The next item, therefore, is the statement by the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport on active travel. And I call on the Deputy Minister to make the statement—Lee Waters.

Diolch, Llywydd. We have a climate emergency, an obesity epidemic and an air quality crisis. Getting more people travelling in ways that improve their health and our environment is key to tackling all those problems. Transport accounts for 13 per cent of Wales’s climate changing emissions, and almost all of them come from the private car. Our recently published low-carbon delivery plan put achieving modal shift at its centre, and by that we mean making it easier for people to make fewer journeys by car, by making it easier to use alternatives. Over half of all car journeys are for distances of under five miles. Many of these trips could be made by walking and cycling. That is why encouraging active travel is a priority for this Government. The key is understanding what needs to change to open up this option to more people.

Despite having world-leading legislation in the form of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 and the well-being of future generations Act, we have not seen anything like the increase in walking and cycling levels that we want and need. We have rehearsed the reasons for that underperformance many times in this Chamber. Resources are key, and I am pleased to say that this year, for the first time ever, we'll be spending over £30 million on active travel schemes in Wales in one year.

But resources aren’t our only problem. The Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee report on the implementation of the Act made that very clear. We have a major issue with capacity and our approach to delivery. We often talk about austerity in this Chamber, but sometimes we don’t pay enough attention to the way it has hollowed out the capacity of our local authorities to deliver on anything other than essential statutory services. Active travel is an area where understaffing is felt particularly severely. As well as capacity, there are also issues about capability to deliver what is, after all, a change in behaviour and culture.

Joyce Watson took the Chair.

We have developed highly regarded guidance on how to design infrastructure that will make walking and cycling a more attractive option, but we need to do more to train and upskill professionals in its use. So I can today announce, Llywydd, that we will be setting aside some of the £30 million to invest in improving skill levels and spreading good practice.

I have met with most of the councillors and front-line officials who we are working with to deliver this project and listened to their concerns. A key one is that good active travel schemes can be complex and annual funding rounds make it difficult to deliver them. So I will be making a total of £6.3 million available to local authorities on a pro-rata basis to allow them to design and plan schemes in advance of submitting full funding bids.

Resources will always be scarce and we must ensure that we invest in a way that maximises outcomes. We can’t afford to spread the jam so thinly that communities get a bit of path but not enough to get them anywhere. We have to concentrate our resources on building routes that will allow people to make whole journeys to places they need to get to, in safety and comfort from their home to work, or school to the shops. Only then will we be able to convince significant numbers of people to change their travel habits. I am prepared to take flak for building fewer miles of route in fewer places if the routes we do build enable many more people to become active travellers.

We must reward ambition, but also, crucially, help those authorities who have not been ambitious enough to become more ambitious. We will shortly be starting a new round of consultations on local authorities’ plans for their active travel networks, the integrated network maps. I don't want to see random lines on a map that may score high on deliverability but do not create seamless networks that link people up with the places that they want to go. So, I am setting aside money to fund a much more engaging approach to consultation so that the next iteration of the integrated maps that councils submit are based on the views of our target group—those who do not currently walk and cycle—and result in a pipeline of projects that will make a real impact. 

Of course, it’s not just about new routes. I want local authorities to use some of their new resources to identify those small changes in roads and paths that can make a big difference. Perhaps widening a popular path or removing poorly designed access barriers that prevent disabled people, parents with prams, parents with children on buggies on the back of their bikes, from being able to get through. Anything that can demonstrate the advantages of people shifting their mode of transport. Local authorities are therefore encouraged to use part of their allocation to fund small projects that deliver continuous improvements to their local networks.

In February, the whole Assembly backed a motion calling for more ambitious active travel targets. I'll deliver on that promise, but for those targets to be meaningful and impactful we must have effective monitoring schemes in place. We are currently funding routes that do not have automatic counters installed in them as a matter of course, for example, and we need to look at that. So I am working with local authorities to develop a much more systematic approach than exists at the moment.

