7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Transport

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:34 pm on 29 September 2021.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 5:34, 29 September 2021

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Members are going to have to answer their grandchildren's questions one day as to what they did when the United Nations issued a red alert for the state of the planet, and based on their contributions this afternoon, all we've heard are attempts to look for wedge issues. That's what we've heard this afternoon. Time and again, trying to divide based on falsehoods. We heard Joel James open the debate saying there's considerable concern amongst motorists. That concern has come from Conservatives powering Facebook algorithms over the summer, getting themselves very excited based on false facts.

James Evans says there are calls from this Government to introduce road charging. He just said that. He produced no evidence for that at all. There are no calls from this Government to introduce road charging, as Joel James acknowledged in the First Minister's answer yesterday to Tom Giffard. He made it very clear what was behind the questionnaire that was circulated over the summer. It's the same evidence gathering the UK Government are doing that we're obliged to do by court order on looking at different options. This is an option we are obliged to look at as part of the evidence base we are gathering for the clean air Act. We made it very clear that this is not part of the policy toolkit we intend drawing upon. So, they know that and yet they persist in waving this flag to try and create divisions at a time when we are facing a climate and nature emergency.

These are serious times, they require serious politicians to give serious thought and serious responses, and the Conservative benches have shown yet again this afternoon they are not serious about this problem. And as Jenny Rathbone quoted, we've had Boris Johnson just this week saying that humanity needed to get serious about this situation, and the Welsh Conservatives have no interest in tackling the difficult choices ahead of us. And I think it is deeply disingenuous of them to come before this Chamber again and again, signing up to targets, urging us to go faster, urging us to be bolder, but when it comes down to the things you actually need to do to bring about change, they run for the hills every time, behind the same old cliches, and it is becoming tiresome, as Julie James and I are, every day, grappling with the complexities of the change we have to go through, listening to the advice of the Climate Change Committee the UK Government themselves have set up, which runs counter to what you have all been saying. So, the time is coming, I would suggest to Welsh Conservatives, when they've got to face up and grow up, otherwise they should shut up, because this is not constructive to the challenge we face as a Government in trying to address these difficult problems. [Interruption.] If Members think that's unparliamentary language, I could say a lot worse, frankly. [Laughter.]