The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Julie James and amendments 2 and 3 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected.

That brings us to our next item, which is the Welsh Conservatives' debate on the road network. I call on Russell George to move the motion.

Motion NDM6619 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the inability of the Welsh road network to cope with the current level of demand from motorists.

2. Regrets that Wales’s substandard road infrastructure is costing the Welsh economy hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

3. Acknowledges the vital importance of a fit-for-purpose and proper functioning road network for the long-term development of the Welsh economy.

4. Calls on the Welsh Government to work with the UK Government to look at innovative ways of funding future road projects.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move the motion in the name of Paul Davies. I'll also say that we will not be supporting the Government's 'delete all' amendment, but will be supporting amendment 2 from Plaid Cymru. I'm currently minded to abstain on Plaid Cymru's amendment 3, but look forward to hearing from the Plaid Cymru spokesperson and the Cabinet Secretary on that particular issue.

I suspect that it's difficult for anyone in this Chamber to disagree that congestion is tightening its grip on Welsh roads and also tightening its grip, of course, on the Welsh economy. The practical economic impact of Wales's inadequate transport network is acute. It costs Welsh drivers £1.5 billion, with the economic cost per driver in Cardiff alone almost £1,000 a year. A worldwide study by INRIX estimated that it costs £134 million a year to the Cardiff economy and a further combined amount of £130 million a year to the local economies of Swansea, Newport, and Bridgend.  

The impact is also keenly felt in mid and north Wales, and you don't need me, I think, to talk about the impact on the economy of Newtown in my own constituency. Members who have been here since 2011 won't need me to say any more about the problems that I've reiterated in Newtown—something that I hope the Newtown bypass will resolve soon and transform the economic prospects of the towns of Newtown, Llanidloes, Machynlleth and other towns to the west of Wales.

But, with the exception of the Newtown bypass, which I'm pleased to say does seem to be relatively on schedule, there doesn’t seem to be any other significant Welsh Government transport project running on time and within budget. Of course, I'm open and willing to be corrected on that. But, as a result of that, we are calling on the Welsh Government to make road infrastructure a top priority in 2018. The crisis demands innovation and action, and without that, motorists will continue to face disruption on a daily basis.

Last month, we saw yet another 18-month delay to plans for an M4 relief road—disastrous, I think, for the development of the Welsh economy, especially given the expected increase in traffic in south-east Wales as a result of the UK Government's welcome decision to scrap tolls on the Severn bridge. The delay means that the proposed M4 relief road will now cost an extra £135 million, and follows other news that the proposed upgrades to the Heads of the Valleys road and the Pwll-y-Pant roundabout near Caerphilly are also over budget and facing extreme delays. This means that Welsh taxpayers now face a combined bill of almost £200 million, money that could have been better spent on other schemes all over Wales. 

Now, turning to north Wales, where cross-border movement is another fact of life, of course, there's clearly a necessity for improved connectivity between north Wales and the emerging Northern Powerhouse in northern England. Improvements to the transport infrastructure surrounding the A55 corridor and the Menai crossings is of course absolutely critical. Our transport infrastructure needs, I think, to facilitate a fluid cross-border movement of people and goods to ensure that communities can connect with the industry and invest in opportunities that will in turn, of course, boost the economy and productivity of mid and north Wales.

The transport network in northern England is currently benefitting from a series of UK Government investments, and these investments in the English transport network will have considerable knock-on benefits for people living in north Wales. But if the Welsh Government fails to engage effectively with the UK Government, then these developments may not fully take into account Wales's needs. Therefore, we are calling on the Welsh Government to go further in building a stronger working relationship with the UK Government to find innovative ways of funding future road projects and follow the UK Government's lead in using funding streams to allow for targeting of specific improvements to the Welsh road network.

Congestion on our roads also has a massive impact on the public transport sector. Not only is overcrowding an issue on our train networks, but the Assembly will be aware that the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee recently held an inquiry on the impact of congestion on the bus industry in Wales. It found that congestion on bus trips made things unpredictable, increased operational costs and fares, undermines passenger confidence, and reinforces negative perceptions of the bus. To quote from our report, Professor David Begg said that

'Traffic congestion is a disease which if left unchecked will destroy the bus sector.'

The report set out a principal recommendation that, as a matter of urgency, the Welsh Government should develop and publish an action plan to set out how it will tackle impacts of traffic congestion on the bus industry in Wales. But of course we're yet to see the fruits from that action plan and any improvements on the issue of congestion on our roads.

As I've said previously in this Chamber, public sector transport is caught in a catch-22 situation. For congestion to be reduced, people need to be encouraged out of their cars to make the switch to public transport, but whilst congestion is still having such a significant impact on public transport it's unlikely to be an attractive option. So it's therefore absolutely essential, of course, that the Welsh Government provides a clear direction on the action needed to tackle congestion and create the right environment for the benefits of public transport so that it outweighs the negative perceptions.

In its amendment the Government trumpets the national transport finance plan whilst cutting funding for both economic and transport development policies by £93 million. So, there is an incoherence here between 'Prosperity for All', the 2018 budget and the economic action plan, which has meant that vital transport projects are not provided with the corresponding level of financial backing in the 2018 budget.

Presiding Officer, I think it's time now for the Welsh Government to take this seriously, step up to the plate and finally invest in Welsh infrastructure to urgently address the current state of the Welsh road network and ensure that it's fit for the future and gets Wales moving again. I look forward to Members' contributions this afternoon.

