Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 9 July 2019.
First Minister, can I congratulate your Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport for the refreshing honesty that he displayed last month when he admitted that your Government and, indeed, the predecessor Labour Governments did not have a clue what they were doing on the economy? Now, I understand that he's since apologised for those comments and backtracked on them. He's not the only person to climb down from comments that he's made previously, and we saw some yesterday in north Wales, but that sort of honesty is what we like from our politicians.
Now, one of the areas that has really suffered quite a lot over recent years is north Wales, and one of the reasons that the economy in north Wales has been suffering is because of the A55 trunk road and its lack of capacity to be able to shift traffic along it, particularly in our peak holiday periods. Can I ask the First Minister whether, given the fact that you have decided no longer to spend significant sums of money on the M4 relief road, you will look at investing in our key artery in north Wales, the A55, to ensure that it is fit for purpose and it can cope with the increasing traffic that we're seeing in north Wales as a result of people being attracted to come and visit us and to do business there?