The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Siân Gwenllian.

Which brings us to the debate on introducing 20 mph speed limits in Wales. I am pausing because I now see that the Deputy Minister for the economy is in attendance, and I invite the Deputy Minister to move the motion. Lee Waters.

Motion NDM7355 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Welcomes the report of the Taskforce chaired by Phil Jones setting out recommendations on how to change the default speed limit for restricted roads in Wales to 20 mph.

2. Notes the international research which demonstrates the road safety benefits, including a reduction in child deaths, of reducing default speed limits to 20 mph.

3. Recognises the Welsh Government roll out of 20 mph pilot projects, as precursor to a default 20 mph speed limit across Wales, and the future community benefits this will bring.

4. Supports the Welsh Government’s intention to commence consultation on the proposed making of an order by statutory instrument (which will require approval by a resolution of the Senedd) reducing the general speed limit for restricted roads to 20 mph.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. Eighty children were killed or seriously injured in Wales in the last year that we have figures for—80 children, 80 families whose lives will never be the same again. Whilst we have made progress on reducing deaths on our roads in the 21 years of devolution, despite our considerable efforts, there are still 4,000 accidents that result in injuries every year in Wales.

The evidence is clear: reducing speeds reduces accidents. Reducing speed saves lives, and slower speeds in our communities improve quality of life, too. According to the British crime survey, speeding traffic was rated as the most serious anti-social problem. Of the 16 examples of anti-social behaviour people were asked to rate, every demographic rated speeding traffic as the greatest problem in local communities. Fear of traffic also tops the list of parent worries, with children today being kept closer to home than we were, reducing their independence and their freedom to roam and leading to the vicious spiral of increased danger as more people drive their children to school, in turn amplifying health inequalities. As the report points out, child pedestrian deaths are four times higher in deprived neighbourhoods than in affluent ones.

The approach until now has not produced the results we want to see. The process local authorities have to go through to bring in lower limits—the traffic regulation orders—is slow, complex and expensive. Despite millions of pounds of investment, only around 1 per cent of the road network is subject to a 20 mph speed limit.

Today we publish the report of the 20 mph taskforce, and the brief I set the taskforce was to work closely with those who'll be charged with implementing this new law to come up with an approach that will work in practice. I am hugely grateful to Phil Jones for leading this substantial piece of work over the last year, systematically identifying the barriers to implementing this significant change and drawing on the experience of the police, local authorities, public health experts and key stakeholders to devise ways through.

The taskforce report recommends turning the current process on its head so that instead of the default limit being 30 mph with communities needing to make the case to go lower, the default speed limit will become 20 mph, with a case needing to be made to go higher. This change in the default speed limit is a cost-effective way to lower the speed limit on all residential roads in Wales. With Transport for Wales, the taskforce has developed a mapping tool, which suggests the roads that should change and that would provide the starting point for a conversation with local communities. Crucially, Llywydd, it'll be for communities and local authorities to decide which roads should stay at 30 mph. With the Senedd's support today, we'll refine this approach further through pathfinder areas, where we'll trial and adjust as we go. We don't expect speed to drop to 20 mph overnight. It will take time to change behaviour. But even a 1 per cent drop in average speeds is likely to bring about a 6 per cent drop in casualties.

We will expect the law to be enforced. The police were represented on the taskforce, and I've had encouraging discussions with the police commissioners. But the taskforce also suggests a series of ways to nudge behaviour, too. For example, the report recommends the Welsh Government gets organisations that we fund to ensure their vehicles stick to 20 mph to create a class of pace cars, which will then create a ripple effect. Over time, this will become the norm. Just as with smoking in restaurants or organ donation, I'm convinced that this will quickly become seen as common sense. This is as much about changing hearts and minds as it is about hard enforcement, and we'll be developing a communications campaign rooted in values to make the case for change. 

I want to pay a special tribute to Rod King from the 20's Plenty campaign for his determination over many years to create a coalition for change. The first meeting I had as a Minister was with him and my colleague John Griffiths, to discuss how we should implement the pledge made by Mark Drakeford to encourage a presumption of 20 mph speed limits in residential areas. John, too, has been a real champion of this agenda, and it's been a cross-party agenda, Llywydd, with support from right across the Chamber for many years. In this Senedd term in particular it's been actively supported by David Melding, Jenny Rathbone, Joyce Watson and others, and I hope that we can maintain the cross-party basis of support. In that spirit, I'm happy to accept the Plaid Cymru amendment to today's motion. It is right to acknowledge that the enforcement agencies need to have appropriate resources to respond to the change. And that's something the Senedd will want to consider as it sets future budgets.

