I will speak very briefly. I wasn't a member of the committee that carried out this inquiry, and, oddly enough, there was some mockery when that competition was launched for people to send in pictures of potholes to the committee. Some doubted the seriousness of that, but it was an useful step, and what was shown in people's response was just how much this touches the lives of people wherever they are in Wales. Our roads, after all, are one of our greatest assets, worth over £13 billion, and each and every one of us in one way or another uses those roads, and each and every one of us, I would go so far as to say, have come across potholes in our roads. It was a very useful exercise, I think, in real engagement between our national Parliament and the people of Wales on an issue that was truly important to them.

And there were no prizes for thinking what some of the conclusions of this inquiry would be, nor what some of the recommendations that would emerge would be, but it was very important indeed that they were noted in black and white, and I'm very pleased that we do have this report. It was no surprise to see through this report that funding is too tight within our local authorities in Wales for them, without additional support, to tackle this particular problem; it was no surprise to see that we needed a long-term funding plan, as other elements of our transport system receive; it was no surprise to see that long-term management and ensuring that this asset was maintained in the best possible condition for the longer term would be more cost-effective than responding to problems as they arise, and we have recommendations now that I hope that the Government will implement.

But there's no getting away from the fact that there is a dire financial problem at the core of this situation. The annual local authority road maintenance survey, which was drawn to my attention today, suggests that local authorities in Wales had spent 40 per cent less than local authorities in England on road maintenance in 2018. That’s not sustainable. I understand in my constituency that the funding available for road maintenance has almost halved in a period of around 10 years. That is not sustainable. I see one authority talking about a backlog of £50 million for road maintenance. The statistics from Swansea have again been drawn to my attention today.

And a situation can deteriorate over time. I’ve had a case in my own constituency recently where a change in agricultural practice, heavier vehicles being used on rural roads, does exacerbate the problems and causes problems anew for rural roads, and that, in turn, leads to further costs. So, this isn’t a problem that’s going to go away; it’s a problem that we have to take seriously.

And one can’t ignore the fact that, in Wales, at the moment, there are road schemes worth up to some £2 billion in the pipeline—that could happen for one scheme, and there are other significant schemes worth tens or hundreds of millions of pounds and we must safeguard the fundamental asset. We must safeguard that asset and we must put long-term spending programmes in place— five years is the suggestion made in this report, and I would agree with that—long-term funding schemes in order to ensure that our local authorities can put programmes in place in order to safeguard that asset for the longer term. And I’m very pleased that this report has been drawn up, never mind the mockery of the photography competition at its start.