3. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change: Update on the Metro

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:22 pm on 20 October 2021.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 3:22, 20 October 2021

Thank you. There were number of questions. Passenger demand is starting to return to the rail service. It's now at 66 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, which, clearly, is significantly lower, but it's increasing all the time and we are maintaining deep cleaning at stations and on trains. We've seen this trend right across the world, where post-pandemic confidence using mass transit is reduced, and that's not unexpected. It's one of the reasons why we're keeping support for the rail and bus industry at the levels we have done. But obviously, we want to taper that down as demand increases. So, we, frankly, have to feel our way. We're in an unprecedented public health crisis and we don't know what the future holds.

We are currently at alert level 0 and that allows public transport use, but we are encouraging social distancing. I do get very concerning reports of services where there is overcrowding and people aren't wearing masks and that is clearly shaking public confidence. But the law is clear: we want people to wear masks. We do have enforcement measures in place and we, each of us, have a responsibility to follow the law and follow public health advice. But clearly, we're in an incredibly difficult and unprecedented situation and we are monitoring it on a weekly basis.

In terms of the point about rail powers and barriers to connectivity, this is clearly a really important point. We want rail powers to be devolved. The UK Government are not engaging in that conversation. In fact, they're barely engaging in any conversation at all. Natasha Asghar asked me when I met Grant Shapps; I've failed to get an audience with Mr Shapps, he won't meet with us. So, there is definitely a disconnect here, which is very concerning for us achieving the ambitions we want. And as I said in the statement, we remain £5 billion short in the investment we need for rail infrastructure. So, it is an impediment on us achieving our net-zero ambitions, for sure, and I raised this with Sir Peter Hendy, the chair of Network Rail, recently. Clearly, these are political decisions by the UK Westminster Government; they talk of levelling up, but they don't deliver levelling up, and until they do, we will have these barriers that Delyth Jewell outlined. In the meantime, we have to try and address them with other things that we do have in our control, namely bus, in particular. That's why we are developing our bus strategy at the end of this year.