6. Debate: 'Our Valleys, Our Future: Delivery Plan'

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:53 pm on 9 January 2018.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 4:53, 9 January 2018

Can I first of all take up some of the comments that were made by Adam Price? I agree very much with the points that were made in terms of plan after plan after plan, and this is really the plan now where we have to deliver. I have in my office the 1958 UK Government plan for the development of south Wales, with these beautiful plans and copperplate pictures and so on, and it talks about housing, talks about infrastructure. It talks about many of the things that we're continuing to talk about at this particular moment. Can I concentrate on three areas where I think there are important developments?

The first one is the opportunities we have through procurement. I raised the question earlier this morning with the First Minister about, for example, E-Cycle on the edge of my constituency, an area that is dealing with data cleansing, which actually gets more work in from English public authorities than it does from Welsh public authorities, and across the road from it—it's almost like something from Bruce Almighty—the miles of shelves of records for the Cwm Taf health board being digitised. And you look all around Wales, and you think, 'Well, here is an opportunity to actually create an industry of excellence, employing people in the Valleys, of something that is absolutely needed, where we have a certain amount of control through procurement.' And I know you've agreed to come and visit at some stage in the future, but it seems to me we shouldn't shy away from the creation of public enterprises and so on that can actually create—that we can actually influence.

The second point I want to raise is, of course, the way in which we've used the decentralisation of administration and powers within Wales in order to act as a catalyst. I was very glad that you came to the hub meeting that you launched within Pontypridd in the Pontypridd lido: an example of regeneration and development. But the announcement of Transport for Wales moving into the Taff precinct, where there is a partnership between Welsh Government and the Rhondda Cynon Taf council, for a massive £43 million development, is already beginning to transform the town. In an area where, when you mention regeneration of the town, people's eyes fall to the floor and they say, 'Yes, we've heard this so many times. I'll believe it when I see it', I was very pleased to be there with local councillors, with Owen Smith MP and with the leader of the council Andrew Morgan to actually see the bulldozers moving on site. Already, in Pontypridd, you can see the regeneration and revitalising taking place, as more astute businesses begin to move in, begin to open and so on. There is a town with a hub where there has been a catalyst—the direct result of Welsh Government intervention. Of course, this is nothing new. This is what we used to do in the 1950s and 1960s, where you used central Government resources in order to be catalysts. That's why the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is in Swansea, why the Inland Revenue was in Llanishen and so on and so forth.

Can I raise, then, one other further area on top of that, because the metro is continually mentioned, and, of course, this is probably the most significant capital infrastructure investment that we can make that has transformational potential? We've talked about this so many times, but can I say I still remain to be convinced that we actually have the commitment to the capital investment that is necessary to ensure that it happens? The fact that we need new lines—I've raised many times the need for a new line from Creigiau to Llantrisant, because, at the moment, we have a traffic stranglehold around the Valleys. I wish we had as much focus on that economic stranglehold and the need for structural capital investment in that area as we do have with the focus on the Newport M4 project. I hope we will realise that at some stage in the future. But without that investment, it is doomed to fail, and I have to say merely a perpetuation of the crappy transport system we have, purely with 'metro' written along the side of it, will not be acceptable. It will not achieve the purpose that we actually want, which is something that will stop the process of people having to come down the Valleys but then getting caught in the congestion before they get to Cardiff, but will be moving back into the Valleys—the regeneration, the transformation of those particular communities. So, that is—