Senedd Members reject Reform bid to scrap 20mph speed limits
Ella Groves – ICNN Senedd Reporter
Senedd Members have rejected a Reform motion calling for the Welsh Government to scrap default 20mph speed limits.
The proposal was defeated by 51 votes to 37 following a debate in the Siambr.
Opening the debate, Reform’s shadow transport minister, Jason O’Connell, pointed to rising fatalities across the Welsh road network, noting that 91 people were killed on Welsh roads in 2025.
Mr O’Connell accused Plaid Cymru of being “big on independence but silent on road safety” and said: “Plaid has been focused instead on breaking up the United Kingdom, plotting with Sinn Féin and making us weaker as a result.
However, Labour’s Vikki Howells criticised Mr O’Connell’s comments, warning against misleading the Senedd by using total road deaths across all speed limits to judge urban zones. She pointed out that collisions on 20mph and 30mph roads fell by 300 between 2022 and last year.
Transport Minister Mark Hooper defended the policy, stating the lower speed limits where pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles mix remain “fundamentally the right policy”.
Mr Hooper confirmed there were 19 fatalities on 20mph roads during 2025. He highlighted that total casualties on 20mph and 30mph roads combined have fallen by 23% since the limit was introduced.
He said his party is “committed to reducing the number of people killed and seriously injured on Welsh roads”.
‘Common sense’
Reform’s Wales leader Helen Jenner argued the policy had wasted public money, pointing to councils having to replace hundreds of signs only to reconsider and restore 30mph limits on specific routes.
She said her party makes “no apology for standing up for common sense and saving public money”.
The Bangor Conwy Môn MS said when the default policy was introduced, local authorities were “required to make substantial changes across their road networks before many of those same roads were then reconsidered and, in some cases, changed back again”.
She continued: “On Ynys Môn, nearly 700 road signs were replaced ahead of the introduction of the default limit.
“The council then had to revisit a number of roads, consider 25 proposals to restore 30mph limits and ultimately approve 22 of them.
“Is it any wonder our electors get so frustrated when public money is wasted in this way?”
Conservative MS Janet Finch-Saunders supported the Reform motion, reminding members her party had opposed the 20mph policy from the start.
‘Freedom’
However, Green Party MS Paul Rock urged members to accept the scientific evidence, noting that a pedestrian struck by a vehicle at 30mph faces a 50% chance of severe injury, compared to 10% at 20mph.
Mr Rock said by focusing on cost, “the fact that lower speeds reduce the risk of death and serious injury” is being lost.
He concluded: “This debate ultimately comes down to this: whose freedom do we value in society?
“Is a car journey that is, on average, less than a minute quicker really more important than the ability of a child to walk safely to school, an older person to cross the road with confidence, or a disabled person to travel independently through their community?”
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This moderate restriction saves lives and reduces the number of injuries. In doing so, it also saves vast sums of personal expenditure and public money.
Good decision and irresponsible call from deform who should know better than to put the lives of children and the elderly at higher risk of being involved in collisions.
Another classic case of Reform members being unable to analyse basic statistics.
It would be interesting to undertake some basic mathematical aptitude tests on this group. I would predict that the majority would score well below the mean minus one sigma (std. deviation) level.
I do think we deserve an explanation for the embarrassing, toe curling debacle over the word ‘blanket’. We’re something of a laughing stock.
I genuinely thought that most people had got over this. It’s a 10 mph reduction in a speed limit, it’s not as if the government wants one of your kidneys.
most people have. by ignoring it on the roads.
Well said 👍👍👍
If the fine revenue wasn’t flowing to London I’d say thanks for the contribution.
Jenner complaining it has wasted public money wants to waste more public money to fawn at the feet of farage? And standing up for common sense when the numbers say otherwise? That’s the pub “expert” argument.
It is better all around including safety, which confirms what reform do, wreck good policy at the behest of their owners. Which billionaire is it this week.
“Conservative MS Janet Finch-Saunders supported the Reform motion, reminding members her party had opposed the 20mph policy from the start”.
Or not:
https://nation.cymru/news/analysis-welsh-conservative-opposition-to-20mph-limits-a-partial-u-turn-record-suggests/
Wouldn’t this go against Senedd rules on lying?
Good to see Reform are once again focusing on the problems that matter.
Our insurance premiums have dropped, the occasions that some poor copper has to give a family that awful kind of news have dropped.
Why exactly do they want to reverse this?
Why is the 20mph limit being called a “default”? In the context of speed limits, “default” means that, in the absence of signage, there is no limit or, in the UK, that the general speed limit applies – 60mph or 70, depending on the type of road. Where there are signs, they indicate specific limits. It’s worrying to see our politicians struggling with quite basic terminology.
It’s bizarre that when the science and statistics prove year on year that this policy has reduced injuries by a quarter where 30 has been dropped to 20mph, some politicians still argue otherwise. It’s almost a form of ‘King Canute complex’ !
Can somebody advise Reform that the earth is not flat, to save the Senedd having that debate too…..
Also not a lot of impact if any on travel time in my experience. EU is going for it as are a lot of cities and councils in the uk.
https://etsc.eu/75-of-surveyed-cities-report-fewer-road-deaths-and-injuries-after-lowering-speed-limits/
Reform are all over the place on this. Reform politicians argued yesterday that the 20mph limit has no impact on safety. One even said safety is worse because of it. The Reform motion was to “scrap the default 20mph limit”. Yet Helen Jenner said in the debate they want to keep the 20mph “outside schools, hospitals and through residential communities” (so basically everywhere it is now). Why keep it anywhere if the 20mph limit is dangerous or has no impact on road safety? They want to convince voters that you can get rid of the 20mph everywhere except where you… Read more »
What kind of irresponsible nut looks at the stats showing fewer road fatalities, especially amongst children, and cries about their perceived loss of freedom? Freedom to do what? Mow down pedestrians like they’re playing GTA?