Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:58 pm on 10 January 2018.
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.