4. What progress has the Welsh Government made to increase the number of pupils travelling to school by bike, scooter or on foot? OQ58328

I thank the Member for that question. The Hands Up survey, led by Public Health Wales, has provided a nationwide assessment of the way in which primary school children travel to school. The follow-up study will capture the extent of active travel improvement in the post-pandemic context.

Last week we heard that some pupils are not attending school because families can't afford the bus fare. Obviously, that's an example of the acuteness of the Tory cost-of-living crisis. In light of the climate emergency and some of the tragic events we've read about in the last few days, I hope that we can agree that laying on more and cheaper bus transport isn't the solution for urban areas like the ones you and I represent. The active travel cross-party group report that was published last week says that rates of active travel have not increased since the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 was passed nearly a decade ago. And so, therefore, what consideration will the Welsh Government give to accelerating safe routes to school, more intense development of competent cyclists in primary schools, and a bike loan scheme, such as the one that members of staff who are employed by the Senedd enjoy, so that families can invest in sustainable modes of transport that they can use for their leisure as well as travelling to school?

I thank the Member for that question. Perhaps I ought to declare an interest at this point, because I'm currently using an electric bike, which I have for a fortnight as part of a Welsh Government scheme to allow people to try out different forms of transport to see whether they can be made useful, and a very good experience it has been, I have to say. I thank the cross-party group for their report, which makes very useful reading. Thinking particularly about urban areas, as Jenny Rathbone's question asked me, I do agree with her that the answer lies in the active travel measures that this Government supports. Over the next two years, beyond this one, so three years in all, we will invest £220 million in active travel improvements.

I've been commending some local authorities this afternoon, Llywydd, so let me commend Cardiff as a local authority in this regard. Over 100 primary schools in Cardiff have active travel plans. Fourteen schools already have School Streets schemes, and for Members who, maybe, aren't so familiar with that because they're not yet in place in their own areas, that allows a local authority to close roads around a school in the hour or so before the school starts and in the hour or so after school ends. So, 14 schools in Cardiff already do that, and there are more to come in this year.

In those schools where active travel plans are put in place, the figures suggest that active travel rises—so, children walking or cycling to school—from 59 per cent to 82 per cent. And when, in May, I was able to visit the Trelai Primary School in my own constituency, one of the great things, Llywydd, was to see the cycling scheme that goes alongside their active travel plan: 30 per cent reduction in drop-off by parents in cars at the school and 100—let me make sure that I've got that figure correct—bicycles available for children in what is a disadvantaged part of the city to use, provided by the school itself, with cycling proficiency training for those children as well. And when you put a package of measures together in that way and you have the commitment of the school authorities, as was certainly evidenced in the Trelai Primary School case, then you have a recipe that I think does demonstrate that it is possible to drive up the number of school journeys that are made on foot, by cycle or by scooter, as opposed to relying on either public transport or on the car.