I have outlined the challenges I think we are facing, and they are many. However, I don’t think we should be pessimistic. We are starting to make some of the more difficult decisions that can radically change this agenda. The First Minister announced last week that Wales will begin work to make 20mph the default speed limit in residential areas, which is a real game changer. Lower speeds will not only reduce casualties and improve public health; they will also create an environment that is more friendly to active travel. We have begun work on a new Wales transport strategy, which will be central to realising this ambitious agenda and ensuring that active travel becomes a vital part of major infrastructure projects such as the metro. My colleague Ken Skates and I will keep Members updated on this work. 

There is no sweep of the ministerial pen, or single initiative, that can bring about the changes we need to see to reverse the transport trends we’ve seen develop over the last 50 years. It will take ongoing, granular efforts, focused on hundreds of different details, to create an active travel culture. But if we want to improve air quality, increase levels of physical activity and lessen the harmful impacts of transport on our environment, we must dedicate ourselves to it.

And I finish with a sincere invitation to Members that I want to hear from you what more you think we should be doing together in your particular communities to allow us to be at the forefront of the active travel movement. Diolch.

Can I thank the Minister for his statement and announcement this afternoon? I think it's right that the Welsh Government has brought forward world-leading legislation in regard to the active travel Act, but, of course, legislation by itself is not enough—there needs to be action as well, and we haven't seen that action. There's been significant underperformance—we've not seen the level of walking and cycling that we need to see, in terms of what the ambition of the Act was meant to do back in 2013. The Deputy Minister also pointed out in his opening comments that we've rehearsed these arguments in the Chamber before, so I'm not going to dwell on those. But I would like to welcome the very honest statement that's been brought forward today. I very much appreciate the tone of the Deputy Minister's statement—it's a reality check of where we are, and I thank him for his honesty in the assessment of where we're at.

I'm very pleased that the committee's work has seemed to have significantly influenced the Government's thinking as well, in terms of changes in policies that you've detailed in your statement today. You've talked about training for local authorities, integrated network maps, making those small changes that are needed to make a difference. And as you were reading your statement, it was almost as if you were reading the recommendations of the economy committee's report last year. So, that's very welcome, indeed.

In terms of the £30 million for active travel, I think I'm right in saying that when you were in committee last week you talked about the figure being allocated increasing from what was earmarked by a third. I'm just checking for some clarity around that. But, specifically, if I can ask, what is the size of the increase of funding against what was originally planned for this year, and how does this compare to last year's funding levels?

Also, in the economy committee's report, one of the recommendations that we made, of course, was that funding reaches £19 to £20 per head per year of capital and revenue funding. And I would just be grateful if you could confirm whether the funding that you've announce today reaches that limit, and whether you think that the recommendations from the committee and the money that you've allocated today is sufficient to achieve the Welsh Government's ambitions in regard to active travel on what you've announced today.

You were, of course, a member of the committee, Deputy Minister, when this report was being drafted and recommendations were being considered, so you're very aware of the recommendations in the committee's report, and I wonder how have you sought to prioritise the allocation of funding to address the committee report's recommendations. I don't need to go through them—you know what they are already.

And also during general scrutiny last week—and, again, you've mentioned this in your statement today—you talked about the Wales transport strategy, which will be published next year. How do you foresee active travel will feature in this updated strategy, and are you able to indicate when a draft strategy will be available for scrutiny?

And finally, you've asked local authorities for active travel data to identify gaps in active travel information. Are you able to provide more detail on how the monitoring and evaluation framework will be used in practice, particularly how it might improve value for money of investment and also lead to increased active travel rates? I'd be grateful if you could address those points. But I'm very pleased and delighted with the statement and the announcement today.

Thank you very much for those comments. I don't think it's fair to say that we haven't seen action in recent years. I think we have seen action and we've seen a significant amount of money for a number of years from successive Welsh Governments in this agenda. But I think, as the evidence to the committee demonstrated, it's making sure the underpinnings are correct, so that the money is going to be well spent to most effect. I think that's what I hope today's statement is going to address—getting that right.