I have selected the three amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for economy to move formally amendment 1 tabled in the name of Julie James.

Amendment 1. Julie James

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Recognises the importance of a reliable and efficient road network as part of an integrated and sustainable multi-modal transport system that can support the economy and communities of Wales.

2. Notes the Welsh Government’s recently published National Transport Finance Plan that sets out an ambitious programme of road, rail, bus and active travel improvements as part of a balanced and sustainable plan for transport investment.

3. Recognises the Welsh Government’s plan to develop a five year programme of transport capital funding to support road, rail, bus and active travel infrastructure investment.

4. Calls on the UK Government to ensure Wales gets its fair share of UK infrastructure investment and to work with the Welsh Government to examine innovative ways of funding future projects.

Amendment 1 moved.

Moved. 

I call on Adam Price to move amendments 2 and 3 tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Amendment 2. Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point after point 3 and renumber accordingly:

Believes that in order to better connect Wales’s communities, improve the quality of journeys for commuters and develop the Welsh economy, appropriate investment in all modes of transport, not just roads, is required , including railways, coaches and buses, air and water.

Amendment 3. Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point after point 3 and renumber accordingly:

Regrets the Welsh Government’s intention to commit all of its capital borrowing budget to build the M4 'Black route'.

Amendments 2 and 3 moved.

It’s a pleasure to contribute to this important debate and to move the amendment in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

It’s certainly true that there’s been a grave lack of investment in the Welsh roads network. The figures demonstrate that clearly. Since 2011, for example, the expenditure on roads in Wales has reduced by £32 million and, if truth be told, if we look at local roads, the situation is even worse. In 2012, the total expenditure on local roads throughout Wales was £362 million. That has reduced, in the last year we have figures for, to £209 million. That’s a reduction in just four years of almost half—42 per cent, in fact. And, if we compare that, Presiding Officer, with the situation in Scotland, for example, it has flat-lined; it has remained the same. So, there are no excuses here. If we compare with England, by the way, then there’s been an increase over the same period—almost £800 million, which accounts for a quarter of the total 25 per cent increase in England as compared to what is almost a 50 per cent decrease in expenditure on local roads in Wales.

Let’s be quite clear about the importance of this, because, as was noted in a recent article by Ifan Morgan Jones on nation.cymru, this impacts on the citizens of Wales. Indeed, it has, on occasion, the most tragic impact on people: 723 accidents on the A487 over a period of 10 years, and that is a direct result of the fact that we have a road network in Wales that isn’t fit for the last century, never mind this century. It is disgraceful. Anyone who has tried to travel from the south of the country to the north—it is scandalous; it is a national disgrace, and that is reflected in the accident figures. There was a consistent reduction in the number of road deaths in Wales over a number of years up until the year 2010, when the figure of 89 deaths was recorded, which is the lowest figure ever. Since then, it has started to increase again, and it’s been quite consistent for some years at around 100 to 103 for the last years we have figures for.

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

Would you accept that an effective way to reduce the number of deaths on the road is to reduce the amount of traffic and reduce the number of cars on the road? 

Well, no, that’s not demonstrated by the figures, because rural roads have 40 per cent of the traffic, but they have 62 per cent of the fatalities, and the lack of investment in our roads, I would argue, does have a direct impact on the level of fatalities.

We do have to grasp the opportunities that exist now in order to transform our road network, because we are looking to the future, at the driverless and carbon-free car, and in that context, the whole idea is that investment in roads is a bad thing is old-fashioned. Already, in December, the first driverless bus was trialled in Bavaria by Deutsche Bahn, and something similar happened last month in Japan. So, Wales should be in the vanguard in terms of that revolution, but, of course, without proper investment in the road network, Wales will lose that opportunity too.

This week sees the first reduction in the tolls on the Severn crossing since 1966. The Conservative Government's action to remove the value added tax from the tolls is the first step towards scrapping charges on the bridge altogether by the end of this year. The benefit of this to the Welsh economy, Presiding Officer, of abolishing these charges, is about £100 million a year. By this action, the Conservative Government has started the process of removing the symbolic economic barrier that discourages businesses from expanding into Wales. Also, on the other hand, some of the hauliers are going to save more than £50,000 a year. We know that. That's a great saving and a great development for our local economy. The Secretary of State for Wales, Mr Alun Cairns MP, mentioned, in his words:

'The tolls’ removal will cement the ties between the economies and communities of south Wales and south west England, creating a growth corridor spanning from Cardiff, through Newport, to Bristol.'

The Welsh Government must take the necessary steps required to ensure Wales obtains maximum benefit from this action. That means dealing with the frustrating and costly traffic jams and congestion that we saw all too frequently in 2017 and beyond that. The traffic analysis firm INRIX estimated that traffic jams on our roads last year cost the Welsh economy almost £278 million. As I said earlier in Minister's questions, you could build at least two state-of-the-art hospitals in Wales. That is the loss we are facing with this congestion. 

Cardiff suffers the largest adverse impact. The congestion cost to Cardiff is £134 million, to Newport is £44 million, and also to Swansea is £62 million. These are staggering figures. I think this isn't important for the Labour Party, only four backbenchers are sitting here. It's such an important topic and only one Cabinet Minister is in front, which shows that the interest in the transport system in Wales is not there. At least for this Conservative Party, if we come in power, this will be one of the most foremost priorities, to get connectivity—by air, by road and by sea.

