6. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change: Roads review

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:11 pm on 22 June 2021.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 5:11, 22 June 2021

Well, I think quite a number of the points that Altaf Hussain mentioned were actually addressed in my statement, so I'll just give him a chance to reflect on that, and if he has further questions I'm happy to answer them.

On the specific question of the cancer centre, that is not covered within the scope of this review, because that is a scheme to give access to a project; it is not a local authority or Welsh Government highway scheme. And similarly access roads to windfarms. Again, we are not being fanatical about this. There is a case for road building, I'm not saying there isn't, but it can't be the default response to every single transport problem we have, which it has been often.

He interestingly mentioned the UK Government. Of course, as well as committing to reaching net zero by 2050, they've announced a £27 billion road programme. They seem to think those two things are compatible, I don't. But they are indicating a change of thinking, as he mentioned, because of the fact that people are commuting less to work and that is likely to continue. So I'd very much welcome a change of heart by the UK Government. I think we have been quite consistent in our approach: we've set out a Wales transport strategy, that has a commitment to modal shift, and that requires a shift of resources and focus.

We're not stopping building infrastructure—in terms of his point about the economic impact—we're just building different infrastructure, infrastructure that is resilient to the changes of climate change, which all parties say they want to tackle. But again, when it comes to the particulars of making the difficult choices necessary to make that real, people resile from it. We will not.