Because I'm not going to be making a case to the finance Minister or the Minister for the economy alongside me to pour money into a sieve of poorly designed schemes. Because the trouble with a poorly designed path is it discredits the whole agenda. If councils are building paths—for example, next to a road—that are badly designed, the disruption is going to alienate people as it's built, and when they see nobody on these paths, they're simply going to say, 'Well, what was the point of that? What a waste of money. What's this active travel all about?'

I've seen that happen time and again, which is why it's essential that it's no good just having the guidance; we have to train the depleted ranks of local authorities to use it properly and also work with them to collaborate, so there is genuine regional working in this area. That's one of the things that the Minister and I will be considering as he takes forward the recommendations of the White Paper: as we create regional bodies, do we put active travel as part of their core functions? Because clearly there are enormous benefits to the economies of scale.

And what is the role for Transport for Wales in this as well? So, to address his final point on monitoring evaluation, we have had discussions already. I met yesterday with the head of Transport for Wales to discuss this—as they start to build up their own intelligence and data analysis unit, how they can make sure that capturing active travel data is a key part of what they do, and capture the useful data we want to enable us to make better decisions. 

In terms of the quantum of funding, we are some way off the £30 a head. I think today's announcement takes us to somewhere around £10 million a head for this year—£10 per head, sorry, this year; £10 million a head would be quite a stretch, wouldn't it—£10 a head this year. But as I say, I want us to make sure we get it right, so next time around we have integrated network maps that create routes based on demand of people who want to walk and cycle. If we can start to engage the community and enthuse them for where routes should be, then I think we can create a head of steam that will allow the political space for us to say, 'We want to spend more on this agenda', and I can credibly go to ministerial colleagues and say, 'Money should be spent on this and not on something else.' I'm not sure, with a good heart, I could do that at the moment, because I'm not confident that that money will be spent to best effect until the issues I've addressed in the statement can be properly worked through. 

In terms of the Wales transport strategy, clearly this is going to be an important part of it, but my observations of previous Wales transport strategies is we've been fine on the words around active travel. I often used to notice—some years ago now, 10 years ago or more—we'd have a Wales transport strategy that if you were coming from a different planet and just read the narrative you'd think Wales was an active travel country because the words were all there, but if you looked at the scheme of works at the end, it was all the traditional stuff you saw, there was very little active travel. So, I'm confident that active travel will be a key part of it, as it always has been. What needs to happen next time is that it's a key part of the delivery as well. And that's, if we follow through the things we've announced today, what I think we'll be able to address. 

May I welcome this statement from the Government today? Much of it is content that I would agree with. What strikes me and others, of course, is the frustration that we can't reach our endpoint, or where we want to go, more quickly, and I'm sure that that frustration is something that the Deputy Minister himself would share. I do think that the foundations are in place, in a way, in terms of having the Act in place, but we can't ignore the importance of proper funding and providing sufficient resources in order to ensure that the aspirations are delivered in reality.

I welcome the progress made and the fact that we're reaching £30 million. That's an important milestone. I think the figure in Scotland was about £80 million, and that was about two years ago, and that gives us a useful comparator. It's important, then, to look at how much we spend per head. I think that the Institute of Welsh Affairs, in their report last year, said that we need to look at £20 per head in Wales. We have a way to go before we get to that point, of course. Although I do take pride in being ambitious and setting ambitious targets for Government, now that the Minister has mentioned £10 million per head, what I'm asking for doesn't seem sufficient now. But, we do have to keep a close eye on that need and to push those figures up, because we do have a long way to go.

When we are talking about infrastructure, infrastructure is always something that needs proper investment, and we need to invest now in order to ensure that the infrastructure is there for future generations. While I do appreciate the Minister's language in talking about being granular—and Dave Brailsford, as a cycling coach of some repute, has emphasised those incremental improvements that can take us towards those final targets—I think that we are still waiting for that real investment that can make a real difference in putting firmer foundations in place in order to increase active travel for the future.

