A lunchtime conversation with Lee Waters, Deputy Minister for Climate Change.

Of the four nations of the UK, it is arguably Wales that is now setting the pace on progressive transport policy. The cancellation of the M4 relief road and a road building freeze, the ground-breaking Metro system, a target of 30% of people working at or near home, a default 20mph speed limit on residential roads, a framework for fair and equitable road user charging… are all signs of how small countries can do big things.

And the man who is behind this new path - or in Welsh “llwybr newydd” (which is also the name of the Wales Transport Strategy 2021) - is Lee Waters MS, Welsh Government Deputy Minister for Climate Change.

In our latest lunchtime conversation, we will find out more from Lee (who was also Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport from 2018 until 2021) about why and how transport policy in Wales has taken this radical turn and if Wales can change the way it travels in the era of climate change. 

Lee will be interviewed by Jonathan Bray, Director of the Urban Transport Group. 

About the panel…

Lee Waters is the Member of the Senedd for the Llanelli constituency. He was born and raised in Carmarthenshire. Before being elected in May 2016, Lee was Director of Wales's leading independent think-tank, the Institute of Welsh Affairs. He previously ran the sustainable transport charity Sustrans Cymru where he led the campaign for the Active Travel Act. He is a former Chief Political Correspondent of ITV Wales and BBC Wales producer. In December 2018 he was appointed Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport. Lee was appointed Deputy Minister for Climate Change in May 2021.

Jonathan Bray is the Director of the Urban Transport Group, a position he has held since 2008. He is also a visiting senior fellow at LSE Cities, a Commissioner on the Commission on Travel Demand and a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation. Jonathan’s career has been about developing progressive policies on transport and advocating effectively for them. This includes changing national policy for the better by being one of the leaders of the network which ended the hegemony of the roads lobby on national transport policy in the nineties through to winning better bus powers for transport authorities in 2017. He has also made the Urban Transport Group the place where the thinking happens on the future of urban transport.