The next item is the debate on the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee report on post-legislative scrutiny of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013. I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion—Russell George.

Motion NDM6780 Russell George

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Notes the report of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee on its inquiry into Post-Legislative Scrutiny of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 which was laid in the Table Office on 13 June 2018.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. Nearly five years ago, in November 2013, the Active Travel (Wales) Act became law. The Act was intended to create a generational change, and transform the way we travel on essential journeys, to work and to school, making walking and cycling the norm.

The reasons for doing this I think are clear: active travel promotes better health, reduces pollution and congestion. In fact, the committee has had first-hand experience to add to the wealth of evidence on the subject. We put bike, car and train head to head to launch our report. Setting out from the Welsh Government offices in Cathays park, committee members raced back to the Senedd early one morning in May. And I would like to invite you just to watch the screens, to watch the results of that race.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

An audio-visual presentation was shown. The transcription in quotation marks below is a transcription of the oral contributions in the presentation.

'It's 8.30 a.m. in Cardiff city centre, and these Assembly Members are kick-starting their day with an experiment. They want to draw attention to the benefits of so-called active travel, meant to encourage us to ditch the car for healthier ways to get around, but, so far, it's seeing poor results.'

Russell George: 'So, this morning, we're going to get from this point into work, and we're going through different modes of transport—walking, on the bikes, and by—[Interruption.] There we are—well done, Lee.'

Lee Waters: 'I'm very keen.'

Russell George: 'And by taxi as well. We're going to see who gets there first. Right, ready? Five, four, three—'

Lee Waters: 'Get out of my way, Russell.'

Russell George: '—two, one. There we are.

Well, actually, we aren't walking and cycling more, which is quite disappointing really. The legislation was brought forward five years ago. Funding is being enabled to local authorities to build better walking and cycling routes. What we have found is that, in most locations, actually, walking and cycling hasn't improved. And when it comes to children walking to school, that figure has actually declined, so that's a really worrying figure, really. Our recommendations to Government are about what they need to do to make the active travel legislation come alive, effectively.'

Lee Waters: 'I reckon we won.'

'Back in Cardiff, the bikes have crossed the finish line outside the Senedd, after a 15-minute ride, closely followed by Joyce in her taxi, five minutes later, with Russell coming in 10 minutes after her.'

Lee Waters: 'You don't need to be a hero, or a green god, to cycle. Give it a try. For short journeys, it's often the quickest and most convenient way to get around.'

Russell George: 'And it's good for your lifestyle.'

Joyce Watson: 'But I'm a walker, so I would have walked this very happily.'

'Hopefully, going forward, this will get more of us on our bikes.'

Well. I even bought a new pair of trainers for the race, and I still lost—but there we are.

Light-hearted though it was, there was of course a serious message behind what we were doing back in May. The cyclists reached their destination first, and the journey of course for them was inexpensive, and provided a great opportunity to exercise. Yet since the Act has become law, rates of active travel have been static in Wales. And, perhaps more disappointingly, the number of children and young people cycling or walking to school has actually decreased.

So, the committee’s post-legislative scrutiny of the active travel Act sought to find out why. So, we spoke to a number of witnesses during the course of our inquiry, including local authorities, planners, engineers. We heard from Sustrans, Living Streets, Public Health Wales. We spoke to disability campaigners and service users. We received formal responses to our consultation, as well as over 2,500 responses to our committee survey. And we held five focus groups across Wales, to hear from groups of people who are not currently walking or cycling.

The evidence was very clear. There are two main barriers to active travel: feeling unsafe and the lack of appropriate infrastructure. Now, interestingly, the First Minister has said himself that he would not feel safe cycling through the city here in Cardiff. Some members of the committee have told me that they do ride in the city and it's very pleasant and they particularly enjoy riding along some of the off-road cycle pathways.

But in every town in Wales, there are still areas where it’s hard and unpleasant to walk and ride. There are cyclists who share roads with heavy traffic, where potholes are obstacles and create other dangers as well, where cycle pathways are simply too narrow or too short or badly placed, and where pavement parking has made it impossible to walk safely. In a couple of weeks, campaigners from across Wales will be 'Cycling on the Senedd' to draw attention to the fact that spending on active travel in Wales is about half the level it needs to be. 

Of course, active travel was never going to change the way we travel overnight, but it was supposed to change the way local authorities, planners and engineers approached their work. The Act required local authorities to produce maps of existing routes and maps of the integrated networks they would like to achieve. Our inquiry found that there was confusion over the purpose of the maps, which proved expensive and time consuming to produce. Members of the public expected to have a map that they could use to plan their route to work or school, but that was not the result. The Minister expected the integrated network maps to be ambitious and aspirational, but engineers told us that they were wary of raising expectations and that no professional would put a plan together without regard to the resources available. As it stands, there is simply not enough funding.

The committee has recommended resource equivalent to £20 per head per annum. That figure is based on best practice in other parts of the UK. It’s not everything we’d want if there was a magic money tree, but it’s a figure that we thought was pragmatic and campaigners gathering here in a couple of weeks agree. The Cabinet Secretary accepted that recommendation in principle, but in doing so he highlighted that even with the additional capital allocation of £60 million, which he announced during the course of the inquiry, total funding for active travel amounts to just under £92 million over three years. But by his own calculation, a budget of £62 million per year is needed to provide the called for funding: a shortfall of over 50 per cent. 

I understand, of course, the competing demands for funding. But if the Government is going to bring ambitious legislation to the table then it must also bring the means to deliver that ambition. I'd suggest that we will not persuade large numbers of new people to adopt active travel until the infrastructure is in place and to enable them to feel safe when walking and cycling. And infrastructure will not be delivered without funding, I'd suggest.

