5. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Roads

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:48 pm on 26 February 2020.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 3:48, 26 February 2020

Thank you to Jenny for giving me that intervention as well. I have to start off, though, by saying how disappointed I am to see yet another entire opposition motion deleted by Welsh Government and replaced by one of its own. Every week the Government has an entire day of its own to bring forward debates of its own choosing, but as this is becoming an established pattern of Welsh Government in responding to our debates in particular, Dirprwy Lywydd, I wonder if you or the Llywydd would now consider reviewing the Government's use of the 'delete all' amendment. It is for Government to answer this Parliament, not shout over it with amendments like this, or, indeed, refuse scrutiny because it doesn't like our tone.

And, Minister, if your priority is holding the UK Government to account as you seem to be doing in your amendment, please don't use our opposition time to do it: become an MP and use your own opposition's time to do it in Parliament. Can we have just a little bit more about Welsh Gov, and a little bit less about 'not us, guv'?

I think the climate change points that have been raised in this debate already are really useful additions to this motion. They are important and they felt particularly live to me yesterday as I sat, along with many working in this institution, in a traffic jam from the infamous junction 33 of the M4. It took me an hour to get to Culverhouse Cross, unable to turn my radiator on because of fumes. Maybe a particularly bad day yesterday, but in the nine years I've been here, my journey from Swansea in the morning takes at least half an hour longer than it used to and the reason for that is because we have roads that cannot cope with the increasingly frequent need for lane closures. And to take Huw Irranca-Davies's point and, indeed, Jenny's point—I can't cycle from Swansea to Cardiff to get here in the morning, Jenny. [Interruption.] So, why don't I catch the train? Well, if it were one of those new, extra-fast trains in which the UK Government has invested, and which would speed up those journeys far more than electrification would have done, then I really would consider it. But, in truth, it still takes me longer than in congested traffic to get here by train, and with Transport for Wales's performance at the moment, I really don't see that in and of itself as a sustainable alternative. [Interruption.] I don't come from the same place as you on this train, Huw.

Can I just point out one obvious thing, really, which is that buses, which are a big part of what the Government is looking at, use roads? This really isn't just about the car. So, unless you really are thinking of a monorail, Minister, then I think your dispatch of this motion is just another distraction from a very difficult truth, which we've tried—