3. What consideration did the Minister give to local authorities' responsibilities for road maintenance when setting the budget for the climate change portfolio? OQ57574

We recognise the importance of maintaining our road network, which represents a £17 billion asset. Within the climate change portfolio, we are investing £0.5 billion to maintain a safe and reliable network. Alongside this, the local government settlement provides almost £16 billion to support their responsibilities in these and other areas.  

Thank you. Rural areas like my colleague Peter Fox's constituency of Monmouth—and I'd just like to declare an interest as a Monmouthshire county councillor still—tend to have very large road networks that need a lot of upkeep, yet we see the Welsh Government has allocated no additional funds through the resilient roads grant. If the Welsh Government are going to persist with the agenda of building no more roads, then additional funding should be allocated to maintain the current roads and clear the maintenance backlog. We all want a cleaner, greener Wales, but letting our roads fall into disrepair is not the way to achieve it. The Asphalt Industry Alliance annual local authority road maintenance survey found that Welsh highway authorities would need an additional £36.3 million per local authority to repair roads across the counties. It would take 10 years for all roads to be repaired. So, Minister, what steps are being taken to make sure our roads are fit for purpose for a twenty-first century Wales and why hasn't any extra money been allocated to fix our dire roads in Wales?

The Member would have heard me say in response to a previous question that today I have written to leaders of local authorities confirming an additional £70 million of funding for this financial year, and that was in part in response to the discussions that I've had in relation to their concerns about road maintenance. I do recognise the important of road maintenance, and I'm often amazed when I hear UK Government Ministers suggest that Wales is overfunded. I even hear it within this Chamber in respect of the needs-based formula that provides Wales with funding. One of the reasons why we do have additional funding here in Wales is because of our dispersed settlement pattern. I was just reminded when Laura Anne Jones was speaking about the fact that there are 6.7 miles of road for every 1,000 people in Wales and 3.4 miles in England. So, there are almost twice as many roads for us to maintain per head of population here in Wales than in England. And obviously, our dispersed population means higher costs in respect of education and other services. So, I just wanted to give that as an example as to why the funding formula works as it does. I think that communities across Wales benefit as a result of what was agreed by Mark Drakeford when he was in this post. 

Question 4, Carolyn Thomas. 

Thank you. Sorry, I was hoping to come in as a supplementary on Laura Jones's question, so I'm just trying to find my right place. Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to hear of the extra capital funding that's coming forward this year for highway maintenance— 

You need to ask—

Sorry, can I declare that I'm a Flintshire county councillor? Thank you.

Yes, you can declare, and now you can ask the question that you've tabled as question 4, even though you tried to be quick there and get in your supplementary on question 3 as well. We'll carry on and ask question 4, please.

Okay. Thank you very much.