The investment will reap rewards—lives saved, costly accidents prevented, mental and physical health improved, and the more intangible but equally valuable, community fabric strengthened. There's a lot of detail to get right first, though, Llywydd, and we're not going to rush it. We want to get it right. We plan to fully implement this in 2023. Before then, with the support of the Senedd, we'll need to implement the 21 detailed recommendations of the taskforce. We accept them all and we'll continue to work with our colleagues in local government and the police to implement them together. I'm grateful for the support of all parties to begin this process. Diolch. 

I have selected the amendment to the motion, and I call on Siân Gwenllian to move that amendment, amendment 1. Siân Gwenllian.

Amendment 1—Siân Gwenllian

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on the Welsh Government to set out its proposals as part of the consultation to ensure that enforcement agencies have the appropriate resources to respond to the proposed order.

Amendment 1 moved.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to hear that the Government is content to accept the Plaid Cymru amendment—a very good start to the debate. Our amendment relates to enforcement and calls on the Welsh Government to set out its proposals in terms of enforcement and appropriate resources for enforcement agencies as part of the consultation. 

We are in favour of the introduction of 20 mph speed limits and in favour of increasing the number of 20 mph zones, particularly around schools, but also on housing estates and in other parts of our communities. But the question of enforcement is an important one and is one that needs to be addressed. At the moment, the 20 mph speed limits aren’t being implemented in a proactive manner, if truth be told. The GoSafe cameras are targeted at locations where a high number of people are injured or killed, and that is understandable, but the Welsh Government, in order to make these speed limits effective, should work with the police and crime commissioners, with the GoSafe programme, which is funded by the Welsh Government, in order to agree how to change the enforcement regime so that the 20 mph speed limits are of real value. And I’m pleased to understand that Arfon Jones, Plaid Cymru police commissioner for north Wales, has started to conduct a survey in that area as to how exactly these speed limits could operate.

Having had discussions with colleagues in local government, they too feel that the enforcement element is crucial to the success of this initiative, and if the enforcement level from police is not sufficient, there is a risk that public expectations in having everyone complying with these new speed limits—that those expectations will fall on the local authorities and that that in turn could lead to traffic calming measures being put in place, and there’s a cost element to those of course. Therefore, the Government needs to identify that within the costings of this programme.

Otherwise, and having seen that the Government is willing to accept our amendment, we welcome this proposal and support efforts to implement it successfully. When I was a county councillor for Y Felinheli, I did succeed in getting a 20 mph zone around the local school. I have to say that there was a change in driving habits immediately and far more care was exercised, particularly perhaps because the 20 mph signs included colourful pictures that had been drawn by local children, which included a tortoise and the word ‘slow’.

I'm pleased to speak in this debate this afternoon. I'd like to start by thanking the Deputy Minister for the briefing that he hosted last week, and I would also extend my thanks to Phil Jones, who chaired the 20 mph taskforce, for the work he put into this report and for his recommendations. From my perspective and the Conservative group's, we would of course support measures that reduce the cases of accidents occurring on our roads. From my own group's perspective, there was a range of support for aspects of the report and, indeed, all of the report, and there was also a range of questions on aspects of the report that still need to be addressed in terms of some other members of my group. But I hope that during the course of this debate some of these issues will be addressed. My own comments as well—I'm going to try and perhaps tease out a bit more information, if I can as well, which I hope the Deputy Minister may be able to respond to in his closing remarks. 

First of all, I thought that I'd look at my own local authority area and, thankfully, collisions within 30 mph speed limit areas within Powys are relatively low. Therefore, whilst the research suggests that 20 mph limits will reduce collisions, there will be a smaller reduction, I think, in rural local authority areas. And the other issue as well is that, particularly in rural areas, you've got a higher level of unrestricted higher-speed roads, which, of course, is—there is a higher level of accident rates on those particular roads. In the last five years, Powys County Council inform me that 19 per cent of collisions occurred in 30 mph restricted areas. That's 448 in total. So, another notice I would perhaps point out is that we're potentially going to see an increase in collisions on the amount of people using sustainable travel, which we want them to do, of course, by walking and cycling. So, the trend in that area is also increasing, so I think we need to take into account that particular aspect as well.

The change as proposed would happen, overnight, as the report suggests. So, there would need to be a significant media campaign in that regard, which is also pointed out in the report. But, of course, drivers tend to drive in accordance with the conditions of the road. So, I think this is a concern—that where we may initially see vehicle speeds lower, due to the media campaigns, overall, over a shorter period of time, or over longer a period of time, there will need to be adequate police enforcement of the new limits. And the longer term reduction in speeds will only, of course, come from a generational change—that's certainly my view. We saw that with seat belts, for example. I'm not suggesting we don't do this because of that, but there is a generational change, so that perhaps does put some expectations on how long it may take for change to occur.

