5. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Roads

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:55 pm on 26 February 2020.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 3:55, 26 February 2020

I only rise to make a very brief contribution in this debate, which I've really enjoyed, actually. What it's thrown up for me, as I anticipated, is this real conflicted thinking that we struggle with—not just as a Senedd here, but also in the wider public—between our desire to be sitting in a warm car, on our own, with the radio turned on, with the heater on, driving wherever we want to, and actually the recognition that the poorest people in society don't actually rely on cars at all. What they rely on is good public transport. They don't have the option of having a car, even to get to a minimum-paid job. So, that's where the sustainable transport pyramid really plays very, very effectively. If we accept in this Senedd, as we did—[Interruption.] I will in a moment—just in a moment. If we accept, as we did when we brought through not only the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 but, actually, the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, which envisaged Wales becoming a nation where it would be natural to walk and cycle first—and that's the top of the pyramid; it's the walking and cycling—and then you work your way down, and you work your way through public transport and mass-transport systems, through shared cars and shared taxis, through things like community transport initiatives and so on. And then you get down to the unmistakable question that there will be some people who cannot do anything but get into their own car, at this moment in time with the technology we have. And we have to accept that. But surely we have to work through the others first, and what this debate sometimes misses is that wider thinking about how we shift things up that pyramid to make it easier, much more attractive, much more affordable, so that Suzy as well, not just me, as I can nip down to the train station—[Interruption.] Just to mention to you, by the way, what I found, since travelling more and more by train, is that despite the issues that we've recently had through December with the 06:44 train in the morning—despite that, when I was travelling by car, I was stuck much more in delays, in traffic, in accidents, time after time after time, than the odd occasional train that gets cancelled. But I will give way.