Of course, it's not all about funding, I accept that. There are, of course, needs for behavioural change also. The committee heard that since the Act came into force in 2013, the approach to behavioural change has been inconsistent and poorly planned. The committee heard of a cultural barrier that is preventing active travel being placed at the heart of infrastructure design, with a traditional approach to engineering trumping innovation. Witnesses questioned the commitment of local authority leaders at senior level to champion the change, rather than just leaving it to their cycling officer to deliver in isolation.

Living Streets told us that the day before the anniversary of the active travel Act, the Welsh Government stopped funding for Let’s Walk Cymru. They told us that left Wales without any Government-funded walking schemes, apart from the Active Journeys scheme. And Sustrans told us that only 8 per cent of schools are engaged in the active journeys to school programme. 

The Cabinet Secretary tells us that he has accepted in principle our recommendation to include co-production as a minimum standard. However, his response also states that he considers doing so as counter-productive and potentially more expensive. So, I would be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary could clarify that point and whether he indeed accepts our recommendation or not.

I do look forward to the debate this afternoon and hearing contributions from Members before summing up the debate later on.

We should not be surprised that the Cabinet Secretary has only accepted in principle our first recommendation, which considered a lack of strategic leadership at both Welsh Government and local authority levels to be responsible for the lack of progress made to date, where leadership from the Welsh Government should be strengthened and its expectation of leadership at local level made clear. 

It is all well and good for the Cabinet Secretary to say that,

'The Welsh Government has already shown leadership in the implementation of the Active Travel Act', but as our Chair, Russell George, states in the report’s foreword,

'It’s time now for the Government to change its own behaviour, show some real leadership and get the Act’s ambitions on its feet and moving.'

In fact, the Cabinet Secretary’s wishy-washy, self-excusing response that he will continue to champion this agenda and that local authorities have a clear role to play, therefore, simply won’t wash. Neither will his acceptance in principle only of our recommendation that the Welsh Government should revise its statutory guidance to include co-production as a minimum standard for the delivery of the Active Travel (Wales) Act, involving stakeholders not only in the identification of an issue, but enabling them to be part of the solution.

Describing co-production techniques as merely a 'tool to develop good schemes' illustrates the Cabinet Secretary's continuing failure to understand that co-production is about doing things differently—designing and delivering services with people and communities in order to improve lives and strengthen those communities. Co-production is not about austerity; it's part of a global movement that is now decades old and has made significant improvements across our planet. This is about moving from needs–based approaches to strength-based development—helping people in communities to identify the strengths they already have, and utilising those strengths with them.

In July 2017, I opened and spoke at an Assembly event with the ESP Group on making transport services and technology work for inclusion and well-being. The ESP Group helps major transport operators and cities deliver customer services today and design mobility services for the future, with clients such as Transport for London, the Rail Delivery Group, ScotRail, Stagecoach, London councils and the Scottish Government. As I said there, I am pleased to be working with the Co-production Network for Wales and the growing number of organisations across Wales embracing co-production principles, recognising that this is not about austerity, but about unlocking people's strengths to build better lives and stronger communities.

I also quoted the Bevan Foundation statement that if people feel that policies are imposed on them, the policies don’t work, and that a new programme should be produced with communities and not directed top-down. They added that we can deliver more by understanding what matters and by designing backwards, using the front end as the process-design system, where community involvement in co-designing and co-delivering local services should therefore be central.

In contrast, Guide Dogs Cymru and RNIB Cymru were clear to committee that, although routes can become a no-go zone, there has been very little engagement with blind and partially sighted people or with organisations that represent their views. As the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 states, public bodies must take all reasonable steps to ensure that people are able to contribute to their community, and that they are informed, included and listened to. The Cabinet Secretary must understand that to achieve this means an end to telling people what they can have, and instead asking them what they can achieve. 

Sustrans Cymru, the charity making it easier for people to walk and cycle, sees the value in investing and linking up all forms of transport so that walking and cycling is an easy and accessible option. They describe the Wales and borders franchise procurement process as representing a,

'missed opportunity to better integrate walking and cycling with public transport', and state that rail stations should be active travel hubs, making it easier for commuters, locals and visitors to get active.

In April 2017, I sponsored an Assembly event here for the infrastructure development company, Furrer+Frey, launching their White Paper on developing sustainable, agile, multimodal transport solutions for Wales. This included the full results of a YouGov Welsh public transport survey, which found that only 29 per cent of people think that public transport is well connected in Wales, with just 5 per cent very satisfied in north Wales. I will conclude with their statement that transport infrastructure connects communities and must be deployed in a sustainable, managed way using local resources, i.e. people, wherever possible.

I think the active travel Act provides us with, yet again, a salutary lesson about the dynamic, or possibly the absence of a dynamic, in Welsh politics. It's Welsh politics that is inactive, in the sense that we pass a series of good intentions written into law that have wide consensus, because, actually, the reality of Welsh politics is that we share many of the same values—it's the implementation gap that's the problem. The fact that, yes, the active travel Act embodies clear principles and a clear sense of direction of travel and yet we've gone backwards by some measures, I think is a cause for us to pause and think about the nature of what we are doing here.

The First Minister's comments were referred to earlier, and I suppose I echo his comments about Geraint Thomas—more being done in 21 days for Wales than has been done in politics, maybe. You could say this: 'For Wales, see cycling'—or walking. 

I think that, clearly, part of the problem, as has already been alluded to, is the level of funding. Ultimately, that is how we prioritise more than anything else. We've heard the figures and the funding gap that's been referred to—the £120 million that was promised over three years in the Wales infrastructure investment plan. 

We are aeons behind, of course, many other small countries that are leaders in this field. We could be a leader too with the Nordic countries, with the Netherlands and with some of the German Länder. Those 2,000 Welsh football fans who went on a pilgrimage to Copenhagen and Aarhus—however you say it—will come back in awe, really. A disappointing football result, but their sense of admiration and appreciation of how the Danes approach public transport and active travel—that was the main thing that I was reading on Twitter.