I do have some concerns about the unsustainable level of possible requests that may come in for physical traffic calming measures, to ensure that vehicles drive at new lower speeds. I know this from my own local authority days, when I was often asked to intervene in those particular aspects. I also think, from speaking to traffic officials, that there does need to be some robust guidance that's published along with any change as well.

If I can just quickly mention some legal matters as well, which perhaps need to be considered. Not all 30 mph limits have street lighting—some limits are part-lit and have had the restricted road status within the lit part removed at the 30 mph limit, imposed by order. So, if the proposed changes—. That needs to be taken into account. I'm also aware that, for some rural authorities—Ceredigion is one; the Presiding Officer might tell me otherwise—as I understand it, all 30 mph limits in Ceredigion are by order, thus no 30 mph in that county will change should the proposals be implemented, unless the Welsh Government force the local authority to revise the orders in place.

There are just a few other things, if I can. With regard to the report, it seems to be—very often, the report is very much focused on urban Wales; I would have liked to have seen more attention on rural Wales. The report also talked about sub-groups being set up. I would have preferred a sub-group also set up to look at the costings of the proposals—I think that should have been included as well. Because what is the total cost of local authorities, Welsh Government, policing? I think this does need to be known at this stage. Overall on costings, I think it would be important that local authorities are supported financially. I certainly agree with the report that a significant media campaign will be required. And I think that the final say also has to be with communities. I'm not fully convinced that the intentions of the report do need this statutory instrument to be introduced; I do wonder whether existing guidance is sufficient.

I think perhaps I would end with two questions—in 10 seconds, Deputy Presiding Officer. Are we using a sledgehammer to crack a nut with this proposal? And also, what criteria will define success of a 20 mph default? So, I look forward to the Deputy Minister perhaps responding to some of those, I hope, constructive questions and issues.

I wanted to make some of the points about enforcement that Siân Gwenllian made, so I don't want to repeat those, but just to reiterate how important they are to any particular change. There will obviously be consultations and discussions with our communities. I live in a former mining community, and of course our roads were never designed for the volume of traffic, or the amount of traffic that is parked side by side, concealing many access routes. This proposal is essentially about, I think, behavioural change—it is about what is socially desirable in respect of our traffic within our communities. And all I really wanted to say was that I think the proposals will be overwhelmingly welcomed in our communities, where we have density of population and where the safety of parents, grandparents and children is actually paramount.

Can I also say that this is absolutely in keeping with the spirit of the future generations legislation that we introduced, and that this proposal will also bring us in line with many other countries in the world that have already adopted this approach of, basically, community-oriented speed limits?

So, I very much welcome this, but just to reiterate the point that Siân Gwenllian made: that to be effective, it is not just about culture change, but there has to be properly resourced enforcement to make it work. But I know that there are many in my community, those people I represent, who will very much welcome the direction of the proposal here.

Can I thank the Government for bringing this debate today, because it gives us all in this Chamber the opportunity to scrutinise the evidence against which the 20 mph is to be implemented? I wish to state at the outset that I support 20 mph limits around schools and other vulnerable places. I of course acknowledge that none of us wish to see anyone killed or indeed injured on the roads of Wales, and if the evidence were definitive, then I would support these rules. However, the evidence is far from proven. Indeed, there is much evidence to suggest that the imposition of this speed limit will not result in a reduction in accidents, whether fatal or otherwise, or a reduction in harmful emissions—the two reasons this imposition is to be implemented. For instance, in Bath and North East Somerset, where they've spent £804,000 on implementing 20 mph speed limits, they reported that the number of fatalities and injuries have actually increased in seven of the 13 zones where it was implemented.

The report commissioned by the Welsh Government states that the greatest number of fatalities occurred on roads with 30 mph limits, but failed to mention that the average speed of the cars in these accidents was, in almost all instances, far higher than 30 mph, which means, of course, that the drivers defy a 30 mph limit, and this would imply that they would also defy a 20 mph limit. These lower limits will in no way deter those who break speed limits by substantial amounts—what has caused much of the anti-social behaviour referred to by the Deputy Minister.

Even such an august motoring organisation as the Automobile Association says that councils are wasting money because 20 mph limits are not making our roads safer. I would suggest that such an organisation has far deeper knowledge of roads and road usage than that which could be elicited in a few months' research, whoever was conducting that research. 

