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.