One other thing that I will comment on is the difference between the aspiration and what is being done on the ground. I welcome the language used by the Minister today in terms of his willingness to help and to work with local authorities to implement the objectives of active travel. I think that, generally speaking, there is a desire at local government level, among officers and elected members, to push this agenda forward, but the leadership, strategy and funding need to come from Government in order to guide people more swiftly along the journey. But, as ever, every step forward is to be welcomed, and we, as an opposition party in this place, will keep an eye on what practical difference is being made and when we can say that, 'Yes, really, five or six years since the passing of this Act, we are taking great steps forward.'

Thank you for the comments. I'm not sure there were any particular questions, but I welcome the tone of what he said. But, just in terms of the final point on the ambition of local authorities, I think we need to be frank that there is unequal ambition. There are a number of local authorities that have demonstrated a woeful lack of ambition, and that partly goes back, I think, to the capacity issue I mentioned, to be fair to them. But I think this is why, in a sense, I want to re-set—and this was the lesson I drew from the evidence that the economy committee took last year. The Act is still in its infancy. This is going to be a long-term change project.

The first maps that came through were a run-through, in effect. The next time, we've got to get it right. I think one of the fundamental problems with the approach we've had to date is that you're asking highway engineers to, in effect, conduct public consultation exercises, which they're not equipped to do, they're not trained to do, and it's not part of their culture. We had some examples of a couple of engineers having a room in a library on a Wednesday afternoon for a couple of hours and being surprised that very few people turned up. But until we get that consultation approach right, we're never going to have the fundamental foundation stone in the right place. So, what I'm looking to do is ring-fencing some of this money and putting out a tender for an all-Wales approach, where we fund an organisation outside of the culture of local authorities to engage in communities, to get that raw data, to have the conversation with mothers with pushchairs and old men on walking sticks on what it would take to get them to change their travel behaviour and to build that in to the network maps. Because, after all, they're meant to be 15-year visions of, in an ideal world, what would need to be there for us to behave differently.

And that's not what local authorities did. The WLGA evidence to the committee was very clear: they did not want to create expectations they wouldn't be able to meet by putting routes into those maps that they weren't confident they could deliver. And that's the wrong starting point. So we've got to give them that confidence that we can create expectations, because without creating expectations, what's the point of doing this in the first place? But the lines that must be there have got to be lines that withstand scrutiny for creating networks that are going to be well used. So, I think, pressing the reset button by going out and doing a robust consultation exercise, targeting the right people, which will then put into the next maps in 2021 proper local networks that we can then fund in stages, to design standards by properly trained local authority officers, working regionally, scrutinising each other to make sure that the work is of a standard, alongside the crucial bit, which I haven't mentioned much today, which is promotion.

The focus of the budget is largely focused on capital, on infrastructure, and we know from all the evidence that as well as infrastructure we need behavioural change interventions. Some of the money that's being announced, the £30 million, is available to local authorities to do promotion, but we need to do much more if we're going to make this agenda take off. But let's reset the foundations, let's get that right, and then we can look at the next bit.

Thank you for your statement, Deputy Minister. What's clear to me is that in the context of the climate emergency we have now declared, this has to be everybody's business. You can't do it on your own, and I welcome the fact that you're going to offer training to officers in local authorities who are going to be taking on this new role, because it seems to me that one of the first stops should be in the planning department to ensure that we don't allow any new home developments or, indeed, business developments, unless we secure the active travel schemes to go with. But, obviously, most of the challenges come from retrofitting active travel into the streetscape that we've already got.

So, obviously, the most important statement last week was the First Minister's statement about 20 mph being the default for all areas, and it can't come soon enough in my constituency where, unfortunately, far too many motorists think that roads are for speeding on. In an urban area, that's completely unacceptable.

I also welcome the fact that you're focusing on people who don't walk or cycle because, obviously, we've got to have that cultural change, and focusing on these journeys to work, school and the shops that people do every day. So, in terms of engaging with all the other stakeholders, I just wondered how we're going to engage with schools and ensure that every single school has an active travel plan. Clearly, it will be very different in a rural area to an urban area, but if we don't support families to understand that there are active travel routes that they can more safely bring their children to school on than by condemning them, submitting them to going in a car, which is obviously much more dangerous, you know, it can be difficult for people who aren't themselves cyclists to know where the routes are. So, I'd like to know—I'm sure you don't necessarily know yourself—how many schools in Wales actually have an active travel plan, and what is the target we're going to set for achieving the vast majority of schools having an active travel plan.

