Welsh deputy minister for climate change seeks ‘alternative axis’
Lee Waters, deputy minister for climate change in Wales
Transport policy in England is increasingly at odds with the other nations of the UK, and even with its own regions, according to Lee Waters, deputy minister for climate change in Wales.
Waters explained his view during an online interview with Urban Transport Group director Jonathan Bray last week.
Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales … are increasingly aligned in our thinking around modal shift and decarbonisation. And England is back in the eighties, it seems to me
“What I find really interesting … is the way that different parts of the UK are moving,” he said. “Increasingly England is an outlier on transport policy. Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales … are increasingly aligned in our thinking around modal shift and decarbonisation. And England is back in the eighties, it seems to me. It’s still going hell for leather on road building. It’s got a new climate strategy which is all about technical fixes. We’re going to have magical airplanes which means we can carry on doing what we’ve always done. And hypermobility is still deeply embedded in the mindset.”
Waters continued: “I think that is clearly not reflected by the practices and thinking in Manchester and in other parts of the English regions. And I do think … we need to form an alternative axis which says, you know, we’re not on the same page here. We are doing things differently and we are going to help each other to do it if you’re not going to play ball.”
The Welsh Government has a moratorium and review of road building in Wales, a policy that conflicts with the UK Government and its £27bn road building programme. Waters said the Levelling Up Fund offered an example of where this divergence of policy was having negative consequences for Wales.
They are deliberately playing politics to try and sow division here, to try and enforce their world view onto the devolution settlement and just bugger about frankly. It is profoundly unhelpful
“The UK government post-Brexit is interfering with the devolution settlement,” he said. “Transport is meant to be devolved but the way the European funds were previously administered were on a Wales basis, now they are being administered on a UK basis and we have different policy objectives. So they are using their Levelling Up Fund to do things at variance with what we think they should be doing … They funded a Welsh local authority to build a road, even though they know it’s captured by our roads review … And it’s a Labour authority, so they are deliberately playing politics to try and sow division here, to try and enforce their world view onto the devolution settlement and just bugger about frankly. It is profoundly unhelpful.
JONATHAN BRAY – Waters isn’t willing to go with the flow
This article appears in the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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