1. What provision has the Commission made for electric vehicles at the Assembly? OAQ(5)0001(AC)[W]

I thank the Member for his question. As part of the Assembly Commission’s environmental plan, we encourage the use of sustainable transport. We recognise the development of electric cars and their falling costs and we are considering the viability of charging points within the Cardiff Bay estate. Demand will, in part, be assessed through our travel survey, which we intend to conduct shortly.

Can I anticipate your travel survey and say that I want to get an electric car? But I can’t, living in Aberystwyth, travel down to Cardiff if I can’t charge it here. So, why don’t we take that step? Why don’t we show that we’re going to be leading the way in responding to climate change and the environment and put that infrastructure here? By all means, charge for charging. Some of the problems with charging facilities in the past have been some idea that it has to be free. It doesn’t have to be free, but it has to be available, otherwise we can’t make the move to more sustainable transport solutions.

I thank the Member for making that point. Obviously, there was a travel survey conducted a couple of years ago, and in the travel survey, 250 staff members were given the surveys and they were completed. However, the demand was only 12 per cent at that time. So, on the positive side, I’d like to say to the Member that, yes, they are a low-carbon means of travel, and our Green Dragon environmental system requires a reduced carbon footprint. Our infrastructure in our car park would allow us to install charging point for electric cars, and the cost in procuring and installing charging points has reduced in recent years, along with the cost of electric cars. So, you make a valid point. However, when it was only 12 per cent who had responded, it was a small amount of people interested—that’s not to say that we’re going to purchase. So, the introduction of charging points in the car park would reduce car parking for conventional vehicles, so there’s an awful lot that we have to consider, and there would be an additional demand on the Assembly’s electricity supply. We would need to introduce a payment system for staff to pay for electricity consumed by the owners of electric vehicles.

But I would say to the Member that, within the next few months, we will produce a further survey to monitor the demand by staff. And I think that the lower cost of the electric cars to purchase will be an incentive for the demand to grow. So, we’ll have to wait for the next survey, which will we implement within the next couple of months, and we may have a more favourable response to the Member’s question.

Thank you very much. The second question to the Assembly Commission will be answered by the Llywydd, who is Chair of the Commission and the Commissioner for communications and engagement.