Build Back Better

Part of 4. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his European Transition Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 12:39 pm on 15 July 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 12:39, 15 July 2020

I thank John Griffiths for that question, and just want to confirm that our approach, absolutely, is to put at the heart of our response and the heart of our reconstruction that ongoing commitment to climate change, to an improved environment. We have all seen, I think, haven't we, because of the necessary change of behaviour that people in Wales have been prepared to undertake, if you like, the improvement in clean air from lower traffic and reduced flights and so on. We want to do all we can to make sure that we don't lose that benefit.

The Member will have seen, perhaps, the investment that Lee Waters announced recently in active travel funding for local authorities to bring forward schemes to encourage active travel in and around our towns, and also the work that Ken Skates and Lee Waters have been doing in relation, specifically, to the point that he makes, which is how we can come out of this crisis, this pandemic, in a way that supports our public transport networks to deliver a better service in future than they've been able to deliver in the past, so that we can continue to drive up use of public transport over time.

I think the bus emergency scheme that the Welsh Government announced recently, with the prospect that that holds of deploying our funding as a Government in a way that drives some of those outcomes better than we've been able to do the past, is a very positive indication of the kinds of lessons that we are learning, coming out of COVID, and our appetite as a Government not simply to turn the clock back to the circumstances that were the case as we entered into the pandemic.