Which brings us to our final item of business, the short debate. If those who are leaving could do so swiftly and quietly, we will move on to the short debate on Swansea parkway: the next steps for the Swansea bay city region, and I call Suzy Davies.

Assembly Members: Hear, hear.

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and everyone else.

It's always pleasing to start a debate with agreement, Cabinet Secretary, and on this occasion, it's a common interest in the success of the Swansea bay city deal. It may say 'Swansea' in the title, but the opportunities for Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire's local authority areas are just as exciting. We're talking about almost 10,000 new jobs and £2 billion economic uplift for the area. So, what's not to like? It's not as if we are short of home-grown innovative ideas, but we don't have the best record of commercialising them to benefit the many, and this is a chance to show that we can.

Confidence is key to the success of the deal and a component of confidence in this context is the ability to convince multinational investors, as well as those within Wales, that the region is easy to get to and easy to get around. Some of us were surprised when physical connectivity featured not at all in the plans for the deal, and I hope that the fact that Mike Hedges and I, and others, keep raising this will ensure that this missing link is not lost from your line of sight.

Professor Mark Barry has, of course, produced an initial scoping idea for a south Wales metro—a South Wales West metro, I should say. It's not perfect, in my view, and Rob Stewart, the leader of Swansea council, confirmed, in a meeting with AMs about the city deal, that the professor's ideas were just a starting point. But its very existence at all underlines the point that, while world-leading digital connectivity is a core aim of the deal, and essential for its longevity, people will still need to walk, cycle, drive, catch buses, trains, trams in order to participate in the deal—directly as the workforce and indirectly as beneficiaries of increased wealth generated in the region. To be confident in the region's agility, investors need to be confident in its mobility. And I suspect, Cabinet Secretary, that you may want to raise electrification in your response to this debate—by all means do. But I'd really like us to think about the future that we can do something about, and a future that acknowledges that careful decisions about transport can be about successful regeneration and not just about faster trains.

The city deal includes 11 projects focusing on manufacturing, energy, life science and well-being and economic acceleration, as well as its core drive for digital—global domination is how I like to think about it. But I do want to focus on what could, and should, be the twelfth, and that is a Swansea parkway station. Unlike electrification, which is a huge investment designed to speed up journeys, a parkway is every bit as much about regenerating this large site in Felindre, which has failed to attract much interest since the tinplate works went; it's just as much about that as improving connectivity around the region as well as improving mobility within Swansea and the peninsula.

Joyce Watson took the Chair.

A Swansea parkway, appropriately located to the north of the city, means that people can travel more swiftly east-west within the region and to the east of the region, as well as helping to maintain that all-important land-bridge between Ireland and the rest of the UK and then on to the European Union.

All that alone saves time for travellers who don’t need to go into Swansea itself. It also allays fears about the future of Neath station thrown up by Professor Barry’s schematic. It will also allow residents from parts of Swansea, Gower, Neath Port Talbot and even further afield a more convenient option of using the train to get into the city centre than currently exists, avoiding congestion and particulate pollution in a part of the country that is badly affected by both. This all dovetails strategically into work that Welsh Government is already doing regarding local train stations in Swansea, on which I am more than happy to let Mike Hedges have more than a minute if he wants to, and of course, Chair, if you would be happy to let him do that.

I did my own research on a parkway earlier this year. Of the residents I wrote out to in the north Swansea area, 89 per cent of respondents said that the Swansea bay city deal should include an offer on transport. This is something it doesn't have at present, of course. and when I asked what factors would make them use a Swansea parkway station, 77 per cent of them said avoiding city centre traffic and congestion was a big reason for them using a parkway station. That was followed closely, though, by a parkway to the north of Swansea being more conveniently located for some of them personally than the current stations, which, of course, include: Swansea High Street, Neath, Port Talbot itself, Briton Ferry, Skewen, Llansamlet, and Llanelli.

But a Swansea parkway can do more than just allow residents to gain quick and convenient access to new and existing jobs, because it can also, if done correctly of course, help improve air quality, which has become such a priority for us here in this Chamber. Almost half the residents told me that they would consider using a Swansea parkway if it was supported by bus and active travel networks, demonstrating that a Swansea parkway can play its part in encouraging commuters to ditch their cars altogether if it's done it the right way in the right place.

Thanks to the work of Sustrans and local organisations, we have an integrated sustainable transport network map for Neath Port Talbot and Swansea already, allowing residents and visitors to travel easily from one local authority area to the other. Work to incorporate a Swansea parkway into this would only benefit the region in terms of encouraging people to think differently about how they get from place to place as well as improving the flow of that movement.

The former tinplate works at Felindre just north of Swansea has received millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to develop it into Parc Felindre business park. The land is in public ownership, as you know, some is in the hands of the local authority and some in the hands of Welsh Government, but, over time, as we've heard, this has prompted very little interest until recently and precious little financial return. I’ve raised this before, and you have been pressed on it in recent months, more than once, by Dr Dai Lloyd, so you know what the situation is. We’re looking at around 200 hectares of land situated 7.5 km from the city centre, with a dedicated junction to the M4, and with potential for a railhead facility. That's on Swansea city council's own website confirming that. It is a strategic employment site of regional significance, size and location. And, of course, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which employs almost 6,000 people from across the travel-to-work area, most of them women, including at higher grades, is just across the road.

