3. What progress has the Government made in relation to its roads review? OQ57345

I thank Mabon ap Gwynfor for that question. The roads review panel has worked quickly to identify and consider projects that are within the scope of the review. We expect to receive the interim report later this month. The final report and recommendations are expected to be ready in June 2022.

Thank you very much for that response. May I read a section from the scope of the review, which is part of the criteria for the roads review? It says that:

'Access roads with the primary purpose of linking a site or premises for heavy industry to the public highway, or within the boundary of a heavy industry development site, will be excluded from the review. Access roads with the primary purpose of serving residential, retail and light office / light industrial developments should be paused at the next decision gateway to allow them to be considered by the review panel.'

Do you think that there is an inconsistency here as you are exempting heavy industry—the most polluting roads—from the review, but are preventing those roads that will serve more rural areas, for light industry, such as Llanbedr, for example? Will you therefore explain the rationale and the science behind this?

Thank you for that additional question. It's important, Llywydd, for me to go back to the purpose of the roads review. We have undertaken the review because it's a fundamental part of this Government's response to the environmental emergency, which was declared with his party. What we are doing is trying to be clear with people in Wales that we can't continue to build new roads as the default solution to transport challenges. That's why we've asked the panel to undertake the work that we've asked them to do, and that's why we've done it the way that we've asked them to do it.

I know that people in the Member's constituency have had concerns about the choices that have been made after the panel looked into the new roads that were going to be built around the Llanbedr community. However, that's what the purpose of the review was—to examine the case for new roads. When the review panel came to the conclusion that other options offered better opportunities to reduce carbon and air pollution, that's what the Minister has accepted, and those are the things that the review group will look at wherever new roads are considered.

First Minister, you’ll be aware of the coastal road to St David's through Newgale, which has been affected greatly by coastal erosion and storm damage in recent years. Indeed, it’s been suggested by some studies that, by 2036, the road in Newgale will be underwater due to the rapidly changing impact brought about by climate change. I appreciate that the Welsh Government has confirmed a moratorium on new roads being built in Wales, but the local authority has quite rightly been working on a project to redirect this piece of road around the village of Newgale, so that communities can still connect with places like Solva and St David's from Haverfordwest. First Minister, can you, therefore, tell us what discussions the Welsh Government is having with the Pembrokeshire County Council about this particular stretch of road? Can you confirm that you will still consider financially supporting this project to build a new road so that the communities that I represent have a road network that is safe and accessible for the future?

I take very seriously the points the Member has made. I’m familiar with that piece of road and the risks that climate change pose to it. What I don’t think we can have, though, Llywydd, is a position in which everybody will agree on the basic principle that if we’re to be serious about climate change, we cannot make building a new road the default option every time there is a transport problem, but always to want to make a road in their part of Wales an exception to the rule that we have agreed on. The Welsh Government does remain in conversation, of course, with Pembrokeshire County Council. We’ve agreed that the improvements to the A40—they're not the Member’s constituency, I don’t think, but in the county—will go ahead. The fact we have a roads review does not mean that where there are clear safety considerations, for example, that investment in new road facilities will not go ahead. It’s simply that the bar has to be higher than it was in the past to make a new road the answer to a problem. Because unless we are prepared to grasp that difficult nettle, the chance that we will be able to get to carbon neutral by 2050, let alone 2035, will be vanishingly impossible.