The transformation of cities like Copenhagen into cycling cities—. Of course, what people forget is that Copenhagen was not always thus. That is a very recent cultural change, and it came about through clear political leadership that then fed through down into civil society as well. The massive 68 per cent rise in cycle traffic, the £240 million or 2 billion DKK invested just in one city in bike-friendly infrastructure—. And the result of that, of course, was that—what was it, two years ago—sensors clocked the new record that bikes now clearly outnumber cars in the city centre for the first time.

Moving to the recommendations of the report, it's good to see that the Welsh Government has accepted recommendation 7, which means that the current 'Planning Policy Wales' review and the planning guidance review will be used as an opportunity to strengthen support for active travel, and that's all well and good. But, really, what we need is active travel to be brought from where it has been, which is at the fringes of transport policy, to the core. That's really the nature of the challenge to all of us, quite frankly.

Recommendation 18 calls on the Welsh Government to create a recurring budget line for active travel funding, as we've heard, at the level of £17 to £20 per head per annum. That's the level of funding that would be required for us in Wales to—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, certainly.

Thanks, Adam Price, for giving way. I was the Chair of the Enterprise and Business Committee in the last Assembly when we considered the initial active travel legislation. A certain Lee Waters, now the Member for Llanelli, came and gave a lot of evidence at that time in his role at Sustrans. We said exactly what you've just said in your speech there—that this shouldn't be a bolt-on. Active travel should be at the heart of all legislation that is passed, and at the heart of all thinking that local councils do. Do you share my regret that that hasn't happened now, five years down the line? 

I do. You know, we all evolve and maybe, becoming a father, you start to think about things differently. We say some of the right things and some of the same things. Action speaks louder than words. We need to set a target first to be up there with those small countries—up with Cambridge, which is spending at this level. 

Finally, in terms of accepting recommendations in principle, I thought the Government had actually said in January that it would stop accepting recommendations in principle, because it makes accountability very, very difficult indeed. So, can we have clarity as well by the Government? If it rejects or disagrees with recommendations, then I think it's easier if it says so rather than having this sort of—'wishy-washy', I think, was the technical term that was used earlier. Because that does nobody any favours.

It was 11 years ago that I stood on the steps of the Senedd and handed a petition to Dafydd Elis-Thomas, the then Presiding Officer, for a law to promote walking and cycling. And, a decade on, we have a law and I must say, to the great credit of the Cabinet Secretary, we have the first real substantial chunk of money behind it. And I think the Welsh Government deserves real credit for that. But let's be blunt about this. What I've found most depressing about this inquiry—and we had some good evidence, and it's a decent report—is it's the same issues that have been coming up time and time again for the decade or more I've been involved in this debate. We recognise what needs to change, but we are not driving through the change at the granular level. Eleven years ago, I swapped my second car and bought a bike. I hadn't ridden a bike since I was a teenager, and the experience of cycling in Cardiff then versus now was very different. It was quite an eccentric thing to do 11 years ago; now it's a mainstream thing to do. Cycling in Llanelli now is like it was in Cardiff 11 years ago—it's quite an eccentric thing to be going through the main streets of the town on a bike; I don't see many others. I see others on the traffic-free paths around the town, but not as an everyday mode of transport. But Cardiff, I think, shows that you can through critical mass create momentum and change, and that is happening organically, not because of things that the Government and the council have done, by and large, but because there's a movement behind it. 

But the thing I've seen from personal experience is it's the detail that really matters, and we need to see this from the point of view of somebody who would not normally cycle. That's the problem with this debate, and that's the danger of holding Geraint Thomas up as an example. These are not typical people. These are elite sportspeople who are doing superhuman efforts to do Herculean tasks. And, actually, it's my mother and it's me and it's my kids who actually we should be seeing this through prism of, and it's the little things that make all the difference. Is the dropped kerb in the right place? Is there a sign showing you where to go? Do you feel safe and comfortable? And that's the bit where we're falling down.

And I must say I was quite depressed reading the Government's response to the report, because it's a challenging report, but the response that officials have put forward makes you think that they're doing it all, they've got it cracked. And we know from the evidence we've received they're not doing it all; we haven't got it cracked. The first step of change is recognising where you're failing, and there's no shame in that. This is a very challenging agenda of cultural change. We can produce the strategies that we like—we know from management books that culture eats strategy for breakfast, and so is the case here. We heard the detailed evidence about engineering practice, about local authority planning officers and their attitudes, their assumptions. This is the stuff we need to change and what I worry about, having seen Government, is just that the capacity isn't there, the expertise isn't there, the bodies are not there to make this happen. Because it's the detail that needs to be got right.

I think handing over some responsibility to Transport for Wales for this is encouraging, so long as they've got the remit and they've got the capacity to do it. And I worry about the money that we are now allocating—how well it's going to be spent, based on the evidence we've received— because it's all very well a local authority putting forward a plan, but, unless it's complying in detail with the very good design guidance that Phil Jones has done for the Welsh Government, it's not going to work—it's money wasted. I'm all for doubling the funding, but, unless we get the plumbing right, it's money down the drain, and that's where I think the Government needs to focus here. It's no good just having debates and issuing high-level statements. There needs to be rigour, there needs to be focus, there needs to be challenge—both of itself and all the different partners—to get the detail of this right, because it is difficult but it is doable. I really urge the Minister to consider how a step change at that implementation level can take place.

Because, of course, the paradox of this is this is not a transport policy, really, that we're talking about; this is a health policy. It's a health policy we're asking highway engineers to deliver. And highway engineers don't get it. They have been trained to cater to make cars move faster and they don't understand, often. It's no fault of theirs. We have to help them, we have to train them, we have to give them capacity. Where's the role of Public Health Wales in this? We had really poor evidence, I thought, from Public Health Wales. They're great in producing the strategies showing the public health benefits of it, but where are they in these meetings, challenging, just as they challenge on smoking? Where are they pushing the authorities to do better?