There's also no evidence to prove that 20 mph limits will alter driving habits. Police forces have, in fact, failed to enforce the limits, believing it would be a waste of resources. They go on to say that enforcement is reactive and should not be used as a preventative measure to achieve vehicle speeds. Prevention has to rely on public support for compliance by the majority and enforcement has to be guided by proportionality. The organisation 20's Plenty for Us have criticised reports that have failed to provide evidence to the contrary. 

Can I now turn to the supposed benefit of a reduction in emissions resulting from a reduction in speed from 30 to 20 mph? No less an authority than the UK Department for Transport have reported that their research shows that emissions at 20 mph are greater than at 30 mph. Indeed, emissions continue to decline as speed increases until about 50 to 60 mph, and then start to rise again. So, given the fact that vehicles will be going slower through an area and thus at that location for longer, we will have a double-negative effect on emissions, in fact causing greater pollution than was the case with a 30 mph speed limit.

Can I now turn to the implementation of these measures? The report was keen to point out that a blanket piece of legislation, covering the whole of Wales, would make it easier, and therefore cheaper for councils to implement. However, it will be down to individual councils to decide which 30 mph areas will be excluded from the 20mph. In other words, despite the fact that the report says it makes almost no difference to the times of getting from one part of an urban area to another, it is accepted that, for reasons as yet not defined, there are certain roads in urban areas that will not be subject to the 20 mph rule. 

The problem here lies in the fact that any given council will, quite naturally, be risk averse in whether a road should remain at 30 mph or not. They will be only too aware that, should a fatality occur on a particular road that retains its 30 mph or maybe even a higher speed limit, they would very likely be criticised or even sued for not implementing the 20 mph. So, we are likely to see a situation where every urban road throughout Wales will see a 20 mph restriction.

Herein, alas, lies another conundrum for our councils. What constitutes an urban road? For instance, in Torfaen, does the road from Blaenavon to Pontypool constitute an urban road? There are, of course, many thousands of such roads across Wales. When we see a blanket adoption of these speed limits, it will indeed be a blanket, with almost every road in Wales subject to this ridiculously low speed limit. 

Lastly, I want to turn to the practical aspects for the driver of keeping to this speed limit. Firstly, almost all speed control devices on cars will not operate lower than 30 mph. So, putting on speed control is not an option, even if it is fitted and, of course, most cars do not have this function anyway. So, it is down to the driver to control his speed to 20 mph. 

I frequently use two areas, which introduced this speed limit—Usk and Caerleon—and I find that I am constantly monitoring the speed indicator and, given that the other cars in front of me are often breaking the limit by a mile or two, as indicated by the flashing speed-control indicators, it would seem this difficulty is universal. This, of course, has the adverse effect of not monitoring the road as one would normally, thus having an adverse effect on road safety. 

Llywydd, the 30 mph limit was introduced when cars had steel bumpers and cable brakes. Today's cars are designed to cause less injury and with braking systems that are far superior to those, even a few decades ago. There's only one way to stop road accidents, and that is for all of us to return to walking. This constant reduction in speed could be applied to our motorways. A 30 mph speed limit on these would save far more lives—

I'm going to have to draw your comments to a close and ask you to draw your comments to a close. 

I have finished now. Thank you, Llywydd, much obliged. 

I think David Rowlands is looking at this problem down the wrong end of the telescope. It would, indeed, be a good idea if we all returned to walking, because then we'd all be a lot healthier. But I don't think that simply because some people are defying the speed limit at the moment, and therefore need dealing with, and the police are aware of this, we should, therefore, not introduce a default 20 mph in all urban areas, unless there are good reasons to have it at 30 mph.  

We absolutely need to change the culture on this because of three emergencies. One is the climate change emergency. Another is the obesity crisis, which is killing our children far sooner than the parents who bore them—it is that bad. Life expectancy is reducing not increasing. And, thirdly, we obviously have the coronavirus public health emergency and we know that coronavirus breeds better in polluted air. And it isn't just an urban problem, it's a rural problem as well. Rural pollution from intensive farming in, for example, Holland, has proved that—indicates that—more people get coronavirus and more people die of coronavirus in air-polluted areas. So, for all three reasons, we absolutely have to change the way we do things. 

We have to encourage parents to understand that enabling their child to navigate their way from their home to their school is an important part of growing up. This is what we did as children—why is it that children have been infantilised, where they are being driven to school long after they are physically capable of getting themselves to school? We simply can't go on like this, and we have to have a whole-community approach to reducing speed, because it's simply not cost effective to try and do it on a piece-by-piece and road-by-road basis, and I thoroughly applaud Cardiff council's commitment to introduce a default 20 mph across the whole of the city. But, in order to make that affordable, we have to make it the default, rather than it costing £1 million in each ward.