The worst congestion hotspot in Wales is at the Brynglas tunnels. Presiding Officer, I live only a few metres from there and the congestion for the last 10 years, since I've been in this Assembly, is so horrendous it's unbelievable. It takes more than an hour to travel only 10 to 12 miles in the morning if I come after 7 o'clock. But if I come before, between 6.30 a.m. and 7 a.m., then it takes less than half an hour. That is at present. So, conditions previously were worse than this. 

The westbound tunnel saw no fewer than 465 jams last year. The worst lasted almost an hour and stretched back 4 miles. Sometimes, we know, they virtually close the entire M4 for some accident, and that's pretty frequently. These tunnels are the most congested stretch of inner-city motorway in the UK, apart from the M25 around London. Indeed, the M4 in south Wales is synonymous with traffic upholds and the stretch around Newport is Wales's busiest length of road. Gridlock is taking its toll on the Welsh economy and it is Welsh businesses and motorists that are bearing the brunt. We need to make urgent progress on the M4 relief road. The latest announcement before Christmas of a further delay to this vital project will be met with dismay by Welsh motorists. The opening of the M4 relief road will be delayed by almost two years and will now cost an extra £135 million. 

Back in 2014, the Welsh Government's own report said that this vital stretch of motorway does not meet modern motorway design standards, resulting in poor, sometimes horrendous, travelling conditions for its numerous users. It identified 17 problem areas relating to capacity, resilience, safety and sustainable development. But this is not the only project subject to completion delay and escalating cost. Work on dualling the A465 Heads of the Valleys road was due to be completed by spring 2019. This project is running over its £200 million budget and is behind schedule. Presiding Officer, this is not on. This Government has failed to deliver a transport system to Welsh people, and I'm sure they'll learn very quickly that this will create in our economy something better if their senses are getting better also. Thank you.   

It's my birthday in a month's time, and it's often a fairly depressing experience as you get older, because you just assume that your youthful expectations of never-ending progress where people respond to evidence and experience will be an ever onward trajectory. But this debate this afternoon calls those assumptions into question. I was listening to Desert Island Discs earlier and Charlie Brooker, the comedian, who is a little older than me, said that in his twenties he used to shout at the tv, but nowadays instead of clenching his fists and throwing plates around he just gets slightly weepy and despairing. And I felt slightly weepy and despairing reading the motion and hearing some of the arguments that have been put forward. We're saying the same thing and doing the same thing over and over again, and bemoaning the fact we're getting the same results.

Russell George began with a catalogue of congestion overspend and delays, and yet saw no need to rethink our approach. Adam Price bemoaned the decline in spending on roads, whilst quoting the fact that we're still spending hundreds of millions on them, and in fact then went on to conflate casualties on rural roads with the fact that we weren't spending enough, whereas the evidence shows that most deaths on rural roads are young drivers who are speeding, and actually road casualties are going down. So, I'm not sure that argument particularly holds water. Adam Price from a sedentary position says, 'Not in Wales'. In Wales it's still the case that the primary cause of death is speeding by young drivers. So, yes, in Wales, we need to rethink our approach because we're doing the same again. Roads are not the problem—congestion is the problem, and we're banging our head against the wall throwing hundreds of millions of pounds—billions of pounds, indeed—on the same solution. 

We've heard for years about a war on the motorists, but the evidence points to the opposite. In the last couple of weeks, we've seen the cost of travelling by car over the Severn bridge going down because of VAT, and the cost of travelling by rail going up. If you were to travel from Cardiff to Bristol by car it will cost you £275 less, whereas a season ticket on the train will cost £100 more. We're making road travel cheaper and public transport more expensive. It's all very well for all the parties in this Chamber to pay lip service to the need to improve public transport when we're putting our investment into road building and we do not have the money to spend on the alternatives. And the money going into road building is not being controlled properly, so we have the overspends that have already been mentioned. 

The Heads of the Valleys road: it was meant to cost £44 million per mile—per mile. It's now going to cost £54 million per mile, a 23 per cent overspend not to create a new road but just to add a bit on to the existing road to dual it. Two years ago people were saying that the new black route would cost way below £1 billion. The public inquiry has been told it's going to cost £1.1 billion, and the deal that's been announced with Associated British Ports for them to withdraw their objection has resulted in them getting £136 million of public money for their private company to make works in Newport docks means that the cost of that project will go up, plus the delays. 

So, I'd like the Cabinet Secretary to let us know what the estimate of the costs now are for the black route, and whether or not that figure does include VAT. But I'm pretty sure in saying that it's not going to stick at the £1.1 billion figure for long, and in the light of the overspends on the Heads of the Valleys route, that figure has little credibility in the industry. It's going to be far closer to £1.5 billion and possibly £2 billion by the end of it. 

In the motion from the Conservatives, point 3 acknowledges the importance of a fit-for-purpose and proper-functioning road network for the long-term development of the Welsh economy. Well, I'd say, Llywydd, that the long-term health of the Welsh economy relies on multiple factors, not least a healthy workforce free from air pollution and obesity, and a stable climate free from flash flooding and extreme weather brought about by rising temperatures. Some of the biggest economic challenges Wales has ever faced are coming to us at alarming speed, and instead of facing these challenges head on, we are wedding ourselves to existing orthodoxies, the facts of which have never been checked. When a road is built on these fantastical numbers that have been quoted this afternoon, there's never any evaluation after the event to see whether or not these actually stack up. The fact of the matter is that roads don't build economies, ideas do. So, I can't support this motion nor can I support the amendment 3, because while Plaid Cymru may not be happy spending this money on the black route, they're quite happy to squander it on the blue route, which will not only bring misery to thousands of people in Newport but it will not address the underlying problem.