I could speak for some time on this, Dirprwy Lywydd, but, naturally, I cannot. But let me just finish in saying about ambition. We said in the Act that we were aiming to make

'walking and cycling the most natural and normal way of getting about.'

And yet the active travel action plan has a target of 10 per cent of people cycling once a week. Now, when you think about the targets we have for renewable energy, which are, in effect, becoming relevant in planning decisions—material considerations—those are testing targets. Think of the targets we have on recycling—those are testing targets. We've got high-level ambition here and our target is 10 per cent of people cycling once a week. That is not going to deliver the ambition we set out. So, we lack the ambition, we lack the rigour and the honesty about where we are, we lack the skills and capacity at a local level to take this through, and, frankly, I'm getting bored of debating this. We all agree it needs to happen. There's a gap to make it happen. We've got to raise our game. 

In the committee's scrutiny on the impact of the active travel Act, which, of course, included consultation with a whole range of stakeholders, a number of failures were identified. Primarily, it was noted that in most areas it had not resulted in people taking up either walking or cycling, and in some scenarios we have seen a decline in active travel participation, most notably amongst children either cycling or walking to school. Now, we know that danger, either perceived or real, does impact upon our ability and particularly parents' desire to send their children to school. So, that is one of the factors that we have to build into this whole scenario of attempting to get people onto bikes or walking. 

We were also concerned that certain actions implied in the Act were not being adhered to, for instance, the non-inclusion of active travel in infrastructure in major road projects, or the downgrading of the active travel infrastructure as projects developed and budgets became stretched—Ffos-y-fran in Caerphilly being one project where no active travel infrastructure was provided for, either in planning or implementation.

One message came out loud and clear from all consultation contributors: lack of funding, and especially lack of long-term funding, which meant that local authorities were noticeably lacking in ambition for the implementation of new infrastructure for active travel routes. It also became clear that there was no effective strategic leadership at both Welsh Government and local authority level and that, where there were successes, these were mainly down to the enthusiasm and work of motivated individuals.

The mapping process proved to be more difficult and long-winded than was anticipated by the Welsh Government. Therefore, the £700,000 allocated to local authorities for the procedure proved to be inadequate, resulting in the authorities being obliged to make up the shortfall, with some stakeholders claiming that this resulted in money being diverted from infrastructure projects.

We're all aware of the impact a real sea change in people's active travel habits and their uptake could have on the chronic congestion problems we are witnessing in many parts of Wales, so I wish to acknowledge the worthiness of the Government's ambitions in this area, but they must be properly funded and properly encouraged. Can I therefore call upon the Welsh Government to increase funding to all sectors of active travel implementation in the sure knowledge that the economic benefits accruing from active travel will far outweigh any moneys expended on it?

I'm not a member of the committee, but I'm very pleased to speak in this debate as I am a strong advocate for the active travel Act, and so are many of my constituents in Cardiff North, which is of course very famous for the Taff trail, one of the great cycling and walking routes in Wales. I know from my post box in Cardiff North how important cycling is, and also the cycling event that I organised recently was very well attended with lots of children and lots of residents of Cardiff North, and that was a great success. So, I welcome the report, which I think certainly highlights the issues that need to be addressed if we are going to be able to change people's travel habits. I particularly welcomed the film at the beginning. I thought that was very vivid and really illustrated the different modes of transport, so congratulations to the Members who took part in that film.

It's already been said that, of course, this is about health. I think Lee Waters said that in his contribution, and so I won't repeat that today. But I think that, when the active travel Act came into force in 2014, we all, rather naively, I suppose, expected to see walking and cycling become the norm for short, everyday journeys, and it is disappointing not to see the upward trends that we expected, and I know the issue about children has particularly been raised by a number of Members here today.

I think the committee's report has identified some of the issues behind why the progress to date has been slow, particularly the safety element, which has already been debated here, and the lack of appropriate infrastructure. But I do think it's really important that we link up all forms of transport so that active travel is an easy and accessible option. We have been talking about having an integrated transport system in Wales for many years, but we're still a long way from achieving it. Integrating active travel with public transport, I think, is an essential part of creating a step change when it comes to the way we travel.

I know that somebody said here today that the Wales and borders rail franchise was a lost opportunity, but to me it's a great opportunity, and I think that there will be a real opportunity with that franchise to ensure, along with the development of the south Wales metro, that we build cycling and walking as part of the whole system. I think it's a fantastic opportunity to better integrate walking and cycling with public transport. As I think the Chair had already said, as Sustrans says, rail stations must become active travel hubs, making it easier for commuters, locals and visitors to get active, and we need to ensure that all stations are accessible for pedestrians and cyclists, that there are safe and secure places to leave bikes and disabled access is improved so that we have equality for all.

I believe that, in Cardiff, there has been a big rise in cycling. Certainly, there are many more cycles on the road in Cardiff, and I think we've all seen how popular nextbike are becoming in Cardiff, with new locations being added on a regular basis. I've already got some of these docking stations in my constituency in Cardiff North, and I know more are coming soon to Rhiwbina, Whitchurch and Llandaff North. And this is going to provide an absolutely ideal opportunity to increase bike journeys in the city from train stations, university, workplaces and tourist destinations. 

Of course, we do have the development of the new Cardiff transport interchange in the city centre—the bus station, as we call it in Cardiff. I think that's another huge opportunity to build in cycling, walking and accessibility at that place. It's taken a long time to reach where we are now, but I'm very hopeful that that transport interchange will be a big encouragement for walkers and cyclists.

I think that if we can create a truly integrated public and active travel system, people will find the decision to leave their car at home a much easier one. So, I acknowledge that the report has said how difficult it is and how there's been a lack of progress, and I think it's also been said in this debate how we're very good in this body at making really good legislation—you know, world-breaking legislation—but how that is then applied and how you actually see the achievements is the great challenge. But I remain very optimistic because I think we've got the basis there. Certainly, in Cardiff, we've seen where the will is there—a big change that is really happening as we speak here. So, I feel optimistic for the future and thank the committee for this report. 