The other issue that is really important to understand is that, if we have speed bumps everywhere, because that's the only way we can persuade people not to drive at excessive speeds, it means that it's hugely uncomfortable for people travelling on buses who have bad back problems—going over bumps in a bus is really, really uncomfortable.

So, we have to have a complete sea change in the culture. I remember people shouting and screaming at the idea that we should all be wearing seatbelts, and other people saying that it was an affront to people's liberties not to be able to smoke in children's faces. Nobody would argue those cases now, and nor should we be imposing on children the inability to play outside and to get to school safely—either scooting, walking or taking the bus—because, at the moment, it is the fear of parents that prevents them doing that. It is not the children who are resistant to that. It is the single biggest problem I know that the headteacher of the school where I'm a governor faces: how do we get our young people to travel to school independently, rather than relying on the school transport that's provided? It would be a far better way of using parental income to invest in a bicycle or a scooter than to have to pay school transport costs. So, I thoroughly welcome the introduction of this measure to make it the default in urban areas.

Yes, there is support on these benches for introducing 20 mph speed limits. I know, in Aberconwy, it's been a big issue on some of our rural roads, and our local authority found it difficult to actually go from higher speeds to 20 mph. And, of course, our colleague, David Melding MS, has worked so hard on this issue.

It's a common sense and it's a safe move. A person is seven times less likely to die if hit at 20 mph than 30 mph, or 10 times if they're over the age of 60. A study aimed to evaluate the impact of the roll-out of 20 mph speed limits across the city of Bristol found that there had been a reduction in the number of fatal, serious and slight injuries from road traffic collisions equating to estimated cost savings of over £15 million per year, and that walking and cycling across the city had increased. Public Health Wales has previously claimed that there would be significant public health benefits from dropping the limit from 30 mph.

In fact, 20 mph is being pursued and encouraged in other parts of the United Kingdom and abroad. Faversham in Kent is set to become the first town in the UK subject to a town-wide 20 mph speed limit. All residential streets in Southend, Essex will be made 20 mph. Perth city centre's 64 streets have been made 20 mph for the past 18 months. The Road Safety Authority is supporting cross-party agreed plans to limit speeds to 30 mph on almost all roads in Dublin city and suburbs. Milan is setting the same for 22 miles of roads. Washington DC reduced speeds on local roads to 20 mph on 1 June, and Wellington in New Zealand has agreed 30 kmph for central-city streets. As the founder and campaign director of 20's Plenty for Us has commented:

'The de-facto standard for safer and people-friendly streets is now 20mph with higher limits only where they can be justified.'

Action is being taken globally to implement 20 mph, so I'm eager for us to speed up the process here. It simply cannot be right that, whilst it has been possible to introduce 20 mph limits for many years, only around 1 per cent of the urban road network in Wales is currently subject to them. According to the report of the taskforce chaired by Phil Jones, you can change the default speed limit for restricted roads in Wales to 20 mph, and there are a number of recommendations on the steps needed to achieve this, such as having a target date of April 2023 for the change in law coming into effect, making subordinate legislation under sections 81(2) and 65(3) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, by making additional resources available to local authorities to enable them to consult on, design and implement widespread changes in local speed limits and to provide monitoring data. And that is key—without the resources, it's useless us even talking about it. We need to co-operate with the police and GoSafe to agree how the enforcement regime should be adapted.

I welcome the recommendations of this report and have a particular interest in the calls for the amending of the setting local speed limits guidance. A report I prepared last year, following a very, very heavily-packed public meeting about highways in the west of the Conwy valley, disclosed that local authorities are placing emphasis on the number of accidents, instead of risk and near-misses. This is utter madness, and has meant that we are stuck with high-use, single-track lanes in rural communities such as Tal-y-Cafn, Rowen and Trefriw, and they still have 60 mph limits.

Personally, I believe the guidance and the need to consider 12 distinct factors, not just the numbers and types of collisions, should be enshrined in law so that every local authority has to consider each factor fairly, so that Welsh Government can focus on the serious problems with the guidance on setting local speed limits. We need positive progress on this. So, I welcome the report. Whilst 20 mph would primarily help urban areas, I am clear from my communications on the matter with the First Minister that progress in this area will take us a step closer to help tackling high-risk speed limits in rural areas too. And, as you can see, I've done quite a lot of homework on this, because it's a huge problem and I thank the Government for bringing this forward. Diolch.

