2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:55 pm on 11 February 2020.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 2:55, 11 February 2020

The storm we've had in the last couple of days is yet another reminder that we absolutely have to change our ways if the climate emergency is not going to become completely out of control.

We've had very large sums of money being promised in the UK Parliament today: £106 billion for HS2. Professor Mark Barry, however, advises that this won't benefit Wales at all, because we're the only nation in the UK that doesn't have devolution of our rail infrastructure and, therefore, we won't get any consequential from that, is my understanding. So, we're going to have to pony up for this £106 billion to run yet another line out of London to the north of England, but we're not going to be benefiting from it at all, is my understanding.

It would be useful if we could hear from the Government about that, and particularly in light of the fact that the UK Government reneged on the electrification of the line from Cardiff to Swansea and beyond, which of course affects very badly on my constituents who are having to put up with all the pollution belching out of these diesel trains coming in and out of Cardiff Central. So, this is a really significant matter for me, and I wondered what action is being taken on that to try and get the Government to address some of the problems across the UK, rather than focusing all the money on London.

In addition to that, the UK Government has today said they're going to spend £5 billion on bus services and cycling routes. That'll be for England, so is there going to be a consequential for similar sums of money for Wales? And also, the UK Government has established a £50 million fund that local authorities can bid into in England to clean up their bus fleets with electric buses. Could we have a statement to pull together all these issues to find out whether the Welsh Government is going to be able to move with pace on this really, really important issue?

On a completely separate matter, I want to just highlight to the Government that the English Football Association is publishing guidelines for restricting the heading of a football by under-18s in training, and the Scottish Football Association is also going to ban any under-12s from heading a ball during training. Can we have a statement to demonstrate what the Welsh Government's view on this matter is, which is really quite a significant public health issue?