Llywydd, Radio 2 announced today that they're extending their drivetime slot by an hour to 8.00 p.m. What clearer sign could there be of growing congestion? At this rate, Simon Mayo will be on until midnight and we'll all be clamouring for more roads even then.

Well, the movement of goods and people and its effect on the economy sounds exactly like the sort of thing that used to get me doodling in the margins when I was doing my A-levels. But it is absolutely fundamental to the prosperity of Wales and the quality consequential of our public services.

I think some of the statistical evidence that we've already heard in this debate is pretty compelling. I just look at my own region and see that Swansea and Bridgend alone are losing £86 million to the local economy through congestion and by the time you add to that those stubbornly low figures on GVA and our low wages in Wales and productivity figures, we're ending up back in that groove where we're highlighting two decades of the Welsh Government's entrenched failures and then the Government is seizing the convenience of having a different coloured Government at the UK level in order to divert attention.

I think it is worth us—. Looking, though, at what the UK Government is doing at the moment on this, it does deserve a shout out on this, because it's been acting in a very focused, thoughtful and adequately financed way on the roads network over which it retains responsibility, not least through the road investment strategy of 2015. And what caught my eye from that particular strategy was the fact that a big chunk of the cash that's underpinning it goes into the local growth fund, which is about local transport projects—local highway maintenance, bottleneck removal and so on. I think this is where this rather daunting and huge subject starts to leap off the page and to resonate with our constituents.

So, getting our road infrastructure to function beneficially is not just about roads. I mean, Adam's mentioned it and you've mentioned it as well, Lee. It is about behaviour change as well, but that is notoriously difficult, however weepy you want to get on that, Lee. We need to help connect our constituents' experiences of those traffic jams—the frustration, the diesel cough, the buses arriving late and the difficulty of letting a fire engine or an ambulance get through—not just with Welsh Government failure across infrastructure planning, which I'd be happier if more of our constituents were prepared to do, but with the decisions we make ourselves about how we travel.

I spent some of the Christmas recess up in mid Wales—lovely. The difference in air quality between there and my home in Swansea is absolutely palpable, and I mean properly palpable. You can see it, you can taste it; you don't just feel it in your lungs. Four days a week, my car crawls through the pollution of Swansea and Port Talbot to Cardiff—also one of the most congested and polluted parts of this country—as do thousands of others, judging by how busy the M4 and the link roads are. It takes me almost twice as long to get to work as it did when I became an AM seven years ago. But I won't take the bus, because it's caught up in exactly that congestion and I won't take the train, because it takes just as long, is more expensive and I've no option to find alternative routes if something goes wrong or if there's a delay or something like that.

Many of those people on the M4 in the morning are in exactly the same position, and even if we accept, which I do, actually, all those arguments about working more from home if you've got the broadband, the active travel measures, the hugely powerful evidence that we have on air pollution, we will still insist on using our cars because the alternatives, at the moment, are no better or not there. I am confident that, over time, more of us will be nudged away from a wholesale reliance on the car, and certainly sooner rather than later on the dirtier cars, but I suspect that the volume of traffic will still grow.

I can understand, perhaps, why we're looking at the more strategic routes in this debate. I can throw the fiasco of the junction 41 experiment into that list of Welsh Government failures on that, but it is our local roads that are the capillaries of this infrastructure. It amazes me how much difference actually just replacing some traffic lights at the end of my road with a roundabout, at the end of St Helen's Road in Swansea where I live—the difference just that has made to congestion. Even though I support the idea of decentralising wealth creation where we can, regional policy is developing around existing larger centres of population, and the local road networks need to be able to handle that without the pinch points, alongside non-road-based public transport, which we've discussed here before.

We're one of a shrinking number of countries that resist road tolling. I think the story of the Severn bridge reminds us that we are still Rebecca rioters at heart, and I don't think that we're likely to be paying for our road improvements that way any time soon. But, I'm curious to know how much thought Welsh Government has given to incentives for local pooling of public sector budgets, or incentives for local business investments in that local road and non-road infrastructure, because I think they go hand in hand.

I'm just hoping that the future generations Act's got enough in it to mean that that place-based infrastructure, the level I'm discussing, is no longer a number just for local authorities with the odd sub from Welsh Government. Health and well-being, regeneration, job growth, poverty and economic development are all affected by connectivity, and I can't see why the cash can't be connected in the same way. Thank you.

Can I, first, fully endorse and commend the First Minister's letter to the UK Government in support of the Swansea bay development and reiterate UKIP's total support for any interventions that might bring that development about?

Cabinet Secretary, we do not have to look far outside the confines of this Chamber to experience the chronic inadequacies of the road infrastructure in Wales. Some few hundred yards away, we have a brand-new bridge, but, in reality, it is a bridge to nowhere. Rover Way is nothing less than a three-mile bottleneck that leads to the 10-mile bottleneck we call the A48(M).