Just a few remarks from me. Over the years since my election, I've worked with a number of communities across my constituency who have been calling for a reduction in the speed limit to 20 mph. The community of Llanfachraeth is one of those I've worked with recently. I've also worked with schools, including a school in Holyhead very soon after my election that wanted to see more being done in order to safeguard people by reducing the speed of vehicles within their communities. It's that simple. I do support the principle and the practice of reducing speed limits. The evidence is strong and clear and I welcome the fact that the Government has led this taskforce.

There are a few elements or questions that I still have: I do have a concern about the blanket approach of changing 30 mph to 20 mph. I think there are a number of areas that are 30 mph and aren't residential areas, and I would like to see more development of the exceptions that could be put in place, and that is for very good reasons, and the resources that would be available to administer that whilst adhering to this core principle of reducing speeds in areas where people live and children are most likely to be out. I endorse what Siân Gwenllian said about the need for resources to implement and enforce these changes; that's crucial because, from the moment the changes were introduced, then communities would need to be able to see that this was being enforced and that this was being taken seriously.

I want to echo one thing that I've said in the past: I was in Guernsey some 12 months ago and I was delighted to see the speed limit of 25 mph there, which did so much to slow traffic on roads in general there, and I do look forward to a broader debate on the kind of exemptions and nuances that can be introduced as the principle is taken forward more generally. But, on behalf of those communities that have been calling for a reduction in speed limits, I'm excited for them that this is now a step closer, and I look forward to seeing an ongoing debate on the detail, which is important, over this ensuing period.

John Griffiths. Yes, John?

Okay. Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to take part in this debate today, and it's really good to see that we've got to this stage with such an important campaign as 20's Plenty, and I would like to join Lee Waters in paying tribute to Rod King, who's championed the cause so extensively and widely for so long, and also, of course, thank Phil Jones and the taskforce, and to thank Lee Waters himself, because Lee has undoubtedly given fresh and added impetus to this campaign and these proposals as Minister, so thank you very much for that, Lee.

As others, my interest in the campaign firstly came from local communities who were campaigning for those speed limits, and that certainly brought home to me the deprivation factors involved, because there were campaigners on roads in local council estates where there had been, sadly, fatalities involving children, where there were roads through the estates with cars parked on both sides—there still are—children playing, and it's so easy, of course, for a child to chase a ball into the road from between parked cars, and, if a car is doing any considerable speed at all, it's very difficult to stop in time.

So, I really do think that, essentially, this is a road safety campaign, and it stands on its own merits in that regard. But there are also other very important benefits from a default 20 mph speed limit in our residential areas, and I think a lot of that is about reclaiming the streets, as others have said. It's about allowing children to go out and play freely and parents to feel confident in allowing children to do that; it's about older people feeling more comfortable walking around their local areas, in terms of their road safety; it's about active travel, allowing walking and scooting and cycling, whether it's to school or work or local shops, and people feeling more comfortable, safe and secure in doing that themselves or allowing their children to do it.

So, the benefits of this policy I think are very widespread: it's about better community life, it's about people getting to know people who live around them to a greater extent. We've seen some of that impact through the pandemic and I think it's something that could be further done, fostered, also through a 20's Plenty policy.

People have referred to enforcement, Llywydd, and I think that, hopefully, in the longer term, it will become self-enforcing to some extent, as other similar measures have been, but, certainly in the short term, there will be a need to make sure the police and others are enforcing this policy properly, and that will have resource implications. But I think it's also about a marketing, a communications and awareness-raising campaign. We do need a strong strategy on that initially, I think, to make sure that everybody is aware of the change, the reasons for it, and, hopefully, they will be supportive of it. But we do need to get key messages across if we are going to have that support and backing. 

I don't know whether Lee might be able to say a little bit more about the rolling out of pilots, in terms of the basis on which that would take place—which local authority areas and which areas within local authorities will see those initial pilots.

I'd also like to support what Russell George and others said about rural areas, because we also have a very strong campaign around the A48 dual carriageway in Newport in terms of villages and village roads off the A48, following, again, a fatal accident, and a man, Julian Smith, who sadly lost his daughter in an accident, is leading a very strong local campaign and he's pointing out very strongly that having national speed limits on roads through villages doesn't make any sense at all when you have families living there. Sixty miles per hour is just totally excessive and it does seem to be very difficult to get necessary change. There are lower limits obviously in Wales on some of these village roads, but sadly there are many that are still subject to the national speed limit, and it does seem very difficult to get lower speeds on those roads. 

So, I'm very grateful, Llywydd, for the opportunity to speak in this debate today. I think 20's Plenty is a very progressive policy. I think having that default 20 mph limit on our residential roads right across Wales will put our country in a very positive light, and deliver real benefits for our communities.

