Former minister admits mistakes were made when implementing 20mph in Wales

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00:00 to get things right, and as I said at the outset, a change of this scale, of this complexity,

00:06 implemented across 22 different local authorities, in an era of austerity and hollowed-out staffing,

00:13 was always going to be tricky.

00:14 And perhaps the trickiest part was the cultural change this represented, which we definitely

00:19 underestimated.

00:20 We have a deep-seated culture of car dominance in our country, what researchers from Swansea

00:25 University's psychology department has called motor normativity, where people have an in-built

00:32 acceptance of the harms from motor vehicles that they would not accept in other parts

00:38 of life.

00:39 And that makes any challenge to car dominance very hard to do, and that's why it's usually

00:43 avoided.

00:44 Now, lowering the speed limit challenged the sense of entitlement that some drivers have

00:48 developed over decades, that they should be able to go fast, regardless of the impact

00:52 of the people living on those streets, and the children playing on them, or, more accurately,

00:57 the children not playing on them, because it didn't feel safe to do so.

01:01 And we've seen culture warriors here and elsewhere seize on the issue to create conflict in communities,

01:06 and we've seen deliberate misinformation and false descriptions like Blanket designed to

01:12 deliberately sow confusion.

01:14 And our evidence-based, modestly-funded information campaign was simply drowned out.

01:19 We lost the comms war.

01:22 And it's been rough on everyone on the front line of this bold policy, so to everyone in

01:27 a public-facing role who has faced the wrath and abuse that has come with this big change,

01:32 to local government officers, to local councillors, community campaigners, Senedd members and

01:37 MPs, to the police and the fire service, can I say thank you?

01:42 We should all be proud of the fact that the policy is working.

01:46 Speeds are down.

01:47 People are driving slower.

01:49 Despite the criminal damage, the misinformation, the aggressive driving and tailgating, the

01:53 protests and the petition, average speeds are down, four miles an hour slower in the

01:58 first few months in the last data we have, and for every drop in the average speed limit

02:03 of one mile an hour, casualties are estimated to fall by 6%.

02:08 I don't have time, I'm afraid.

02:10 That's fewer heartbroken families, fewer lives destroyed, fewer people filling up A&E and

02:15 consultant waiting lists, and fewer people who feel unsafe in their own communities.

02:20 I'm not sure what price you can put on that, to be honest.

02:24 Has the implementation been perfect?

02:26 Of course it hasn't.

02:27 It was never going to be.

02:28 The reality is there just was not enough capacity and resources at the Welsh Government end,

02:32 nor at the local government end, to do everything we wish to.

02:35 Has it been universally welcomed?

02:37 Of course it hasn't.

02:38 It was never going to be.

02:39 But while we hear from the objectors, we tend not to hear so much from the supporters, and

02:43 I think it's significant that councils were telling us all along that they received very

02:48 few examples of people who thought the speed on their own street was too low.

02:52 Llywydd, mistakes were made, particularly in not doing genuine consultations in communities,

02:57 and in the uneven and inflexible way the guidance was interpreted in some parts of Wales, and

03:02 I'm prepared to accept my part in all that.

03:05 But let the two thirds of the members of the Senedd who supported a default 20-mile-an-hour

03:10 speed limit remember this.

03:12 People are alive today because of this law.

03:15 Together we have saved lives.

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