Nothing can be more indicative of the problems of accessing the city of Cardiff than my own journey to and from work. In order to be sure to arrive in time for a 9 a.m. committee meeting, I have to leave Griffithstown in Pontypool at 6.30 a.m.. Leaving it any later, I would encounter an almost solid line of traffic right up to the gates of this business. Obviously, I know that the Welsh Government won't lose any sleep over the fact that I have to rise at 5:15 in the morning in order to get to work, but, surely, this state of affairs is wholly unacceptable for those others who have to commute to work, particularly those accessing the capital city. There are those in this Chamber who have to experience the horrors of the A470 and there are also considerable problems, as has been outlined earlier, for those approaching from the west.

Just to end this personal illustrative journey, there is no point in my attempting to leave this building to go home until at least 7 p.m., or I encounter the same traffic conditions as I outlined earlier. Here, I have concentrated on access to the city of Cardiff, but this, of course, is a scenario repeated in both our other cities, and elsewhere throughout Wales. Cabinet Secretary, I have to ask: when will we see the upgrades to our road infrastructure that we so desperately need and is, indeed, envisaged in the south Wales metro project?

I've outlined problems for commuters above, which, of course, is a major cause for concern, but, as has been mentioned earlier by many of those who contributed to this debate, Cabinet Secretary, the cost to the Welsh economy is huge. If we are to have a dynamic, entrepreneurial business base in Wales, it is essential that we have the infrastructure to sustain it. Roads are an important, if not the most important, part of that infrastructure. And please note, Cabinet Secretary, I have not once mentioned the Malpas tunnels.

A pleasure to follow David Rowlands. I was encouraged to hear about his morning routine from 5:15 to 6:30, I assume that's his extensive personal grooming programme, and then the two-and-a-half-hour period before he is able to start work, and the 11-and-a-half-hour day before he's able to go home.

So, following on from Lee Waters, who was referring, I think, to being weepy and despairing. I don't see this as the binary issue, I think, that Lee does. I think there is an ability to improve the environment, at least in some locations, through road investments. The example David Rowlands gave of Rover Way, if that were improved and we were able to have a dual carriageway going all the way around Cardiff as a ring road, that would greatly reduce the amount of congestion and also the amount of pollution for areas like Newport Road, which I know that Jenny Rathbone has spoken about previously.

We should also, I think, consider, when we talk about long-term economic development, the impact and, at least, potential positive feedback into taxes for Wales. When we have the 10p of income tax from April, we look at the public inquiry about the cost-benefit ratio of the black route and assess that, but another issue is: what are the particular impacts for the Welsh exchequer of this? Ken Skates, he is pushing this enterprise zone in central Cardiff and trying to get more investment into offices there. Then, he sees his colleague three seats along putting this supertax in play to make any developer pay an additional amount of money if they want to develop offices at any scale in Cardiff rather than in Bristol. I hope when he considers investment in roads, he will also look, actually, if we can boost economic activity by increasing accessibility and reducing congestion, and what the impacts are, in turn, on the tax revenue we may get in future.

I also hope when we look at road development, we think about integrating road development into the other mechanisms of transport. Of course, the buses travel on the roads as well as cars, but I hope we also look to support the train network and get the train network to work better with the road network. To take the example of the M4 relief road, if that were to go ahead, I would support, at both ends, having new stations. There's this fantastic proposal for St Mellons, where it would be privately funded as a train station, as a parkway, where people could come in on that big, new motorway, if it happens, but not then add to congestion in Cardiff because they could park there—all paid for privately—and then come in by train into the centre of Cardiff.

Similarly, I'm very, very keen to support the proposal for a walkway station at Magor and Undy, and I'm delighted that Ken Skates is now allowing the further GRIP stage to go forward on that. I'd like to thank him and the Welsh Government for the financial support with that. But if that, then, enables commuters at the other end of a potential black route to choose to take the train into Cardiff as well, and that to be a real option, then that is all to the good. 

Lee Waters criticised, I think, the reduction in the Severn tolls and then the abolition we should have at the end of this year, but it's only just over a year, I believe, Lee, since you voted for the motion I put to this Assembly that the Severn tolls should be abolished. And it is now going to happen, thanks to the Conservative Government in Westminster. 

Before, we heard Carwyn Jones, a few years back, suggest that we should keep those tolls and continue to gouge those motorists in order to pay for transport improvements. I'm pleased that the UK Government is not allowing him to do that and has taken the decision to abolish, rather than devolve, the tolls and trust to the good sense of a Labour Government in Wales as to what they would do with that money, or otherwise.

I do, though, think that—following up on Suzy's remark about tolling—I think we had a proposal from a previous transport Secretary at UK level for widespread tolling, and over 1 million people signed the petition very quickly against that. The main reason for that is a degree of cynicism as to what will happen with the money. People just see it as another way of gouging them to raise taxes, to get money out of them. What's really important is that if we are, in the future, to look at different charging proposals, (a) there's a possibility of public transport, as often there is in London, perhaps, where there's been more road charging coming in, but also that it's offset by lower taxes elsewhere.

When we're looking at testing these mechanisms for new taxation in Wales, we all talk of the four options to raise taxes. But, actually, if we are talking about innovative solutions, and looking to work with the UK Government on how to do this, then the issue we have to consider is that road-charging schemes, potentially, are devolved, but the revenues coming on motorists from fuel duty and vehicle excise duty are not devolved. So, any proposal in Wales to have a road-charging scheme would likely imply increased revenues coming in and people having to pay more. What about looking at if you were to have an area where you were to do that, could you reduce, perhaps, the vehicle excise duty for cars registered in that area and work with the UK Government to do that to actually bring in a tax reduction? We need to work together as Governments and look to the future and try and get the systems working together for the long-term benefit of the country.

