4. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport: Llwybr Newydd — A New Wales Transport Strategy

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:05 pm on 17 November 2020.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 5:05, 17 November 2020

Well, I agree with Jenny Rathbone that there is an enormous social justice element to the transport system. The poorest people are more likely to live in an area where they are subjected to higher levels of pollution; the poorest people are more likely to be involved in a collision and hit by a car; and the poorest people are forced to dedicate more of their household incomes towards the cost of running a car, because services are located at places where they have little choice. That's the transport system that we have developed over many decades and that's what needs to change by having a far more equitable transport system that tackles both inequalities and environmental hazards.

So, her suggestion of clean air zones around schools, I think, has considerable merit. This is a consultation exercise and I'd strongly encourage her and others to respond to it with ideas for how we could put the principles that we've laid out in this document into practical effect in as fast a way as possible. I completely agree with her. Twenty years is not—this is not the minimum time we're setting for this strategy; this is the time frame, the horizon we're looking at. The climate doesn't have 20 years. We know from the warnings of every report that the UN panel on climate change has issued that this is an urgent matter, and we simply don't have a long time to turn around our transport system; we have to make changes urgently.

As I said, the low-carbon plan that the next Welsh Government will have to publish next year, of whatever colour, is going to have to meet considerably more demanding climate change targets for transport. This is an attempt to try and get ahead of that, to try and shape thinking of all parties of how we meet those challenges that we've all signed up for. Every party that signed up for those climate targets of a 95 per cent reduction in carbon emissions have all signed up to that pathway of decreasing emissions from all sectors, including transport. And all of us have to put our heads together to come up with ways as to how we're going to do that.

Now, it's not easy. As we've seen in the Chamber today, that can be exploited by people who want to exploit it, but if we do it properly, it'll bring benefits to all parts of society.