Can I thank John Griffiths for raising this important matter for debate today? I know that it's an issue that he has felt strongly about for many years, and I'm very pleased to be able to respond to his and other Members' comments. Our new powers over national speed limits offer us opportunities to explore how they may be useful to help us meet our well-being goals in making Wales a more inclusive, healthy and thriving country, and there's been a lot of interest in this very topic of late. When Dr Sarah Jones and Huw Brunt published their research, which concluded that a default 20-mph limit in urban areas could improve road safety and air quality in Wales, we were delighted to invite them along to our active travel conference last year to discuss the issue, and their insight and contribution has assisted greatly. Lower traffic speeds can have a positive impact on road safety by potentially reducing the numbers of collisions and also their severity. And other potential benefits include making road environments more people-friendly overall, reducing severance, encouraging active travel by reducing the speed differential between motorised and active modes, and improving the perception of safety. All of these benefits can only be realised, of course, if lower speed limits are adhered to by the majority of drivers, or if speeds are noticeably reduced, at least.

Up to now, local authorities in Wales have used 20-mph limits overwhelmingly in closely targeted areas. These may cover sometimes only a short stretch of road and sometimes a larger network of streets, and over the years we have funded hundreds of 20-mph zones and limits, from our safe routes and also from our road safety grants right across Wales. These schemes are developed in consultation—that is important—in consultation with communities, and are generally very well supported and welcomed by those communities. I must say in response to Joyce Watson, who raised a really important point about Welsh Government's responsibility, and not just the responsibility of local authorities, we have carried out a comprehensive review of our trunk roads and as a consequence we've introduced our multi-year programme of establishing part-time 20-mph limits near nearly all schools on or close to our trunk roads. These operate at the start and at the end of the school day to create a safe environment for children travelling to and from school, and they also encourage behavioural change, and drive behavioural change, by motorists. Now, this programme will be completed this financial year and will cover 45 locations on our strategic road network. I'm pleased to say that, in Fishguard, we've introduced a permanent 20-mph limit on the trunk road, and, based on evidence and consultation, I'd be more than happy to consider permanent 20-mph limits elsewhere.

Now, as I stated, in order to achieve the positive impacts, lower speed limits need to be complied with, as John Griffiths rightly said. Twenty miles per hour speed limits have proven most effective in reducing speeds where they're either part of 20-mph zones, in which the speed limits are supported by physical measures such as road humps, tables and road narrowings, or where the existing physical environment has constraints that mean the lower speeds actually feel right for the motorist. Llywydd, area-wide signed-only speed limits have achieved varied, but generally smaller, reductions in average speeds. They are, however, becoming more common, in particular in larger urban areas. This includes Cardiff, where area-wide 20-mph speed limits are being rolled out, and I commend the council for doing this. As a result, the evidence base is growing. In deciding if and how we use our new powers, it will be very useful to look in detail at the experiences from these places alongside the comprehensive research carried out for the Department for Transport on the impact of 20-mph speed limits in a diverse range of locations across the UK, and that's due to report imminently.

To supplement this, Llywydd, I've also commissioned an evidence review of published evaluations ourselves. Now, as John Griffiths said in the previous debate, what works in Caernarfon might not work in Carmarthen. So, it's important to also consider alternative or additional means of improving road safety. There are other measures that can contribute to improving safety on our roads, such as a graduated driving licence, which I'm a supporter of, and I'm also a big fan of the play streets initiative, which essentially hands roads back to the communities, particularly for young people for the purpose of play.

I'm also supportive of methods of design to eliminate the most common cause of road traffic accidents, and that's driver distraction—methods such as encouraging motorists to minimise the risk of being distracted themselves by making sure that they don't switch on a mobile phone when they're driving, and to ensure that any entertainment that they have in their car is minimised so they're not distracted by that. I think the urban environment that is planned is also crucial in ensuring that driver distraction is minimised.

So, I strongly believe, Llywydd, that this topic merits very serious consideration, and I'm a strong supporter of 20 is plenty. We'll look at all the available evidence and we'll discuss it with our partners, before the proposals for consultation with the wider public are published.