7. Will the First Minister provide an update on Welsh Government plans to introduce a 20 mile per hour speed limit on all urban roads in Wales? OAQ54133

Llywydd, it is the policy of the Welsh Government to extend 20 mph speed limits in residential areas across Wales. An implementation group has been established to take this policy forward during the rest of this Assembly term.

Diolch, First Minister, for that answer. The proposal begs the question of what constitutes an urban area. If we look at most of the Rhondda, one could say that Blaenrhondda to Tonyrefail, or Maerdy to Porth, or even Pontypridd, could be said to constitute an urban area, given the fact that these are linear conurbations. Is it suggested that one should travel from Blaenrhondda to Pontypridd at 20 mph? And where, First Minister, these blanket speed restrictions have been applied, such as north-east Somerset and Bath, deaths and serious injuries have actually gone up. Manchester city has suspended its roll-out of 20 mph zones, and the Department for Transport has stated that 20 mph zones had proved ineffective. Considering north-east Somerset spent £870,000 on its roll-out of zones, how much does the First Minister estimate it will cost for such a roll-out in Wales, and to what effect?

Well, of course, Llywydd, I don't agree with the Member in his scepticism about the effectiveness of 20 mph zones. I don't think there's any doubt that the evidence demonstrates that they improve road safety and that they have a part to play in improving air quality and reducing carbon emissions, and they also, crucially, reduce what's called 'community severance'—the fact that communities can't act together because they have traffic speeding through them in a way that blocks people off from one another. Now, we will be able to draw on the experience here in Cardiff, where the city council has had, I think, a very ambitious and progressive programme of expanding 20 mph zones, initially in the inner city area but then to the rest of the city as well. It has a series of criteria that it uses to answer the question that David Rowlands asked me—how you decide where a 20 mph zone should be implemented. We will be able to use their experience, as well as experience elsewhere.

The purpose of having an implementation group is to be able to make sure that we can answer some of the questions that inevitably arise about how you go about implementation, how you deal with the costs of implementation and how you make sure that we can realise the very real rewards that this policy will bring about. And, Llywydd, it's popular with the public as well. In Cardiff, where some councillors were sceptical to begin with about 20 mph zones, now the pressure is on from everybody wanting their part of Cardiff to be moved up the programme, because they know that the public appreciate the benefits that the policy brings.

And finally, question 8—Leanne Wood.