the potential for bringing other benefits to those areas as well. When a service improves, or a new station is built, the value of nearby land tends to increase as it becomes a more attractive place to build. Businesses are drawn in, not just to the individual metro station, but to the large urban centres that become within easy reach of the end of the line, increasing their talent pool exponentially. And it helps the unemployed and the under-employed too by making jobs more accessible regardless of whether they have a car. We know that those on the lowest incomes can spend a quarter of their income on running a car to get access to work. Affordable public transport can help remove that barrier to employment.

These potential benefits, Dirprwy Lywydd, are well established, but we've misread this potential as being inevitable. With these new metro systems, as well as getting the mechanics right, we need to make sure that, from the outset, we build in the additional levers that are needed to ensure that, as we upgrade the transport system, we lock in the wider benefits that this new investment will create. For people to take advantage of the new jobs that will be accessible to them, not only do we need to ensure they have the transport means to access these new jobs, but they have the qualifications too. This mustn’t be a broad-brush approach, but a targeted one. Can I ask the Cabinet Secretary: where is the analysis of what new jobs will be accessible and of which specific new employers might be attracted to these communities as a result of a new metro station? It’s only with this analysis that we can see where the skills gaps are and how the existing population can be supported to meet those skills gaps so that we aren’t simply importing talent, we’re developing it.

On land prices, if we are to prevent profits falling only to private landlords and homeowners, Transport for Wales must have the power to act as a development corporation, with the ability to capitalise on rising land values in areas close to metro stations so that they can lever in further funding to expand the metro network. And, in terms of attracting new businesses, what measures are in place to ensure new businesses increase the social value, not just the shareholder value? Will the appearance of a new Tesco Metro, for example, put existing local businesses at risk? Could alternative approaches boost, rather than undermine, the existing foundational economies? All of this needs to considered and designed in.

The Welsh Government needs to make sure that Transport for Wales has all of the tools and the direction to design metro systems that don’t just improve public transport but change the life chances of the people in the areas we represent. This is not just a project for engineers to play with buses and trains, and Ministers must make sure the different portfolios come together to capture this opportunity. Diolch.