, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
I appreciate that there are concerns about this, but, again, I can offer some assurance today, I think. The Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 requires corporate joint committees to have regard to the integrated network maps for active travel when formulating…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
So, it is under the competitive funding element of the fund, and we've also provided an indicative allocation of core funding as well to each local authority.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Chris. Sorry.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Thanks very much, Julie. I may bring Chris in in a moment, actually, but just to say that the active travel fund still exists. I'm intending to confirm grant awards before the start of 2025-26. The funding will not be ring-fenced, though, for active travel…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Well, we're devolving fully from 2026-27, so the plan is in development at the moment, but I'll defer to Peter, who may be able to say when we're going to be completing the plan, if that's okay.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
If I may say, it's not an unusual approach to have Welsh Government funding, if you like, mixed in with funding from other sources via local authorities. The key for us is in making sure, moving forward with the devolution process, that we put in place a…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Yes, you've highlighted a very real challenge, but as part of the project to devolve funding we're also developing a plan for monitoring and evaluating the Welsh Government funding, and that's being supported at the moment by Transport for Wales. Now, as soon…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Yes, another very well-made point, and a point that's been raised by a number of people who share your concerns. Now, the regional transport plans have been subject to local consultations. Local authorities will still be responsible for delivery of the…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Well, again, this is a really important question, Chair. I know that there are some people who have been rather concerned about the move to devolve transport funding, but I can assure Members that, with the devolution of funding to corporate joint committees…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
This is a really interesting question. It is our ambition that corporate joint committees will be able to lever in funding from the private sector to complement the funding that they themselves allocate to projects, as well as the funding that we allocate…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Yes, apologies, the table on page 15 was included in error, and the correct figures are indeed in the table that appears on page 13.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
If it helps, Chair, I can provide a greater briefing on where we are with the regional transport plans and devolution of transport funding.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Well, the CJCs are responsible for those plans, and so all local authorities within each of the respective corporate joint committees will be contributing to those plans. And as a result of that, the corporate joint committees will be able to, I think with an…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Again, we're going to be making sure that, from the 2026-27 financial year, budgets are allocated regionally, but, as the paper sets out, for the financial year 2025-26, local authorities were asked to submit applications for funding by, I think, 20 December…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Yes, you’re absolutely right, we are moving in that direction for full devolution to take place from 2026-27. In 2025-26, the budget includes funding for corporate joint committees to complete their work on the regional transport plans, and indeed for…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
That needs to be clarified, then. Yes, absolutely.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Yes, again, it’s ports policy, rather than ports infrastructure. It’s basically making sure that, again, we’ve got integration and alignment across all transport modes.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Apologies if it’s not clear, but essentially I’ve retained responsibility for aviation policy and maritime policy in Wales, but responsibility for the airport, as you rightly point out, is with the Cabinet Secretary for economy. The reason that the policy has…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Yes, absolutely. Chris, can you highlight this, please?
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Sorry, I think we may be conflating some of the capital projects for road maintenance and active travel with this particular area. Sorry—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Sure, absolutely. It’s pretty straight forward on the capital side: there are two projects. One is the national travel survey, which will provide us with, for the first time, really comprehensive data on travel. This is particularly important when planning…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Absolutely, Janet. I've twice met with the access and inclusion panel at Transport for Wales, and, as a result of my discussions with the panel, I'm utterly convinced that if streets are safe for the most vulnerable people in society, for blind people…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2025-26 - Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales
Bore da. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thanks so much for that question. Of course, this is the first time that we've been able to present a main expenditure group specifically for transport; it's the first time that this has happened, so, hopefully, we've been able…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales: Port of Holyhead
Can I thank Sam Rowlands for his questions? And he's absolutely right when he says that, sometimes, we just don't value and recognise how important an asset is until it becomes a liability, until it breaks down, until we've lost it. The port of Holyhead is a…
, Plenary
Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and North Wales: Port of Holyhead
Can I thank Janet Finch-Saunders for her questions? I should just add, actually, to the last contribution that was made that not only did the First Minister go to Fishguard to help broker in that deal, the First Minister led on various talks—internal…
