8. Welsh Conservatives Debate: The transport network

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:52 pm on 22 June 2022.

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Photo of Janet Finch-Saunders Janet Finch-Saunders Conservative 4:52, 22 June 2022

Well, we'd certainly use the money that we get here, coming into Wales, we'd actually use it far more effectively, far more efficiently, and we would provide a good transport service. When devolution was first mooted, the links between north and south were going to be made far simpler. This was going to be the democratic heart of Wales. Well, I can tell you now it's a darn sight worse trying to get from north to south now than it was 11 years ago, or indeed at the start of devolution.

One of the largest disparities is the level of spending by the Welsh Government on the north Wales and south Wales metro. No wonder the people of north Wales actually feel it all happens in Cardiff, not in north Wales. At a time when the Welsh Government have spent the past few years wasting money on an air link that wasn't even operating, to then just cancel it altogether without a replacement, sums up the level of ineptitude carried out by this Government. You really do take the people of Wales for granted, and you also see your own time in this Chamber as the Government as being endless.

Well, after recent months, perhaps the scenes witnessed on the train services between north and south Wales, where overcrowding has become the norm, they'll realise the discontent that will face you in 2026. We tend to think because you fail in health, in education and lots of other things of the devolved powers that you have, but it could be something like this—the fact that you cannot get to grips with any reliable transport service in Wales.

Almost all along the coast of Aberconwy, concerns continue to be raised with me about different sections of the existing cycle paths. Your Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, although well-intended with lots of ambitions, is not being delivered. In the heart of the Conwy valley, we have a cycle path that stops in the middle of the countryside, rather than going all the way along the A470 to Betws-y-coed. And in Glan Conwy and Llandudno, there has been painfully slow progress on the Welsh transport appraisal guidance stages of a scheme that was actually needed in 2004.

If Wales is to get ahead of the game and truly modernise, where the mobilisation of its people is at the centre of other policies, you as a Welsh Government need to be more ambitious. You need to spend and legislate to provide proper rail services and inter-town active travel routes. I am confident that bold action on public transport now will save money and improve health and well-being in the long term. Alternatively, of course, you can always give way to your opposition party, the Welsh Conservatives, and allow us to do what needs to be done to give the people of Wales the transport infrastructure that they deserve.