Equally, we need to ensure that businesses are engaged in ensuring that their staff can arrive by bike or by—. They're not going to bring their bikes unless there's somewhere secure for them to park them, because otherwise they might not be there when they need to go home. Equally, obviously, children living three miles away from their school are entitled to free bus travel. What thought has been given in areas where there is public transport, like Cardiff, to ensuring that children are given free bus passes to travel on public transport, rather than these specialist buses that nobody else can use? It seems to me that there might be a way of incrementally increasing the number of buses available to everybody.

I suppose, lastly, one of my bugbears is to change the culture that encourages secondary school parents to pick up children from school. I can see long lines of them at the school where I'm a governor, and I simply cannot understand why any parent would not want to give their child the opportunity and the freedom to make their own way home, unless they're going on some special journey that requires them to be picked up.

Thank you. A number of questions there I'll try to address. On the planning point, I think we took a big step forward in the late autumn, with the publication of the latest edition of 'Planning Policy Wales', which made some significant strengthening of the planning guidance for future developments on creating an active travel environment. It'll take some time, I guess, for that to work through, but I think we have made significant progress there.

In terms of schools, the education Minister and I had a number of conversations about this, and we both attended the last meeting of the cross-party group on active travel that Huw Irranca-Davies very helpfully chairs. It's a very good group that we find very useful to engage with. We heard some really good practice of the new Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Hamadryad in Grangetown, which is a fairly unusual school in the sense that it had a planning condition where no cars were allowed. They've done some terrific work there and Dr Dafydd Trystan, the chair of governors, and the headteacher there, Mrs Carbis, I think, have shown an inspirational example of what can be done—the role of leadership. But those are fairly unusual circumstances they found themselves in. So, how can we mainstream them? It shows that where there's a will, there is a way.

The conversation we're still working through is on the design of new schools that are currently within the twenty-first century schools project. The requirement is to provide facilities within the curtilage of the school, not without, and I think the trick to crack—and this is why we're resetting the maps and doing our planning properly—is that when we know that new schools are going to be built, it's not just down to the school builders to put facilities in place, though I think there is room for improvement there, but we need to make sure that the authorities themselves are building in the network of routes outside the curtilage of the school, so that when that school comes on stream those routes are there, going out into the whole community.

On your point on business—it's an important point—we have included some of this within the economic contract, but Dr Tom Porter, public health specialist at Cardiff and Vale health board, again showing the power of leadership, has done some very powerful work on discouraging staff from driving to work and to walk and cycle instead. The Cardiff and Vale health board, which is now mainstreaming that through the public services board for the other public sector employers, were able to show, using human resources data, the value to the whole workforce and the reduction of costs and sickness days lost from getting fewer people driving to work and more people walking and cycling. So, there are examples. As ever with all of this, the challenge is to spread and scale it.

On your final point, which is a challenging point about the journey to school and getting young people using public transport, I think it's a very well-made point. As we look at the future of buses White Paper, that's something we can consider. In terms of changing behaviour patterns, though, I think this is the key point I was making in the statement: if we start creating an environment where you've got well-designed routes, you've got more people using them, you start then to create a critical mass where it seems a normal and natural thing to do. My own reflection: when I started cycling again, having not cycled since being a teenager, in Cardiff probably about 15 years ago, it felt like a very eccentric thing to do. There weren't many people on a bike. Now, it seems like a fairly normal thing to do in Cardiff. In Llanelli, it's still a relatively eccentric thing to do. On the traffic-free paths, there are plenty of people cycling, but on the roads through town, I still feel a bit strange on the bike. There aren't many other people doing it. But it just goes to show that, over the period of a decade or so, you can create a culture of behaviour change, and that, by getting the foundations right, is what we need to do beyond Cardiff.

