3. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport: The Welsh Government Response to the South East Wales Transport Commission’s Final Recommendations

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:09 pm on 19 January 2021.

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Photo of Alun Davies Alun Davies Labour 4:09, 19 January 2021

I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and grateful to the Deputy Minister as well. I note that the Government are accepting the recommendation on the Ebbw valley line going to four trains an hour and I'd be grateful for an indication of the timescale on that. I would also like to understand what the future vision is for the line, because when it was created and when it was restored and opened, it was an interurban service linking the heads of the Valleys with the city centre in Cardiff. There's a very real danger with some of the proposals in this report that it will become a suburban service linking Cardiff and Newport, and that would be a real problem for us in terms of having a regional solution. The more stations, the longer the journey time, and I think we need to have a conversation about that.

The second issue I wanted to raise is that about regional buses. We've already debated the interconnectivity and the integration of different services, but we need to ensure that we have a regional approach to this. Simply linking Cardiff and Newport won't be sufficient to solve the problems, and that means that we have the governance at a regional level, we have the ability to route buses at a regional level, we have the ability to ensure that we have the interticketing, and the ability of people to move easily from one mode of transport to another. Thank you.