The vision for Felindre is for a high-level strategic business park serving south Wales. That is good. We do not want a retail park there. But it’s also adjacent to other publicly owned land of the same size, more or less, and that's earmarked for housing and 20 per cent of which would be for affordable housing, which would be good news for the threatened school at Craigcefnparc, but less attractive than at first sight because of its remoteness from the city centre. A parkway on the doorstep would solve that problem for 200 hectare-worth of housing.

After years of Welsh Government spending money in an attempt to try and attract tenants to the site, we are just now starting to see some interest. The international parcel delivery firm DPD announced their wish to move to the site and bring 130 new jobs to the area. Now, that is welcome, of course it is, but it is not exactly the beginning of an economic furnace sparked by the city deal. The leader of Swansea council is now claiming that there is significant interest from business in the site, and I really hope that he is right as then it’s less of a question about which comes first: investment from businesses in new jobs, or the infrastructure to support them. Myself, I think, either way, a parkway would help people reach those new jobs from within the city and outside in a way that doesn't clog up the motorway junctions to the north and west of Swansea, and certainly doesn't clog the main arterial routes in and out of that particular area. We all know what the M4 is like first thing in the morning, don't we, gentlemen?

Other parts of Wales have already seen significant investment in Wales from private businesses, thanks to work by both our Governments. In Deeside, Toyota announced they'll be building their new Auris and securing 3,000 jobs there. CAF are building trains in Newport, investing £30 million and creating 300 jobs. Aon are opening a new financial services office in Cardiff later this year. There's a whole string of these, but my constituents really want a piece of that action, through the council’s own plans for the city, the city deal itself and the work done by both our Governments. Residents have already said that they like the idea. Investors will expect easy accessibility to the city region. And I think a Swansea parkway is the missing selling point.

It would show investors that the Swansea bay city deal has a fully joined-up approach that would allow the research and innovation taking place across the region, at those 11 project sites, to be fully capitalised upon by businesses big and small. It would allow residents from across the region to start or end their journeys easily and quickly without adding to the congestion, while, at the same time, helping to reduce congestion and improve air quality at all the hot points, if you like. Part of the answer to that, of course, is what Mike Hedges is likely to be talking about in a few minutes, and the decision on investment in a Swansea parkway, of course, is ultimately one for the UK Government, but it needs support from Welsh Government, I think, to create—what can I say? Well, let's create that confidence that I was speaking about earlier on in the presentation. To have a joint understanding between Governments on where that investment is needed and how it can be supported, I think, is crucial to the Swansea bay city deal reaching its full potential.

Now, in March this year, Cabinet Secretary, you told the Assembly—and I'm quoting—that

'Welsh Government is making numerous demands of UK Government in terms of improvement of passenger services, and improvements to journey times'. 

Quite rightly. A Swansea parkway could be the answer to some of the things that you’re looking for. In May, you added that a Swansea parkway

'should be taken forward at pace.'

And I would like to think that you remain of that view. I hope, with those comments in mind, you are able to confirm that Welsh Government will be joining my constituents, and, I hope, other AMs, in the push for the Swansea parkway station that the city region needs. Because, let's just think of the gain, if you continue to let the train take the strain. Thank you.

First of all, can I thank Suzy Davies for giving me a minute in this debate? I want to make two interrelated points. The first is that we need bus-rail interchanges at all rail stations, and the buses need to come and leave at the right times. Far too often, the buses go at a different time to the trains, and that means that it becomes less convenient to use a bus to get to the railway station. Once somebody has undertaken part of their journey by car, especially if they've come—. In my case, if I were to use my car to come by train to here, I'd either drive for 20 minutes in the wrong direction, or, I'd drive for 20 minutes until I get to Port Talbot, which is just under half my journey—about 40 per cent of my journey. It doesn't seem worthwhile changing the mode of transport when you've travelled that far. So, I think it's important that we have bus-rail interchanges and that we make it convenient for people.

The second point is about having a strategy to move people by rail between local places. This is reverse Beeching. For those who don't know what Beeching did, he got rid of all the branch lines because the main lines were making a profit, without realising that the people coming on the branch lines were getting on the main line, so all of a sudden, the main line's not making a profit either. I want to reverse that.

And also, we've got a lot of what used to be old stations. I know I mention Landore often, but you've got a lot of stations the trains go through at the moment—stations that exist. I know they need refurbishing, but they exist. I think we need to look at more of these. I'm going to drift into Jeremy Miles's area now, because there are some in Neath, as well, which exist on the main line. They could just be reopened. There will be some cost in the refurbishment, but they can be reopened. We need to get people out of their cars, but let's not do it when people getting out of their cars is inconveniencing them. We're asking them to do something for the environment that is going to hurt them. I want to ask people to do things for the environment that benefit them as well, because they're more likely to do it.