I think many have made the point, Minister, that there is a lack of consistency across Wales, and you yourself have made that point. So, there is a need for more training, more capacity, more support for our local authorities. Substantial funding is available, although hopefully it will increase further, but to think of that funding and then hear you describe some of the use of that money, which is not really achieving the purposes of the active travel Act, I think will give everyone pause for thought, because we are tasked with making effective use of money. It's very, very important always, but perhaps even more so now in the current strained circumstances in which we all operate. So, providing that capacity building to make sure that the money is properly used and that we do get the benefits of the active travel Act, and get them as quickly as possible, must be an absolute priority. I really would like to see that level of consistency right across Wales in terms of the benefits that active travel brings.

Jenny mentioned 20 mph limits, Minister. I wonder if you could say a little bit more about that, because it does seem to me that the many benefits that 20 mph limits offer in our inner-urban areas are very conducive to active travel. If we do reduce the speed of vehicles through those areas, it does make active travel much more attractive, much more doable. So, I do think the two policies need to work in tandem. At the moment, local authorities face considerable costs in taking forward traffic orders for 20 mph limits. If that was turned on its head and there was a blanket 20 mph policy in these inner-urban areas right across Wales, and then they only took traffic orders forward for 30 mph speeds, I think that would actually offer quite a considerable cost saving, given the direction of travel that we need towards 20 mph, with all the benefits that it offers. So, I wonder if you could perhaps say a little bit about that.

And, finally, Transport for Wales obviously has a key role now in taking forward transport policy here in our country, and we need to make sure that, again, those linkages are made between active travel, our train services and, perhaps to a lesser extent, our bus services, just to make sure that everything is linked up, and that Transport for Wales is working with you as closely as possible to make sure that communication, joint working, synergies are achieved.

Thank you. To take those two questions in reverse order—on Transport for Wales, the Member's absolutely right, and, as I said, I met with them yesterday, along with Sustrans, to see if we could encourage them to create a strategic partnership to make sure that we could deliver this in a way that was both integrated in terms of the package of train work that they're doing, and potentially bus work, to make sure active travel is absolutely mainstreamed in terms of the transport system, but also allowing, through working with Sustrans, a degree of challenge and help to local authorities to be able to do that effectively. So, that's very much on my mind and I'll be meeting them again in a month or so to follow that up.

On the point of 20 mph zones, I must pay tribute to John Griffiths for the advocacy work he's done in this Assembly, along with other Members, and also the work he did as the Minister who took through the active travel Act. His point on the default of 20 mph is a really important one. Currently, if you're in a local authority, and we've all, through constituency representation, had groups of people who want slower speeds in their area. It's the issue that's raised with me consistently when I have monthly public meetings—they don't like speed bumps, on the whole, they tend to divide opinion, but they do want slower speeds. And I think we need to move from the position where we see 30 as the default with a case to be made for 20, to being 20 as the default with a case to be made for 30. So, shifting that burden of proof, because, at the moment, we have a very complicated and expensive way of having to put through transport orders in order to bring in a 20 mph zone. So, I think we need to end the days of zones and start seeing 20 at the speed limit area-wide, and that then becomes self-reinforcing as speeds slow down. There still is an issue of police enforcement, which, I think, we're going to have to confront, but where it's working well, it is a largely self-reinforcing system.

The cost of that—I know there's some concern in local authorities about the practicalities of this, and this is why we're setting up this working group with the WLGA to work through the details. But the mandate we've given them is significant. It's not, 'Would you consider whether we should have more 20 mph zones?' The policy direction is: 'We want 20 mph as default, and we want you to work together to work through the practicalities of that to make it work for you, to make it practical and affordable, and to make sure the design is done so that it's effective.' And I was very pleased that Phil Jones, who led the work on the active travel design guidance, has agreed to chair that panel. I see it very much as an active travel intervention. Rod King, who John Griffiths brought to meet me some months ago, has also agreed to join the group. So, we have some good behaviour-change people around the table, and I also want to make sure we bring local authority leaders with us on this, because the intent is to help them to deliver the public health benefits that they are obliged to deliver and we all want to see. Public Health Wales have done an evidence review on this that shows the public health point of view: this is a no-brainer, but we need to work through the practicalities. The 20's Plenty for Us movement have claimed—and I have no reason to doubt it, but I've not seen the evidence—that a national speed limit will be eight times cheaper than individual authorities making 20 mph zones. So, that's the sort of thing we now need to work through while the group is being set up.

