Lee Waters (born 12 February 1976) is a Welsh Labour and Co-operative politician who served as Deputy Minister for Climate Change from 2021 to 2024.

[10] He led a campaign involving his organisation Sustrans Cymru, the BMA, and the NAHT, who wrote a joint letter arguing for an independent commission to review whether the National Assembly for Wales was underfunded.

[12][13] Upon joining the organisation he found it to be "nearly bankrupt" with tired staff and three months of funding left,[2] and described his time in the role as highly fundraising-orientated.

He led work on creating a Digital Strategy for Wales and in developing the Foundational Economy including a £4.5m Challenge Fund to trial new approaches.

Andrew RT Davies, opposition and Welsh Conservative leader, described his announcement as a "sigh of relief" for motorists and business owners, due to Waters' policies during his time in the position.

[18] In June 2024, Waters, alongside Welsh Labour colleague Hannah Blythyn, was not present for a vote of no confidence in First Minister Vaughan Gething due to illness.

[25] Shortly before he resigned as transport minister, the Welsh Government published a report entitled "Our Roadmap to Bus Reform: Towards One Network, One Timetable, One Ticket", which outlined these policies and how they would be implemented.

Bowman and Froud et al. describe the theory as focussing on health education and welfare, as well as "mundane activities like utilities, retail and food processing which produce necessary everyday goods and services which are used by everybody regardless of income or social status.

"[29] It "focuses on how the sheltered sectors of the economy can be reorganised in ways that generate welfare gains and diffuse prosperity" after years of UK policies which its authors state failed to create competition and markets and instead focussed on job creation and GDP growth alone.

[29] Waters support for alternative economic thinking has produced eye catching headlines, after his comments in June 2019 that stated the Government has "pretended we know what we're doing on the economy" for 20 years.

[30] His speech stated that "all the orthodox tools we can think of at growing the economy in the conventional way" have only produced static GDP over 20 years across the UK.

[30] Plaid Cymru stated the comments were "remarkable", while the Welsh Conservatives described them as "deeply concerning", however the First Minister Mark Drakeford defended Waters by saying he was right to reject the old ways of thinking especially as Wales faces "the global shifts of increased mechanisation, automation and of course, Brexit.