The world's first traffic light was installed outside the House of Commons in 1868, to control the flow of London carriages. Unfortunately, because it was gaslit, it blew up a few weeks later. Since then, I think we've been struggling as to how we're going to manage congestion on our roads. It seems to me that, unfortunately, I'm slightly depressed, like Lee Waters, that we still seem to be coming up with the same old, same old arguments for spending more money on roads to beat road congestion. I think all the evidence is that spending more money on roads increases congestion, because it encourages even more people to go by road. So, I look forward to the day when David Rowlands will be able to get onto the metro from Pontypool, rather than struggling on an overcrowded road. 

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

Why does she single out roads, uniquely, in this way? In any other way of public provision, if we were looking to give something, the fact that people might then choose to use it wouldn't be a reason not to provide it.

Because our climate change obligations oblige us to look at the ways in which we're going to make modal shift, to be less polluting and less destructive of our environment. We have a completely different attitude to road users than we do to rail users. Why is it that rail users are not rioting, like the Rebecca rioters did, when they get these above-inflation increases every single year to what they have to pay for rail fare? Instead, we hear nothing. It's a whimper compared with the howl at any suggestion that road users should pay more.

There are too many people who struggle to maintain a car, which they can't really afford to do, because they're spending money they should be spending on food and other necessities, simply because they think it's the only way they can have the independence and the mobility that a car can offer. But this is, unfortunately, a reflection of our inadequate public transport system, which should be enabling everybody to be able to move around more freely, including almost 25 per cent of households who do not have access to a car. So, it's deeply unfair that we spend so much of taxpayers' money on roads, rather than expecting the people who use the roads to pay more.

Would you accept that—? Looking to the not-so-distant future, actually, given the decision—sadly—not to electrify the main line in south Wales beyond Cardiff, in 15 years' time we could be in a position where, actually, most cars will be electric, whereas it will be the trains that will be most polluting. So, don't we need to have a slightly more nuanced approach to this question?

Well, I agree. I completely agree that it's a complete disaster in terms of air pollution that we aren't, at the moment, seeing any electrification as far as Swansea, but I think the number of people who can be carried on public transport is infinitely greater than the number that can be carried on the road. It costs about the same amount of money to build a mile of road as it does to build a mile of rail, and yet eight to 20 times more people will benefit from the new rail line than will benefit from the road. So, clearly, it's much more cost effective to be investing in road. I beg your pardon—in rail. In rail.

I think amendment 3 captures my disappointment that the Welsh Government appears to be wanting to invest the max of its borrowing requirement in one single road project, to the detriment of the metro and all the other public transport, and other modes of transport that we could be using that money for. So, I think we just have to look at this with a new vision.

When even the RAC, that motoring lobby, is concluding that some form of pay-as-you-go system is inevitable, and the economic rationale for road pricing is compelling, I think that the winds of change are irresistible. And simply to be demanding that the Welsh Government spend more money on repairing the roads is not looking at this the right way through the telescope. I am encouraged to hear Chris Grayling suggest that we should charge HGV vehicles on a pay-by-mile system, even though it's disappointing that he took fright at the idea that we should ration car use on our congested roads. We have to have a different way of looking at things, and we need to have much more incentives to get heavy goods transported by rail than by road. Now, I'd be particularly keen to hear the Welsh Government's plans for getting that modal shift of freight off the roads and onto rail where possible, because they obviously do the most damage and contribute the least to the congestion, and the damage they cause to our roads. 

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport, Ken Skates.

Diolch, Llywydd. Can I start by, obviously, thanking Members for their contributions today and also for giving me the opportunity to respond to the debate? I think there's no doubt that we have an important responsibility to ensure that Wales has a safe, reliable and efficient motorway and trunk road network that can support the economy and the communities of our country. But I want to make it clear at the outset of my contribution that, where this motion falls down is that, in isolation, I do not believe it is enough. It concerns only one element of creating the high-quality, sustainable and multi-modal transport system that can support the social, the economic and societal needs of Wales in the twenty-first century.

Now, we take our responsibility for roads very seriously indeed, and, in the last financial year, we've spend more than £150 million in maintenance and minor improvements alone. But, as I've said, it's important to see the road network as part of a wider integrated and sustainable, multi-modal transport system. We need our transport system to support the needs of communities and visitors across the length and breadth of the country. That's why our recently published national transport finance plan sets out an ambitious programme of road, rail, bus and active travel improvements as part of a balanced and sustainable plan for transport investment.

I'm going to talk more about the plan in a moment, but, first, I'd like to look at what we've achieved recently and the works that are being undertaken right now on the ground or are in the pipeline. First of all, the A55, that key strategic route in north Wales: last year, we completed a £42 million programme to bring its tunnels up to current standards. We are investing £40 million to upgrade junctions 15 and 16, and a further £200 million in the Deeside corridor to facilitate the sort of smooth, cross-border traffic flow that Russell George talked about.

But the M56 on the English side of the border also needs considerable investment, as does the A5. Now, I've been working closely with Owen Paterson, the Member of Parliament just across the border from Clwyd South, on the need for UK Government to invest in that particular road. I've said that we will be investing on the Welsh side; it's time that the UK Government plans to do so on the English side as well. Other works in north Wales include the acceleration of the completion date for a third Menai crossing, which could now be open in 2022; it also includes progression of the proposed Caernarfon to Bontnewydd bypass, which represents further investment of over £125 million to the network.