Minister, I think you've heard the real concerns that are around this Chamber, although there are positives as well, but as the great Mark Isherwood has just told you, your wishy-washy approach just won't wash, and, frankly, that is something I wish to echo very, very strongly.

I really think post-legislative scrutiny is an essential aspect of what we need to do in this Chamber, and we should do more of it. This piece of legislation was born of the civic sector, it got widely praised around the UK, including in The Times newspaper, which highlighted it as an area of legislative activity that really can promote the public good, yet of the 24 recommendations the Government accept 11, and then accept another 11 in principle and reject two. I have to say, if that isn't wishy-washy, what is? 'Accept in principle', of course, is the Government's way of saying, 'Yes, but—' with the emphasis very much on the 'but'. Well, that's not really going to get the sort of transformation that we need. However, I am pleased to see that the Welsh Government has accepted recommendation 15, meaning that the Welsh Government's infrastructure projects will showcase the innovative active travel approaches it expects to see from local authorities, at least trying to lead by example, and it needs to do it much more widely in other areas of public policy, as Julie Morgan just highlighted in terms of the rail franchise, for instance.

So, we need to go a lot further, and let me talk a little about new housing developments. Now, if we transform those and make them really friendly for active travel, it is just an example of what we could do elsewhere, because we don't build that much, and, obviously, we need to go much further than new communities. But at least we should get their design right, and I believe that better use, for instance, of section 106 agreements would be a useful way of ensuring that the planning system hardwires in active travel. The Government, in fairness, is doing this to some extent with electric vehicle infrastructure, which is not exactly active travel but at least it's greener, and I think you should extend that in terms of the active travel agenda. Our policies need to be thinking 50 years ahead as well as what we can achieve fairly quickly, as Adam Price indicated in the example of Copenhagen. So, that's really what we need to see—some real transformation—in order to maximise the potential for sustainable travel, and that really needs a clear and sensible way forward, the Government leading, and ensuring that sustainability in new developments is ingrained for walking, cycling and public transport routes. It really needs to be a comprehensive approach.

I think it's good to look for best practice elsewhere, and there's much of it in Europe. I'm now talking about cultural Europe and Europe as a source of inspiring ideas coming from governments and localities and the people. Can I just highlight—and I hope my German's up to it—an example of this type of thinking in the Vauban residential development located on the southern edge of the city of Freiburg—I think I've got that bit pronounced correctly—which contains 5,000 residents? The aims for this development, which was completed in 2006, included creating a district with greatly reduced car use. This focused on high-quality public transport and active travel infrastructure alongside economic incentives to discourage the ownership of cars and their use. Now, that's not suitable for everyone, but, you know, the old garden village concept—garden suburbs—led the way and led social change. You would get groups that would want to sign up to that type of vision for their life and then have these streets where their children could play and be safe. Much of Vauban's development of a car-free environment has been successful; you can't park in the community, there are satellite parking areas, and as a result, most residents use public transport, walking or cycling to get around. This has resulted in there being only 164 cars per 1,000 people in Vauban—far lower than the average for Freiburg, which is already doing much better than most cities in Germany itself to promote active travel.

Can I conclude? Perhaps we should complete the circle here and have a radical approach in terms of vehicle use in our city areas where we allow it and have a 20-mph presumption, and that, again, I think will make active travel itself more desirable, pleasant and safer. I don't want to emphasise the safety issue too much, because it's still the safest option, usually, to be active in your travel. But this needs to be part of what we should be doing and I do hope that we will see some reform in terms of the speed limits very soon. And I do commend Cardiff in leading the way in Wales at the moment in developing best practice there.

For my contribution today, I want to build my remarks around one very specific solution to improve active travel opportunities. The specific solution that I propose will come as no surprise to the Cabinet Secretary as it's one that I've championed consistently since I've arrived at this place, and that is the reopening of disused railway tunnels across Wales as routes for walking and cycling.

My comments will focus mostly on the Abernant tunnel, which links Cwmbach in my constituency with the town of Merthyr Tydfil. Travelling 650 ft below ground at its deepest point, the tunnel was opened in 1853 and proved an important rail link between the valleys for 110 years. At its widest, the 1.3 mile long structure has space for two tracks. Even at its narrowest, a large car will comfortably pass through. Its provenance is impressive. The tunnel was surveyed and its plans prepared by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the great nineteenth century engineer and publicly voted second greatest Briton. But, most impressively of all, it is clear that reopening this as an active travel route could meet many of the challenges that our committee’s report notes.

In line with our first recommendation, I would strongly argue that, for the ambition of the active travel Act to be realised, we really do need flagship schemes that demonstrate Welsh Government commitment to the spirit of the Act. And in the £0.25 million that the Cabinet Secretary has already allocated to develop the reopening of the Abernant and Rhondda tunnels, we begin to see the start of this. Moreover, and in line with our third recommendation, the tunnel presents an innovative and unique way of attracting people who do not normally walk or cycle. When I have spoken about the tunnel, or posted about it on my social media feeds, it has generated a real buzz in the local community. I do believe that the Abernant tunnel would not only attract walkers and cyclists, but it would also encourage people to walk through this historic structure. 

The partnership working that has underpinned progress on the tunnel to date also admirably fulfils recommendation 5. To get us to where we are, there has been engagement and involvement with Sustrans, with local firms in my constituency and with councils. I also think that the reopening of the Abernant tunnel would help, in part, to meet recommendation 20 in terms of infrastructure. A common refrain that I and other Valleys AMs have made is that transport networks should not just run north to south, making proud Valley communities little more than commuter suburbs of the capital. Rather, we need to think of strong and dynamic east-to-west routes between Valleys communities. The Abernant tunnel could create a vibrant active travel link between my constituency and Merthyr Tydfil.