And, finally, Huw Irranca.

Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. Can I welcome the statement, but also the way it's being framed—that it's not simply on the promotion of cycling and walking, but it's in the context of the emergency that we have with climate change, it's with the obesity crisis that we have, and it's on the issues of air quality? Because I think that is the right context, and, actually, if we get this right, it is a complete win across all those agendas, and healthy living, and healthier lifestyles, and dealing with things like, in the Llynfi valley, where there's a 20-year lifespan difference between the top of the Llynfi valley and the bottom of the Llynfi valley. That's incredible, and part of this is what we're looking to deal with.

I very much welcome the focus on capacity because that's certainly the case in my own authority, which has got a good track record in active travel, but, unfortunately, Transport for Wales has stolen away the key individual who drove the active travel agenda, and we're struggling now, actually, to recruit the person with the right skills who isn't purely a highway engineer. So, I wonder what can be done to help those local authorities get those right people in place now, with the right skill set, that can develop active travel as well as understanding what engineers need as well, but can do the consultation and the community engagement. And on that basis, I wonder how do local authorities like Bridgend tap into the wider out-of-local-authority expertise that he's talking about developing in terms of this support across all local authorities for people who can do those consultations with people who don't currently travel by walking and cycling.

And my final question on this is: with some of the different approaches to funding that the Minister has laid out in his statement and in responses, would that include local authorities who were to come forward with proposals, for example, to develop more Ysgol Hamadryads, ones that not only built the infrastructure—as we've done in Pencoed recently with our twenty-first century schools—but then actually worked with schools to say, 'We're going to go further; we're going to affect the cultural change, working with parents, governors, local community, but we're also going to say to parents, "We will have a contract that says this is how you bring your child to school—not by car but by other means".' Would the money that's been made available, or would part of it, be actually there to inspire progressive local authorities to develop those sorts of things so we have not just one Ysgol Hamadryad but suddenly, by the end of this tranche, 30 or 40?

Thank you for those questions, and, again, can I echo my comments about the dynamic role that he's playing as chair of the cross-party group? Because I think it does bring together not only people from different parties, because this is a cross-party agenda, but it brings the local authority people, along with the local campaigners, all in one room, where there is a will to make change happen. And I'm very keen to continue engaging with that group and to attend every meeting, if I'm able to.

In terms of the skills point, I think regional working is essential in this area. This is one area where it's going to be needs-led, and also, as Transport for Wales starts to develop its remit, I think there is a real role there for that central expertise to be held, so that local authorities can set the priorities, they can make the decisions on where the routes are, but then they can call on Transport for Wales to provide that expertise they're not able to carry themselves locally.

On the consultation element, that community engagement work, we will fund separately this time round to see how that works, and I think it'll be interesting to see if that does bring us a different result from the one that was brought last time. So, we need to keep that under review.

In terms of schools, then, we do have the active journeys programme that we've been funding and that Sustrans have been delivering. We're going to be putting out to tender a larger contract based on the same approach over the summer. But there is a role for local leadership as well, and it's not just for the Welsh Government and local authorities to lead this; individual schools need to do their bit as well, because all schools struggle with parking and drop-offs in the morning. It's a consistent problem in every school I visit in my constituency. And I sympathise with headteachers for the range of pressures they face as it is, but this is one that'll have immediate benefits for them if they're able to engage with it, and there are all sorts of tools available to help them.

In terms of the specific point of is the funding available to allow local authorities to take a more innovative approach, then, yes, it is. There is flexibility within the funding we've announced. If local authorities want to bring forward proposals for a more imaginative approach, they will find a sympathetic ear.

Thank you.