Sustainable Travel

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 28 February 2023.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:14, 28 February 2023

Llywydd, the Member's party went to the people of Wales in the last Senedd election promising the largest road-building programme ever in the history of Wales, and that proposition was roundly rejected by the people of Wales. Of course, the Member can continue to put in front of people the thing that people have rejected many times already. There is a fundamental difference of view between the sort of future that she sees, in which Wales will be concreted over and the climate emergency ignored in the process, and the proposals of the Welsh Government, which, by the way, Llywydd, are never that no new roads would be built—it is just that the roads we will build will be roads where there is a safety case for doing so, and where roads contribute positively to the reduction of emissions and make the contribution that Wales has to make to tackling the greatest emergency that our children and grandchildren will see.

As part of that, I reject entirely her idea that we don't have a functioning rail service here in Wales. It is a great shame that her party in Wales has not succeeded in persuading their Members at Westminster that the £5 billion we miss out on because of the misclassification of the high speed 2 line should come to Wales; that would help us to provide a better rail service in Wales, wouldn't it? In the meantime, just this week—just yesterday—in the Member's own region, new Stadler trains began work on the Rhymney line. There will be eight such trains in May. It is a small demonstration of the major investment that is being made in Wales in the rail service, despite the deliberate denial of the investment that people in Wales ought to have and that is being provided to people elsewhere in the United Kingdom.