At this point, I think it is worth remembering that this is just one former tunnel that could be adapted. When Sustrans did work on 21 disused rail tunnels, they said Abernant was attractive as is it had a much higher potential than the others for changing the way people travel. Sustrans mapped census data and noted the high volumes of people travelling between both Valleys. But they also noted that nine other tunnels could possibly be reopened to become active travel routes. And this could bring the modal shift the committee calls for in our first conclusion.

Moreover, they highlight the benefits we mention in conclusion 3. For example, Sustrans have done work on the potential of reopening the Abernant tunnel as an active travel route to create jobs. Employment opportunities would be created as the route is reopened and converted for active travel, in making sure walking and cycling routes to the tunnel are fit for purpose and in ensuring the tunnel remains in a safe and welcoming condition. Converting the tunnel would also improve connectivity to BikePark Wales and to the Cynon and Taff trails. This could possibly create new jobs and safeguard current workers' roles as visitor numbers increase.

We can see examples where active travel routes have had this effect. When the Two Tunnels Greenway was created between Bath and north-east Somerset as a cycling route, based on part of the former Somerset and Dorset railway line, people flocked from all over to celebrate its opening. The tunnel, as well as becoming a well-used route for local people, has also become a tourist attraction in its own right. Many visitors come to experience what is currently the UK’s longest cycling tunnel, and that tunnel is actually shorter than Abernant.

Of course, active travel is also about making better environmental choices, and boosting health and well-being, especially amongst children and younger people. As I have said, to do this we must make a bold and innovative offer. Breathing new life into our former railway tunnels provides just this.

I agree with those who say that we really haven't done enough over the last five years. I was involved in the drafting of this Act, and, really, our progress on implementation and impact has been pretty disappointing. I think that we have to now pursue at pace the change that we must make—£62 million has been suggested, I think, by Adam Price. This is small beer—absolutely small beer—compared with the charges that will be imposed by the courts, who will drag us back for failing to tackle our air pollution. So, active travel is one of the key ways in which we can do something about the air pollution that is literally killing some of our citizens, and we cannot tolerate going on the way we are going at the moment.

When I was coming into the Senedd this morning, I passed a man on crutches who was taking his child to school. He was walking to school. Probably, he didn't have a car, but, frankly, if he can do it, anybody can do it. There is no excuse for people who are using the car to go for short journeys to take their child to school. Not only are they increasing the amount of poison that their child is consuming, because they're in a car, than if they were on the road, but they're also doing the wrong thing as far as the rest of the community is concerned. And so, we have to both use carrots and sticks to get the change that several people have suggested that we need to make. 

I agree with Julie Morgan that nextbike has been a great innovation and development in our capital city. The roll-out of nextbike in Cardiff has been its most successful of any city anywhere in the world. They've only been going since April/May, and they now have—or will have, by this weekend—500 bikes in operation, and 50 stations where you can pick them up and drop them off. And they've got the technology to ensure that it's not worth the while of people to try and steal them, because in the process they've wrecked them and then they're unusable. So, I think it's a fantastic innovation, but it's not sufficient. We have just got to change the attitude that people have towards doing everyday journeys on foot and on bike.

I'm very pleased to see the Cabinet Secretary for Education here, because I do feel that what we do with our young people in our schools is key to making that change, because we need to ensure that proficiency cycling in schools is meaningful, and that it leads to people actually using their bicycles for getting to school. It's very, very rare for children to bicycle to school, and it seems to me that that's one of the things that is something all young people ought to have the opportunity to do, and we ought to have loan schemes to enable parents to buy a bike for their children if they aren't able to pay for it in one go. I would like to see all school leaderships having to provide active travel plans for all their schools, and to make it clear that that is to be expected—that that is how pupils will travel to school.

We cannot go on as we are doing at the moment. We cannot deliver on 'A Healthier Wales', which is our latest strategy for improving the NHS, unless we change people's behaviour. So, I do hope that this report will prompt a much more vigorous leadership to making the changes that are required, because too often, these highway engineers are not people who cycle. When I went home on Monday, I saw this new sign that said—as I approached Splott bridge—'Cyclists rejoin the road'. Well, that's rejoining the road at the narrowest point when they could be staying on the pavement, where they're much more safe. So, it's clear that people absolutely still do not understand. Equally, the alleyways that Cardiff is blessed with are used as rat runs by vehicles in the morning, and they actually push people who are walking to school off the path. They shouldn't be there at all. We need to use our alleyways as safe cycling and walking routes.

I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will be able to assure us that there is going to be this step change in policy, not least because we need to meet our climate change obligations and reduce our transport emissions, and this is one of the key ways in which we can do it.

As the Minister, at the time, who took the active travel Act through the Assembly, I'm very pleased that the committee has undertaken this post-legislative scrutiny. It was a policy, as has been said, that came up through civic society, with Sustrans obviously playing a very key role. It had a great deal of provenance and support from wider Wales behind it, and it was very good to take it through and put it on the statute book, but it's obviously very disappointing to see that, in terms of the implementation, some five years on, we haven't really seen the increase in walking and cycling, or indeed better infrastructure, that we'd expected. 

I do believe that political leadership is absolutely key to this—political leadership to ensure that we do get the implementation that is required for the step change that will deliver these health, well-being, environmental, economic and quality-of-life improvements that we all want to see. Members regularly raise these points with Ken Skates, and indeed other Ministers, showing, I think, the consensus across the Chamber to get the focus and the prioritisation that is necessary. In that light, Dirprwy Lywydd, I must say that I am very pleased that Ken Skates has committed additional funding—although I agree with others that there's still some way to go—and is also very keen in terms of the announcements and the statements that Ken has made in this Chamber and elsewhere that I think do respond in the right way to the points that Members and outside organisations have made. I think Ken Skates is signalling that step change that Welsh Government intends to take, to make sure that we do get effective implementation, better funding and more focus and prioritisation as we move forward. Obviously, the challenge is to drive that across Welsh Government and, indeed, throughout the ranks of the civil service, including the transport engineers, and also make sure that that culture change takes place in our local authorities, where we need the local authority leadership, in terms of the leaders, the cabinet members, and their transport people, to understand what needs to be achieved and take the necessary action to ensure that it is achieved.