I've campaigned for many years to increase the use of 20 mph zones in Wales. I first looked at this in 2011, and at that time there were 237 serious pedestrian casualties in Wales, and sadly that included 82 children losing their lives or being very seriously injured, and I think it's those stats that we have to keep in our minds when we're talking about this. At that time, I focused my report onto Ceredigion council to see if they could introduce more 20 mph zones in built-up areas to protect their children. At that time, six schools in Ceredigion were in a 20 mph limit zone, but there were 40 with a 30 mph limit and six schools with a 40 mph limit, and there were five that had the national speed limit right outside their door. So, I think there is a real need and a real focus, and I agree with John Griffiths, this is piece of legislation that stands on its own in terms of road safety, but I do recognise all the other advantages that everybody has built into that.

So, the numbers speak for themselves. Between 2017 and 2019, 127 people were killed in car accidents, but 1,759 people were injured and 453 were seriously injured. That is a significantly high number. 

So we get down to does speed make a difference? Well, it does, because if you're hit by a car travelling at 20 mph, you'll have a 95 per cent chance of survival. If the car is travelling at 30 mph, you'll have 80 per cent. You'll only have a 50 per cent chance of survival if you're hit by a car going at 35 mph, and if you're hit by a car going at 40 mph, you've got a 10 per cent chance of surviving. So I think it's very clear from those statistics that your chances of surviving an impact by being hit by a car greatly increase as you reduce the speed of that car, and you don't have to reduce it by significant amounts, as that demonstrated.

Part of the reason, of course, is that the faster the vehicle is travelling, the longer the distance it will need to stop. So, I'll give another example: on perfectly dry roads and in perfectly good conditions, a car or a vehicle travelling at 30 mph will need a stopping distance of 23 meters or six car lengths. At 20 mph, that will go down to half. So, speed, again, is a factor in giving both the driver and also the pedestrian an opportunity to not end up with a serious collision resulting in injury or fatality.

But I agree that it isn't speed limits alone that will solve these problems. There will be a need for adequate enforcement measures, and we will have to come to agreement on who and how those enforcements are implemented.

But the Welsh Government has, over the years, given local authorities in Wales the power to vary speed limits. It is cumbersome, as is outlined here, but we have seen authorities move ahead, like Cardiff and Swansea, for example, when the political drive has been there. We've also seen Welsh Government give money to local authorities to improve the safety outside the roads.

Yet, last year, with the newly built school in Haverfordwest, Ysgol Caer Elen, I joined parents to campaign to reduce the 30 mph speed limit to a 20 mph speed limit. So, my ask here of you, Minister, is that, when we're building new schools, built into their design is a 20 mph speed zone outside that school. It seems incredible to me that any local authority that has already implemented 20 mph speed limits outside some schools then builds a new school with a 30 mph speed limit outside it—and there's already been an accident and thankfully nobody was hurt.

I obviously support what you're doing. I'm really pleased to see that it's back on the agenda, that it is being discussed, and I know without any doubt at all, from everything that I have just said, that it has the potential to save lives.

The Deputy Minister to reply to the debate. Lee Waters.

Diolch, Llywydd, and can I thank Members for that thoughtful discussion? I think, with one exception, there was support in principle for the proposal we've brought forward this afternoon. But Members are right, it's the job of the Senedd now to scrutinise the detail of this, to stress-test it, to kick the tyres, if you like, to make sure that this is as strong as it can be, and I'm certainly keen to work with all Members to try and answer questions and concerns they have so that we get this right.

It's the reason why I set up an expert panel over the course of a year to rigorously go through this, to understand how we can make it workable. Alongside the report today, we are publishing an evidence review by Dr Adrian Davis, as well as a report by the Public Policy Institute for Wales, also looking at the evidence. So, the claim by David Rowlands that this is based on just a few months' research and that the evidence is far from proven, I'm afraid is not the case, and I was disappointed by his contribution.

I'm just trying to work through the issues that have been raised. Russell George asked, 'Are we using a sledgehammer to crack a nut?' It's interesting, isn't it, if 800 children a year were killed or seriously injured in any other setting, I wonder what the response of the Senedd would be.FootnoteLink I wonder what the response of the newspapers and the media would be. I wonder if we'd see mass demonstrations. But somehow we've come to accept road casualties and deaths on our roads from cars as commonplace, as something we just accept as a price of doing business.

I notice the Brexit Party have put out a tweet this afternoon saying Wales can't afford to go any slower. I deprecate the tendency by some on the right to try and use this as part of the culture wars that they're trying to fight out here. I know David Rowlands—apart from the issue of Europe, which I profoundly disagree with him on—to be a reasonable man. So, to hear the speech he gave, which started off reasonable enough but turned into a contribution on a radio phone-in by the end, I thought, was surprising. 

