4. Will the First Minister make a statement on how the Welsh Government plans to relieve traffic congestion around Newport? OAQ53269

I thank the Member for that question. Variable speed limits, junction improvements and a £14 million investment at the Brynglas tunnels are amongst the steps already taken to help relieve traffic congestion around Newport.

The First Minister didn't mention one major commitment from the Labour manifesto, and I quote:

'We will deliver a relief road for the M4'. 

When I asked the First Minister last week to make a statement on whether Welsh Government policy on the M4 relief road has changed since he took office, he made no mention of the relief road in his response, instead just saying, 

'No change has taken place since the Welsh Government's intention to bring about significant improvements on the M4 around Newport'. 

Your commitment was to deliver a relief road for the M4, not merely some vague improvements around Newport. Why have you changed your mind? 

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, the relief road proposal has been subject to an independent local public inquiry, the most comprehensive of its sort into any Welsh road scheme. Senior legal advice from outside the Welsh Government has been secured to ensure that advice that goes to Ministers has been thoroughly tested and that it deals with all the different dimensions of this complex scheme. Once that advice is available, I will consider it carefully and dispassionately. 

[Inaudible.]—agreed it will take several years for it to be completed. Will the Welsh Government consider solutions, such as directing traffic from the north and midlands travelling west to use the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, making the outside lane of the M4 between junction 24 to junction 28 for through traffic only, or closing motorway junctions around Newport? 

Well, I thank Mike Hedges for those suggestions, and he's absolutely right that the problems that face residents of Newport are problems that are happening in the here and now, and that were there to be a relief road, then it would be a number of years before that solution would be available to them. That does mean that we have to turn our minds actively to those courses of action that are immediately available to us. The improvements to the Heads of the Valleys road—another example of a major capital investment being successfully carried out here in Wales—will allow for traffic that wishes to go to south-west Wales to use that route from the midlands, rather than having to come down to the M4, and there is a series of other ideas, including those that Mike Hedges has identified. I am very clear that, as a Government, we will actively look to implement those things that are immediately available to us in order to address the problems of traffic congestion that are happening in the here and now.