I also agree with others, Dirprwy Lywydd, in terms of the importance of school and work, because it was always about purposeful travel. There isn't, at the moment, a Welsh Government-funded workplaces programme to drive some of the necessary change in terms of the culture in our workplaces. The funding for schools through Sustrans is very important and, indeed, delivers a 9 per cent increase on average in active travel over the first 12 months of the programme, but is only reaching 8 per cent of the schools in Wales at the moment, so I do believe we need to build on that, and we need to make sure that more schools are up to speed with the best practice. You go into some primary schools now and in the earliest years they've got balance bikes, they're providing them for the children who perhaps haven't got bikes at home, the training is taking place—you know, it's giving them a very good start. There's proficiency training later on, as Jenny Rathbone mentioned, and we need to make sure that that good practice is present in all of our schools. And we need to make sure, yes, that there is the infrastructure around to make it safe to travel, to cycle and walk, in the way that we want to see. In Newport there's much more cycling along the riverside now, on a Sustrans route from Newport city centre to Caerleon, for example, because they're quality, off-road, safe routes. But we need to provide a lot more of that opportunity in Newport and across Wales.

Dirprwy Lywydd, one other matter I'd like to mention quickly, echoing what David Melding said, is about 20 mph zones. I do believe, and there's growing momentum behind this—events have taken place and will take place in Wales in the weeks and months to come to make 20 mph the default speed limit in Wales, with departures from that on the basis of particular circumstances of particular roads, with local authorities making those decisions. But it would be a default 20 mph limit that would apply right across Wales, and I believe Welsh Government should put that policy in place. Where it has happened, such as Bristol, for example, they have seen many more people walking and cycling because it is now safer to do so, and because it's been part of the necessary culture change.

So, there are many things that we can do, Dirprwy Lywydd, but I'm very pleased that Ken Skates has signalled this renewed prioritisation, focus and commitment from Welsh Government, and we need to see that carried through.

Can I now call the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport, Ken Skates?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm also looking forward to greeting the cyclists to the Senedd when they visit shortly. I'm looking forward to meeting with a delegation of them. I do hope that they arrive safely and do as Geraint Thomas and many others urge, which is to wear a helmet. Talking about safety, though, the reality is that, as David Melding said, it's incredibly safe to cycle and to walk, and yet we are bombarded on a daily basis with images and messages that encourage us to feel unsafe in our daily lives, because many people want to exploit a feeling of insecurity. It's the reason why SUVs have become such a popular means of transport—because we're encouraged, by advertisers, to believe that unless you're elevated above others, your children are at risk or you're at risk. The reality is that we are more safe today cycling or walking than I think we ever have been, and the reality is, contrary to what we're constantly being told, which is that we all lead incredibly busy lives, that many of us can find that extra bit of time to cycle or to walk to work or to school, or to the services that we—[Interruption.] Yes, absolutely.

I'm very grateful to you for taking the intervention. With regard to safety, I think you are right to highlight the fact that a lot of the issues around safety are to do with perception, but there is a real issue for women and girls using public transport and cycling and walking, particularly at night. Can I urge you, Cabinet Secretary, as we're driving this active travel agenda forward, to make sure that those real concerns—because those are real dangers—are addressed, and issues particularly like lighting and ensuring that routes go through areas where there are people, where you're not isolated if you're cycling and walking at night as a woman, are part automatically of how those plans are developed?

Yes, absolutely. The Member I couldn't agree more with. There are specific issues that are particularly relevant to and particularly problematic for women and girls. I think I'd also include the elderly in that same bracket and it's something that I'm acutely aware of. But it is difficult sometimes to push back against the huge amounts of money that are spent encouraging us to feel less secure in our daily lives. However, if there is a critical mass, you can achieve behavioural change, provided that's associated with safer, more convenient infrastructure. Then you can see the sort of developments that we've seen in Copenhagen and indeed in Cardiff. I'm sure that Lee Waters will be able to give us his take on whether it's safer to cycle and walk in Cardiff today than it was perhaps 20 years ago. My hope would be that it is indeed safer, and I'd urge all Members to encourage, not just their own constituents, but the people that they engage with on a daily basis, to be as active as they can possibly be.

It's my firm belief that the active travel Act is a great success. It's something that I am particularly proud of and I don’t think we should underestimate the impact that the Act has already had. It's achieved something that was never done before in Wales. And since its commencement four years ago, the Act has led to the systematic development of plans for safe walking and cycling networks for all larger and medium-sized towns and villages in Wales—more than 140. 

Creation of the plans, I think, is a key achievement, but we haven't stopped investing in infrastructure in the meantime. In the four financial years since making the Act, we've invested more than £60 million in walking and cycling infrastructure from transport budgets alone. The figure includes funding for around 125 Safe Routes in Communities schemes, and about 70 local transport fund schemes that focus on active travel. But that money does not include the wider improvements that we've funded as part of road safety schemes, speed limit reductions and integrated transport schemes.

And now that the plans are in place, we are accelerating the creation of active travel routes. This year, we've already allocated more than £22 million of capital investment for local active travel improvements through our local transport grants and pledged a further £50 million for the following two years as part of the active travel fund, on top of the £10 million for Safe Routes in Communities. And as Julie Morgan rightly said, we are going to spend hundreds of millions of pounds improving railway stations and bus stations in Wales, designed to enhance opportunities for people to be active in their travel arrangements.

Now, I do recognise, as highlighted by the committee's recommendations, that processes can and must be improved. The Welsh Government’s response to the committee's report, I think, demonstrates our willingness to do this. My officials work closely with local authorities, with Sustrans and other partners to reflect and to learn from the early implementation experience and shape the subsequent stages of the process. We will identify further improvements that may be made to the process.

