Byron Davies AM
Addressing the annual Welsh Conservative Party Conference in Llangollen on Saturady, Byron Davies AM, Shadow Minister for Transport and Assembly Member for South Wales West, said:
Conference,
It gives me great pleasure to address you today.
As your Assembly Member for South Wales West and Shadow Minister for Transport, I am very proud of my record in the National Assembly of holding this tired and failing Labour Government to account.
Conference, within my role as Assembly Member and Shadow Minister for Transport, I am constantly confronted with evidence of incompetence and waste by this and previous Labour led Assembly Governments.
It’s an issue I have taken immense interest in since being elected – putting this Welsh Labour Government’s incompetence and waste to close scrutiny.
So, to evidence that comment and put it into context, the Wales Audit Office looked at 18 specific major transport projects in Wales, the end costs were on average 61 per cent higher than the original estimates made.
Meaning costs have increased from an estimated £366million to £592million; an over spend of some £226million.
Almost a quarter of a billion pounds of taxpayer’s money! Just imagine if they were running a private company – no, it’s too horrific a thought!
Alongside this, the Heads of the Valleys Road, all six sections were estimated to cost £268million and be competed by 2009 – the estimated completion date is now 2020 and is projected to cost £648million meaning a staggering overspend of £495million.
Can you imagine ladies and gentlemen how that money would have benefitted our rural areas – our roads, our local trains and our buses?
So I wanted to open my contribution by highlighting a small part of why Labour are not fit for Government, a real example of how Labour-led Welsh Governments have wasted millions upon millions through sheer incompetence on a national scale.
This audit report is all in the public domain, you can read it for yourself, I ask you Conference whether you think they have learnt the lessons?
Do you think anyone was held accountable?
Do you think they care that hardworking taxpayers have been ripped off through Labour’s poor management?
Answers = No, No, No.
They take the people of Wales for granted and as we have seen recently within what they regard as their fiefdom, they resent any form of scrutiny.
The national press have started to wake up to Carwyn’s cronies and uncomfortable questions are being asked – this is of course a Tory plot, why would Labour want to see good governance and improved public services in Wales in any case?
The fear for Labour is that it would pose a threat to their territory by opening up the minds of people that have been stifled for generations by them– very worrying for Carwyn and Co?
But Conference, unlike Labour it is not just about bashing our opponents – as much as I may relish it!
We have a vision to create an integrated transport system which meets the demands of a 21st century Wales – to serve our young people to help them travel and gain employment – and to provide social mobility for our senior citizens.
Seeing the investment in our roads, railways and bus networks and transport connectivity is of course integral to economic growth across Wales.
We supported the business cases around the electrification of the valley lines and to Swansea.
We worked across party boundaries for the good of Wales, I’m proud to have played a part in it.
The Welsh Government and the UK Government have an agreement to work together through franchise models to pay for the electrification, this is now being reneged upon.
One of the biggest infrastructure investments in our country is under threat because Labour is playing politics.
The Minister talks of a South Wales Metro, as if it will happen overnight – the key first milestone was the electrification of the heavy lines in the Valleys, Cardiff and the Vale line.
This is now all endangered and another key Welsh Government strategy looks like it will gather dust on a shelf – before being relaunched in a decade or maybe just before the next Assembly Election.
All this political mismanagement here in Wales, while in England visionary schemes such as HS2 are being planned and hopefully implemented, which will make Crewe an important national hub and mean there would be a compelling business case for electrification of the North Wales line – currently being championed by our Secretary of State, David Jones.
The starkness between the Governments in Cardiff Bay and Westminster is for all to see.
The Conservative led Government restoring our economy, investing in transport next to a tired, socialist nightmare – squandering capital and after more than a decade in Government blaming everyone except themselves for shoddy delivery.
Conference, Wales can do better than this, and as the Gower Parliamentary Candidate, I know rural areas such as Gower deserve better than what Labour offer – either end of the M4, when they are in the driving seat it’s economic failure and appalling delivery.
I want to end by looking at our bus network, bus services are the bread and butter public transport method for much of rural Wales and make no mistake they are under very real danger of closure.
It was reported in February that 100 subsidised bus routes have already been scrapped in Wales in the past three years.
“Nearly one in seven routes across 19 council areas have been axed.”
Pembrokeshire saw the most services cut – with 19 routes going between 2011 and 2014.
Last year, all subsidised Sunday and evening bus services were removed in the county and the council said further cuts were needed.
In Gwynedd, 10 routes were scrapped in the past three years, while Powys and Blaenau Gwent saw six routes disappear.
Wrexham council scrapped 16 subsidised routes in the same period – and has earmarked a further 34 that could be at risk.
The authority recently consulted on withdrawing its share of funding for local bus services in an attempt to makes £495,000 in savings.
These local authority cuts have been compounded by the “indecision and hesitation”, not my words but the industry itself, “indecision and hesitation” is how bus operators see this Welsh Government.
Carwyn will no doubt chuck the criticism aside as another Tory plot – and at the same oversee draconian bus cuts across Wales.
On Tuesday of this week, the biggest bus operator in Wales announced the closure of its depot at Brynmawr in the Gwent Valleys in July – putting 77 jobs under threat.
Stagecoach is blaming a “misguided” drop in funding from the Welsh Government and reduced local authority investment in bus services.
They say that cuts to routes in Monmouthshire, Torfaen, Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf will follow.
And the Welsh Government – what did they have to say about it? It said it was “extremely disappointing news.”
Conference, Welsh Conservatives will protect the concessionary fares scheme and importantly we will ensure you also have a bus to use them on.
The choice has never been clearer, Labour are failing in every area of Government in Wales.
We need to consolidate our position in Wales
– work hard as Conservatives to ensure Kay Swinburne returns to Brussels
– and we Conservatives in the Welsh Assembly will work hard with you, Conference, to ensure that, in what will be the fight of a generation in May 2015,
preventing the Eds – yes, Balls and Miliband, from doing to the United Kingdom what Carwyn Jones and Edwina Hart have done to Wales.
So, let’s get on with it and let’s win in Wales for the people of Wales!
Thank you
