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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:35 pm on 22 June 2021.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 5:35, 22 June 2021

Thank you. I certainly agree that we need to be spending more money maintaining the highway network. The highway network is the largest asset that the Welsh Government has, the network within our own ownership, and obviously, that also applies to the local government-owned road network too. I think we need to be spending more money on looking after it. That's one of the consequences that I hope will flow from today's announcement and from our commitment in the Wales transport strategy. So, I entirely agree on that.

I've hopefully addressed many of the points that Carolyn Thomas makes to Jack Sargeant and to others. We are committed to helping people to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment, that tackle climate change but also serve the other purposes that public transport and transport is there to do. But none of us can avoid the fact that transport accounts for 17 per cent of all our carbon emissions, and if everybody in this Chamber is signed up to achieving net zero by the latest of 2050, those 17 per cent have to go in the mix of us deciding how best to spend that headroom that we have. And the science is only going to get more demanding, let's be clear about that. It may well be that the 2050 target will have to be brought forward in response to that science, and we do need to be prepared to confront the fact that transport decisions and the way we've always done things will need to change in light of that science and that evidence. And that's what this review is meant to start, so that we can have an evidence-based discussion and make informed choices of when the road is the right thing to do and when an alternative is the right thing to do.