Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 4 December 2018.
Leader of the house, are you able to say now, if you feel comfortable, that the by-now £1.7 billion investment proposed for the relief road will largely benefit England? Let me quote you some statistics—they're contained in your own Government's wider economic impact assessment of the M4 corridor around Newport, published in 2016. It predicted that, by 2037, the relief road would have the biggest extra annual impact on GVA within Wales, as we might expect, in Newport and Monmouthshire—£12.3 million. However, for Somerset and south Gloucestershire, the impact was larger—£13.5 million. For Cardiff and the Vale it was only £1.3 million. Even for the Gwent Valleys it was only £1.3 million, and for the centre of the Valleys it was a paltry £0.8 million. Yet, for Bristol, it's £7 million—more than all of those put together. Are you proud that the biggest investment you will ever make, and for which Welsh taxpayers will be paying decades into the future for, by your own Government's admission, will benefit England more than Wales?