Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:11 pm on 21 January 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:11, 21 January 2020

Well, Llywydd, it is the normal farrago of ideas that we are offered by the Member. Swanky new electric buses are being provided in Newport and Caerphilly as well. Does he not want to see them there either? Does he not want to see the £29 million that we have put in our draft budget for next year to support electric vehicles here in Wales? Of course we need to see new forms of public transport, because we have to persuade people to come away from the car and to use different forms of transport. Cardiff is the most commuted city in the whole of the United Kingdom—70,000 vehicles travel into Cardiff every day. If we are serious about air quality, if we are serious about the climate emergency, then we can't just look the other way and say, 'Never mind; just let it carry on.' Now, fairness is at the heart of how that problem must be solved, and that is absolutely in the heart of the letter that Ken Skates has provided to the leader of Cardiff council. But dismissing all the ways in which we can make a difference in the future as though they were of no relevance to people who live either in the capital city or in the areas that surround it is no way at all to approach what is a fundamentally serious public policy challenge here in Wales, in our capital city and far beyond.