Leaving aside the issue of the air quality improvements achieved by displacing car journeys, the simple physical activity of walking and cycling, as I did this morning, has profoundly beneficial impacts on the individual, but also on the nation's health. Wales has the lowest physical activity levels in Britain, resulting in obesity and a whole range of illnesses that are estimated to cost the Welsh NHS £35 million each year to treat. The situation with younger people is particularly concerning. Welsh teenage girls have the lowest physical activity levels out of the UK countries, with only 8 per cent of Welsh teenage girls meeting the physical activity guidelines. Now, given that our health expenditure in Wales accounts for 50 per cent of the Welsh Government budget, any interventions that help to avoid the enormous costs that lifestyle diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes impose on society should be a priority for investment. So, in short, every time someone chooses to walk or cycle rather than get into their car, it's a win for them, but it's also a win for Wales.

So, that's why, in 2013, the Assembly passed the groundbreaking Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013. The Act set out to make walking and cycling, and I quote the explanatory memorandum accompanying it:

'the most natural and normal way of...getting about' in Wales. 

Now, we know that the exemplar for cycling is indeed the Danish city of Copenhagen, where 41 per cent of all trips to work and study to and from Copenhagen is by bike, and 62 per cent of Copenhageners choose to bike to work and study in Copenhagen. In total, 1.4 million kilometres are cycled in the city on an average weekday, and that's an increase of 22 per cent since 2006. Now, closer to home, in London, the number of journeys made by bike has seen a 154 per cent increase since 2000, reaching 730,000 journeys each day in 2016. This is impressive.

However, the newly compiled active travel figures produced to monitor the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 continue to show disappointing results for Wales. Sixty-one per cent of adults walked at least once a week for active travel purposes. This poor figure has fallen from 66 per cent in 2013-14. Forty-four per cent of children actively travel to their primary school. Thirty-four per cent to secondary school—this was a slight reduction from the 50 per cent to primary school in 2013-14. Cycling to school is relatively rare, with fewer than 1 per cent cycling to primary school or secondary school on a typical day.

And yet, our ambitions are high. But Welsh Government's ambition, which I set out at the beginning, has slipped from that fantastic declamation right at the beginning of making active travel the most natural and normal way of getting about in Wales, which it set out way back then. It's fallen. The Scottish Government, if I contrast it, have a clear ambition. In their 'Cycling Action Plan for Scotland 2017-2020', they include

'10% of everyday journeys to be made by bike, by 2020'.

The Welsh Government's active travel plan—it was put in place under a previous Minister, back in February 2016—contains a more vague, far less ambitious aim. It says:

'We are aiming to move towards a pattern by 2026 where 10% would cycle at least once a week'.

And as far as definite targets are concerned, the only commitment is to develop them. It says

'We will develop appropriate targets and also monitor which proportion of the population makes frequent active travel journeys, meaning at least three walking or cycling trips per week.' 

But we have no evidence that any targets have been or are being developed.

If I turn to resourcing, until this financial year, 2018-19, Welsh Government had been spending approximately £12 million per year on active travel. And, on 1 May last year, the finance Secretary announced a new funding stream of £60 million over three years from the Wales investment infrastructure plan. For the first time, Wales would have a dedicated active travel fund, as, previously, the majority of funding had been included in the local transport fund; it was up to local authorities whether they applied for active travel projects—my own Bridgend County Borough Council was very active in this area, others hardly applied at all—or other transport schemes—