, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, I think that's an excellent question and a very fair challenge, because the answer is 'not yet'. I think that's the honest answer, and that's what we're working towards. Peter, do you want to jump in at this point?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
We haven't decided to respond to the report in that way. What we've said is we've accepted the core recommendations and the direction of travel, and we've published our own road policy statement and we've published the schemes that we are going to go ahead…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
I'll ask Peter to answer on the detail, but, on the general point, I don't accept the logic of your question, that we should continue to spend money on schemes that we don't think are effective and are not in line with our climate change targets just because…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, we've set the remit of the commission to look at transport in north Wales. It's for them to decide how they want to do that, and you need to make your representations to them as a key stakeholder.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, they're looking at the whole of north Wales, Janet.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, I'll ask Peter to add to this, but I spoke personally to Lord Burns, before this announcement was made, about whether or not he'd be prepared to look at this, and he consented to that. We're about to write to him just to formalise that. They were…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Yes.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Gosh, there's a whole bundle of issues there, Janet. First of all, on the first one, on the rite of passage, the cultural importance of owning a car, there's lots of evidence to show that that is changing. The current generation of young people are not…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
It has been considered, to answer your question.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, I'm answering your first question, if I may. On the technology of how we make our roads futureproof for 5G, and so on, yes, we are ducting the motorway now and the trunk roads in north and south Wales in order to put the fibre optics down to anticipate…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, the volume, as I say, that's just a different way of making the argument that we should just keep building more roads to keep up with demand, which is not consistent with our environmental targets that you support. So, I don't think—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
That's a different question. It depends if you mean are they able to accommodate the volume, or are they able to accommodate the technology and the—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
No, not at all; I've just said. There is no science on this; nobody knows what's going to happen. There are different scenarios. Some of those scenarios might see us having lots of minibuses, or lots of cars that act as buses. Some scenarios are about…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
But what scenario are you suggesting it would have produced that we might not have considered?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, I'm not sure what you're suggesting as to how it should have been part of the roads review. We don't know what the future holds.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
We had a series of conversations about it. I had a discursive discussion with experts about a year ago, looking at it. We've considered doing a joint piece of work with other Governments to look at other developments; the UK Government is also doing some…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Yes.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Sure. I don't deny that. I think what it will do is change our idea of what modes of transport are for. So, for example, if you are able to share journeys, through an autonomous vehicle, that's likely to alter our idea of what a bus service is or what public…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Okay. Well, I don't accept your characterisation of the scenarios there. The predecessor committee to this has done work on autonomous vehicles, and all the experts say that we don't yet know for sure what the reaction is going to be—there are various…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Yes, that's a good question. First of all, I'd say we've become used to, in this country, putting these choices on individuals and, actually, a lot of individual responses are based on environmental or systemic or structural factors. So, the reasons why most…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
Well, I think there are wiring problems in the system, where different parts of the system are working against the policies of the other part, and that's partly what this exercise is about; it's about identifying that, calling it out and working to put it…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
I've been very encouraged by the response of local authority leaders, I must say. With one or two, literally, exceptions, the overwhelming majority of local authority leaders understand what we're trying to do, they understand why we're trying to do it, and…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
It will need a willingness to engage from both sides, first of all, sincerely, based on the principles we've set out. These are, in some senses, engineering challenges, and engineers can find alternative solutions. Some of them are skills or attitudinal…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
And we're not able to do everything we want to do in the here and now. That's the truth of it, and that's very frustrating. Because it's often said by people, 'Well, you should have the alternative in place first before you take away the road option.' But…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
The Welsh Government roads review and funding for Wales' bus networks - scrutiny of the Deputy Minister for Climate Change
There's a lot to unpack there, and they're all fair points. This exercise is about looking at the pipeline of schemes for the medium to long term, and that analysis stands. We need to disrupt that pipeline, so that we don't keep generating the same types of…
