Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:50 pm on 13 December 2017.
It can be that, but there is a tension. For example, in the versions and the discussion that I've heard, the emphasis almost always seems to be on basically—to simplify it, but essentially—to use it as a commuter service to get people from the hinterland to work in jobs in Cardiff. That makes no economic sense for us. It will not be delivered. I agree with the Member that, actually, a different vision needs to be presented. Some of the original ideas, some of the work that Roger Tanner did on a city of the Valleys, was actually a much more exciting vision, which had a sense of a polycentric region, which actually addressed in transport terms the very problem of traversal links, rather than this very linear approach, which actually, again, mirrors our economic history and I don't think is a blueprint for our economic future.
The motion also does not refer to the west and the south-west or to the issue—I think the big issue—of the big opportunity to create a rail corridor, a national rail corridor, starting with Carmarthen to Aberystwyth. That is an exciting and imaginative idea that I think will inspire people and will change the shape of our nation and the shape of our future.