Rhun ap Iorwerth said the evidence is clear and the evidence is strong. Janet Finch-Saunders made the point it's a commonsense and safe move, and I think the opinion polls bear this out. This is a widely welcomed and accepted intervention.

There are concerns around resources and concerns around enforcement, and I think those are legitimate concerns. At the moment, we spend an awful lot of resources but on engineering, on hard interventions, and the evidence is that we've probably achieved as much as we're going to achieve from that approach. The road casualty reduction figures have slowed and there's now a stubborn residual level of casualties that that approach does not seem to be able to tackle with any great dynamism.

The Deputy Minister corrected the figure in a point of order later in the meeting. The figure should be '80', not '800'.

So, I do think we need to look afresh at our approach. We are going to be continuing to work closely with local government and with the police to work through the practicalities of this, and the pilots that John Griffiths asked about will be developed with them in a range of different settings. So, Russell George, we will definitely want one of those to be in a rural setting. The geographical information system, the satellite mapping that we're using to try and suggest what roads might be 20 and what might be 30 will, of course, apply to rural as well as to urban settings. Russell raised a series of technical questions that I will write to him on to make sure that we do justice to each of them. But, of course, there will be robust guidance, which we'll be working out as a result of the pilots with the WLGA and the police.

He raised a legal question about the definition of restricted roads when road lighting was not present and I'll need to check the legal position on that. But the example of Ceredigion, for example, I understand that they are zones by order; they can, of course, be repealed where they are required. And that's the point of this approach: it's a permissive approach, working with local authorities and what communities tell us they want to do in their settings. So, if, as John Griffiths mentioned and Rhun ap Iorwerth mentioned, in rural areas, there's a nuance there that suggests a different approach, we hope to work with local authorities to give them the discretion to respond to the circumstances that they find. This is not a sledgehammer; this is a strategic move but with a degree of discretion at the level of detail to make sure that we apply it in a way that is sensible.

Siân Gwenllian said at the start about the way that GoSafe currently targets resources on areas with high levels of killed and seriously injured, and Janet Finch-Saunders mentioned what she called the 'utter madness' of looking at casualties rather than near misses. And I think that is one of the problems with the current approach, but if we turn it on its head and we set 20 mph as a default, the role of GoSafe and the police then becomes different. And John Griffiths is right: this will, in time, become self-enforcing. But clearly, this is going to take time. This is a behaviour change project, cultural change, over time.

But the figures are stark and the figures and clear: the risk of being killed is almost five times higher in collisions between a car and a pedestrian at 30 mph, compared to the same type of collisions at 20 mph—five times higher. The point where a car is going faster—. At the point at which a car doing 20 mph will have come to a stop, a car doing 30 mph will still have been doing 24 mph. And this evidence is cited in the report, so I don't think we can seriously say that there is weak evidence on this or that we haven't fully made the case for the need for this type of intervention.

There were examples cited of Bath and Somerset where fatalities increased and others where the air quality impact was not certain, but of course these are different approaches, these are zones. And this is not a 20 mph zone approach; this is a default speed limit, this is a whole area. So, the standard will be 20 mph, the exception will be 30 mph. And David Rowlands made the risible point that because cars now have better braking systems, somehow we didn't need—we could overlook the fact that 800 children a year were killed or seriously injured.FootnoteLink Well, clearly, those braking systems aren't effective, David, are they? They're clearly not effective; children are dying, they're dying and we need to stop it, and this is a way of stopping it. And I think the mealy-mouthed comments about 20 mph being a ridiculously low limit, I think says more about the culture war effort he's trying to engender than it does about the evidence. Jenny Rathbone made the point that seatbelts were said to be an affront to liberty and smoking in people's faces was thought to be a right, and now nobody would, indeed, say that.

I'm hoping I've worked my way through the majority of the points that were raised, Llywydd. If I failed to do so, I will write to Members. This is a significant change. We're not rushing it. We've been criticised for taking too long to go about it; we want to work through the details and get it right. The prize for getting it right is high, and I welcome the challenge from Members, and I welcome that as a continued conversation, so, together, we can satisfy ourselves that this is the right thing to do. And I think of all the things that each of us will have achieved in politics, if we get this right, it'll be a significant legacy for our Senedd. Diolch, Llywydd.

The Deputy Minister corrected the figure in a point of order later in the meeting. The figure should be '80', not '800'.

Thank you, Deputy Minister. The proposal is to agree amendment 1. Does any Member object to amendment 1? [Objection.] Right, there are objections, and therefore I will defer all voting on this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.