We've already strengthened the local authority representation on the active travel board, as recommended, and we’ve welcomed new regional representations at the last board meeting in June. Transport for Wales are also now a permanent member of the active travel board and I’m delighted that TfW is currently recruiting a dedicated active travel lead to build specialist capacity into the organisation, as discussed with the committee earlier this year.

And I agreed with the committee that the Act must be implemented in an integrated manner. It’s widely accepted that active travel has the potential to deliver direct benefits in a broad range of areas, and this means that increasing levels of active travel is not solely or even primarily a transport matter, as Lee Waters said. For my part, I don’t walk and cycle regularly in order to ease wear on my car or to save costs on fuel; I do it for my own mental and emotional and physical well-being. And I think Vikki Howells made a very compelling case for investing in active travel to improve health and well-being across the country.

I value partners working together to make the most of the opportunities that active travel offers, particularly in the area of public health, and I also intend to hold bilateral meetings with Cabinet colleagues to discuss what else can be done in our respective areas of responsibility. I think Lee Waters made a very important point with regard to public health, because it’s particularly important that we ensure that behavioural change is treated with the utmost seriousness, right across Government and across local government, and indeed across the whole of the public and private sector.

I would very much agree with John Griffiths that we have to encourage employers to do more to encourage, in turn, their employees to take up active travel. The economic contract has four conditions attached to it. So, any business looking to draw down funding from Welsh Government will have to comply with that. Well, two of the conditions concern decarbonisation and improvements to the mental and physical health of their workers. Of course, taking up active travel, encouraging active travel, investing in infrastructure within the workplace that enables workers to cycle or walk to work is one means of decarbonising the business and it's another means of improving the mental and physical health of employees, so the economic contract is designed to do just that.

Now, emerging strongly from the committee's work was the need to improve engagement and consultation within the active travel process, and I agree with the importance of consulting not only with existing active travellers, but also those who could be persuaded to try it if the conditions were right.

I'm conscious of time, Dirprwy Lywydd, but I should just point out that we're also in the early stages of developing a new Wales transport strategy. That strategy will set out our strategic policies for safe, integrated, sustainable, efficient and economic transport facilities and services. Of course, walking, cycling and other sustainable modes will be a focus of this strategy.

Finally, many Members like to lecture, sometimes, the Welsh Government about how we should and can do more, but my question back to Members is to ask yourselves how you can do more, as well, as political leaders, as civic leaders. As Russell George said, it's not just about money—this is about behavioural change. This includes your behaviour as civic leaders, so I'd urge all Members to be consistent with their commentary by being more active in the way that they themselves travel, to show political leadership themselves and to lead by example and cycle and walk more regularly, as I know that people like Jenny Rathbone do indeed do—to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

I call on Russell George to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It was interesting—I hadn't really considered the fact that it was 11 years ago that a petition was handed in, with Lee Waters handing that petition in, not as a Member of the institution then, but on behalf of the people signing it, and that being the start of the active travel journey.

I would like to thank all of those who gave evidence, actually, to our inquiry and those who attended the focus groups, and of course the 2,500 people who responded to our committee survey, being very clear about what the obstacles were to active travel, and those being safety—an issue that the Cabinet Secretary focused on, I was pleased to hear, in his contribution. I'd like to thank all members of the committee for their contributions today, and also the committee clerking team, as well as the outreach team, for their great support to us.

Mark Isherwood focused on co-production as a way to enable cyclists and walkers to help shape infrastructure, which I think is particularly important. We, of course, had a recommendation on this point, and that reminded me, when Julie Morgan spoke, of the Taff trail. We had an example, actually, from one witness who told us about the physical barriers on the Taff trail that prevented him from using his adapted bike on that route. Co-production would have prevented the need to remove those barriers after the event at additional cost.

I think Adam Price rightly talked about the example of Copenhagen, but it would be, I think, highly unrealistic for us to expect the step change that we need overnight, or over five years as well. No-one would expect Cardiff to turn into Copenhagen overnight, but we would expect more to have happened and more progress to have been made. But I think Adam was right to point out that, obviously, Copenhagen were where we are at one stage.

Lee Waters, I thank you for your contribution. Of course, you were an invaluable member of the committee on this particular report, and in shaping our report and recommendations. I won't comment on the term 'wishy-washy' that was bandied around a few times, but I would agree with David Melding in his view that the increasing use of 'accept in principle' in relation to committee recommendations is very frustrating. I don't think this is good for scrutiny, and I have to say that I hope Ministers will consider the use of 'accept in principle'—I'm pleased that the Cabinet Secretary is shaking his head in agreement to that, so I'm pleased to see that.

Vikki Howells, I hadn't realised the extent of the rail tunnels in your constituency, so thank you for your contribution. Jenny Rathbone, you're kind of an adopted member of our committee—you speak on most of our committee reports, I'm pleased to say. You did make the point that you're pleased that the Cabinet Secretary for Education was here, which reinforced the point, I think, that this is a cross-cutting piece of legislation that doesn't sit solely with the Cabinet Secretary for infrastructure and the economy.

I think it is right to say to be positive that Wales's active travel journey has begun, but for the next steps we do need elected politicians, both in the Government and in local government—and I take the Cabinet Secretary's challenge to us all as well—to take responsibility. I think we do need to show leadership to our communities, we do need to work with local people to develop the active travel routes that they want, and we need to provide the money that's needed, and I think that was the conclusion of David Rowlands's contribution. We need to have the resources available to build effective infrastructure and support the cultural change that this Assembly committed to when it passed the active travel Act. The Cabinet Secretary has said that he thinks that this Act has been successful, but I hope that in five years' time from now we can look back on the tenth anniversary and we can all agree then that this active travel Act has been a successful piece of legislation. We have an Act that has the potential to transform the way Wales moves. Now we need to act so that Wales moves in an active way that can transform our health and well-being. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36. 

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.