As I've said many times, we need a strategy for public transport in the Swansea bay city region. Can I just make two very brief points? One is: I think it's very important that Neath station does stay on the main line and it doesn't get left off. And, of course, a Swansea parkway—the Welsh Development Agency planned it from the 1990s. So, it's not new, but the fact it's not new doesn't mean it's not a good idea.

I now call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport to reply to the debate. Ken Skates.

Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. Can I thank Suzy Davies for bringing forward this short debate today, and also thank Mike Hedges for his contribution to an important matter for many people in the Swansea bay area? I have no doubt that the vision is clear and the partners want to work together to deliver the Swansea bay city region, with the city deal that is associated so closely with it.

That collaborative approach to regional working is already achieving results, and an example of this is, of course, the Parc Felindre business park. It's a high-quality strategic employment site for the Swansea bay city region, exactly as Suzy Davies identified it. It provides fully infrastructured land for developers and for occupiers alike. In the absence of sufficient private sector investment in new sites, Parc Felindre has been jointly developed by the Welsh Government and Swansea council to attract high-quality employment opportunities to the area. It's actively being marketed, and our joint venture partners, Swansea council, are now in advanced negotiations to bring a significant first development to the site. A planning application has been submitted for 800 dwellings that will include affordable housing and all of the associated community facilities that you should expect.

The Welsh Government is also working closely with Swansea city council to enable regeneration of the city centre and its surroundings into a distinctive, vibrant, high-tech and green twenty-first century digital and leisure destination—highly attractive to innovation, to business, to tourists, to students and to inward investors as well.

As has been made clear in this debate today, integrated transport—Mike mentioned it at the outset of his speech; Suzy also mentioned it—integrated transport links are vital to achieving that economic growth vision. That's why we allocated £115,000 to Swansea city council last year to lead on the development of the vision of a south-west Wales metro. We provided a further £700,000 for a more detailed business case this financial year via the local transport fund. Swansea council are themselves co-ordinating work in partnership with the other city region local authorities in south-west Wales, and it's vitally important that the work is based on sound evidence to ensure that the solution delivers on the future transport needs of the region.

The metro concept is a multimodal approach focusing on public transport. It includes, of course, buses and trains that operate so that one meets the other at regular points and on time, and, of course, it includes active travel. While the funding of rail infrastructure is still a reserved matter, the work will review opportunities to extend the rail network to meet the future need.

I recently met with the Secretary of State for Wales and also with the leader of the council to discuss the proposal for a new station at Felindre. Following that meeting, I asked officials to commission a high-level analysis of the economic impacts of building a new rail station in the vicinity, which also included the impact to Swansea city centre. I think it's an important point to make, in taking forward an evidenced plan for a Swansea parkway station, that we should not undermine or destabilise the important longer term plan that the council and the Welsh Government are collaborating on to breathe new life into the city centre itself. I've discussed this issue, as I say, with the Secretary of State for Wales, and the leader of Swansea council, Rob Stewart, and I've asked my officials and Transport for Wales to ensure that these concerns about city centre growth are reflected in the commissioned study. So, a proposal that becomes part of a wider metro development for the region is, at this stage, something that I would prefer to see.

I think it's important, obviously, that we follow Welsh Government Welsh transport appraisal guidance processes to determine what are the best solutions for the region. And, in following the Welsh Government's WelTAG process, we'll be taking forward proposals based on sound evidence and proposals that will also fulfil our obligations under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

These examples all share one theme—transport, economic development in the region—and that theme is collaboration with our partners and with our stakeholders. It's my view that we are working in tandem now to deliver together towards a shared vision based on sound evidence, to grow our economy and to provide a better Wales for our future generations.

Our new regionally focused model of economic development has been designed to enable successful regional economies that exploit their distinctive strengths and opportunities. And I think every good example of regional economic development has a mechanism that facilitates joined-up thinking and also joined-up delivery. And it's not just about prioritising structures over outcomes, but recognising the interdependencies between the two and ensuring that we have the right structures and mechanisms in place to deliver the outcomes that we want to see.

Acting Presiding Officer, we have also reflected upon what stakeholders have told us about our current ways of working, how they'd like to see us operate in the future in a way that better engages them in the work that we do, and that's why the creation of the three regional units and the chief regional officers is so important. I think we'd be selling ourselves short if we treated the production of regional plans as merely a drafting exercise. They must add value and not complexity, and this is something that has been raised with me, and I've given assurance about to various local authorities across Wales, including those in the Swansea bay city region. And it means considering dependencies with wider strategic investments. Investments such as, yes, growth deals, the south-west Wales metro, public transport hubs, and the regeneration of our high streets, not just in the Swansea city region, but in Wales as a whole. But I am confident that, with the city deal initiatives, with UK Government and Welsh Government working together on transport interventions that make a difference to the economy and the people of the Swansea bay area, we will be able to further fuel economic growth in that particular region.

Thank you. So, that brings today's proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 17:36.