In mid Wales, we're investing £92 million in the Newtown bypass, which is expected to be open next year, on time and to budget, just as work on the Brynglas tunnels and the M4 at junction 28 are operating to budget and on time. And we also published the draft orders and an environmental statement for our planned improvements to the Dyfi bridge, and announced £50 million of funding to accelerate the delivery of the A483 Llandeilo bypass. We've invested more than £0.25 billion in west Wales roads over the past 10 years.

Of course, in south Wales, the M4 corridor around Newport would represent significant investment in our infrastructure, and we're currently investing over £40 million in the refurbishment of the Brynglas tunnels. In June, the First Minister opened the eastern bay link, and we'll also be completing our challenging Heads of the Valleys dualling project by 2022.

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

But, alongside our major road projects, I also remain utterly committed to tackling congestion on the network and to encouraging modal shift, specifically through the introduction of greater means of applying active transport solutions, and through metros in the north and in the south, which will attract enormous investment in the coming years. I've also allocated £24 million to tackling pinch points and specifically to improve journey times between the north and the south of Wales. In addition to this, another £15 million has been allocated through our local transport network fund, aimed at increasing safety, resilience and movement along local road networks.

Now, returning to the national transport finance plan, I've been clear from the outset on my vision for an integrated transport system across Wales, to bring communities closer, to link people with jobs, leisure and tourism opportunities, and to further develop the national economy. In terms of finance, the publication of four-year capital budgets has allowed for better planning of long-term projects, and programme and project management of road schemes are delivered in accordance—

Will the Cabinet Secretary give way?

—with the bespoke guidance, which incorporates the Welsh transport appraisal guidance, WelTAG.

Yes, of course.

I'm grateful for the Cabinet Secretary giving way, and he's quite right—obviously we do need a more joined-up transport policy, and do need to move people out of their cars and into other modes of transport. But it is a fact that, for many people, roads are the main conduit for their travel, both for work and for leisure. The recent figures say that congestion's costing the Welsh economy £280 million in lost output. Do you think that the measures that you have talked about there will have us in a better place in five years' time or a worse place in five years' time?

I believe they'll have us in a better place in five years' time, the investment that we're looking at. But, also, you can't just identify the challenges in isolation from one another. The challenge of making sure that communities and people are better connected means that we have to introduce investment across a raft of transport provision, including the metro, including active travel, including reforms and support for local bus services. When discussing reliability—because I think the reliability and efficiency of our road network is crucial—we agree, I think, that investment in the road network is vital, but we also have to consider the rise in traffic flows, the issue of congestion, and also our commitment to decarbonisation, all of which were discussed earlier today in committee.

We need to balance investment in the road network with investment in public services, new technologies and better, more efficient working practices for a more sustainable approach to transport in Wales. We're focused on ensuring that we get value for money and drive up efficiency in all transport schemes.

Will the Cabinet Secretary give way?

Yes.

He's championed the opportunity that driverless cars represent to Wales, and I fully support him in that. Does he recognise that, actually, to seize that opportunity, we have to invest in our road network, in road markings, the road surfaces, et cetera, and the availability of 5G? So, we need to create a smart road network that will allow us to maximise that opportunity.

Yes, I would agree with the Member. I recently gave an interview to the BBC where I talked about the potential of using emerging transport projects as test beds for autonomous and connected vehicles. I think we can also utilise the development of the automotive technology park as an opportunity to put Wales at the forefront of the development of new automotive technologies and the deployment of them not just across our country, but also across Europe and further afield.

I would just like to say, Deputy Presiding Officer, the obvious, but it needs to be restated—that the financial envelope in which we have to deliver our national transport plan remains incredibly challenging, with capital budgets remaining under unprecedented pressure as a consequence of continued Tory austerity. But we're working harder and smarter, much smarter, to attract new investment and to ensure that capital expenditure delivers the greatest benefits in the most effective way possible. We've made significant progress, developing a range of innovative finance initiatives, providing an additional boost of around £2.4 billion to support the Government's strategic investment priorities, and I'm confident the investments we propose across all modes will lead to a step change in our transport system.

Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, just two points based on contributions today. First of all, it would be really good if we could see the sort of investment in our rail services and rail infrastructure that they deserve. This is the responsibility of UK Government, of course. And, finally, the single best way to reduce deaths and serious injuries on our roads would be through the introduction of graduated driving licences for young people, an initiative that, sadly, so far, the UK Government has resisted doing.

Thank you very much. Can I call on Nick Ramsay to reply to the debate?

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Cabinet Secretary, you were doing so well in that speech, right until the very end, and making so much sense until that little message from the Corbyn mothership was slipped, probably by a member of staff, into your speech. I can't imagine you really believed that comment about austerity at the end. I think you'd probably be harsher on the—. I won't get you into trouble, so I won't continue.

Can I thank everyone who has taken part in today's debate? At the start of my contribution, can I point out that this debate is in no way designed to downplay the importance of other modes of public transport, such as rail and such as buses? We're not suggesting, Lee Waters, that you can purely road-build your way out of a problem, as was believed too often throughout the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s and beyond. We have many debates in this Chamber about the need to improve our rail network and to develop metro systems both in the south of Wales and also, increasingly, in the north. And this is indeed vital to the future economic well-being of Wales. But we do—and this is where I do agree with Ken Skates—need a mixed approach, which you mentioned at the start of your contribution, Cabinet Secretary, a balanced approach that recognises the need to have a fully maintained and modern, smart road network, as Adam Price called it. So, we need to work towards that.

In opening, Russ George welcomed progress with the long-awaited Newtown bypass, a cause that you have championed now for as long as you've been here, Russ—and before. You did lament the sluggishness of some other schemes. The problems that we've mentioned today by and large affect urban and rural Wales. It is a frightening statistic that Cardiff suffers more than any other city in the UK from off-peak traffic congestion. So, businesses here are being disproportionately affected by a lack of accessibility. 

Both David Rowlands and Mark Reckless mentioned Rover Way. I can tell that you travel along that road probably as much as I do, Dave. The road to nowhere, as you called it. I think I was the first person to call it that, back in the last Assembly in a budget debate. I also mentioned at the time the roundabout to nowhere and the budget to nowhere, but I was laying it on thick at the time because it was a budget-setting time of the year. But, that road, believe it or not, was part of, or is part of, Cardiff's peripheral distributor road project, which was first begun in 1978, 40 years ago today. We've been waiting 40 years for the completion of that peripheral road, once described by Paddy Kitson, the former chair of South Glamorgan County Council's environment committee, as the city's necklace of prosperity. Well, it may well eventually prove a necklace of prosperity if the actual links finally link together and it does go right the way around.

But I had concerns back in that budget—it was part of a budget deal, for those of you who weren't here in the last Assembly, between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party at the time. Part of that was to start progress towards the completion of that peripheral necklace of prosperity, but I questioned the validity of building one phase of it and whether in fact that did prove value for money. For all of those of us who travel on that road now, you can see that it's not just that road that is congested at peak times; the adjacent roads are congested as well. Even the coast road along through St Brides to Newport is also affected. So, there's a lesson to be learned there about taking short-term political decisions that get you a headline at the time, but, over the months and years ahead, don't actually get you to a position where you are having an integrated transport plan, which I know the Government would like to have.

We've mentioned the Newtown bypass. The A465 Heads of the Valleys improvement scheme is to be welcomed and promises to massively improve journey times along this route when completed. As the local AM for that current part of the scheme, I know all too well the problems that have been associated with delivering it. Yes, the Clydach Gorge section is a major engineering challenge, but the scale of the overspend that we're looking at, mentioned by Lee Waters in his contribution, and the length of the expected delays, are concerning. You do sometimes get the impression it's a case of, 'Get it built at all costs, whatever the timescale.' Just because a project is complex and just because it presents certain engineering challenges doesn't mean that you should throw all amounts of money at it, regardless of the cost and regardless of the timespans that are involved, and there is concern that the 2018 budget doesn't seem to make enough provision for a likely overspend. So, we do need assurances that this is all ultimately affordable.

If I can just mention the Government amendment briefly, it directs us to the national transport finance plan, which the Cabinet Secretary referred to, and on the face of it, that five-year programme of transport capital funding sounds all well and good. Of course, the problem is that too often in this Chamber we're faced with plans, however long they might be, that through the mists of time get forgotten, left on dusty shelves and they don't actually deliver the objectives that once we would have wanted to see. So, we do need to make sure that public money is being well spent and we're not just throwing money at something that ultimately isn't going to work. 

Integration is key to the development of a successful, efficient, modern transport network. I've long called for a metro hub at the Celtic Manor, as the Cabinet Secretary will be aware. This will provide a good point in south-east Wales from which additional transport links can then be developed out to rural commuting areas such as Monmouth and, indeed, beyond. But, of course, in the first instance those secondary additional services will most likely be bus services making use of existing roads and bus lanes. So, once again, we see the importance of maintaining the integrity of those roads. It's not simply a question of saying that you can put everything onto light rail, you can put everything onto a rail metro network and you don't need to maintain the existing roads. We need a balanced system. 

In closing—I'll move to a close, Deputy Presiding Officer—I want to say a little about procurement, which hasn't, I don't think, been mentioned by Members today. I appreciate that it isn't specifically within the Cabinet Secretary's brief, but I do feel we need a renewed infrastructure procurement policy. A Wales Audit Office report last November called for clear improvement in how authorities procure services at a national level, and only around 20 per cent—23 per cent—of Welsh Government spending on construction works in 2016-17 were won by Welsh firms. That's simply not good enough. Whatever the infrastructure project is that you might be talking about—and in this case it clearly is our road network—we need to make sure that we are procuring from Welsh firms, and going back to Suzy Davies's comments in her contribution, make sure that we're making most use of the local situation, procuring locally and making use of the local road network was well. Because it's not just about the national road network—the motorway network—it's about getting the most use of our rural smaller roads, which in many parts of rural Wales are crumbling away. 

So, in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, can I thank everyone who's contributed to this debate today? I think it's been a very worthwhile debate, and I think that what's come out of it is the need for us to make sure that we do have a balanced transport plan, and a balanced approach to providing future transport needs for Wales. If we don't get this right, then in the medium term and the long term the Welsh economy will suffer. None of us here want that to happen, so let's start that progress towards the future now and make sure that we have a road network in Wales that complements our public transport in Wales, and that provides the people of Wales with the commuting and transport needs they most need.   

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting under this item until voting time. 

Voting deferred until voting time.