The following amendment has been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Paul Davies.

We move on to item 8 on the agenda, which is the debate on working with communities to create better local environments, and I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs to move the motion—Lesley Griffiths.

Motion NDM6211 Jane Hutt

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Acknowledges the combined effect of local environment quality issues on the well-being of communities.

2. Supports:

a) an increased focus on preventative activities with stronger cross-sectoral collaboration; and

b) the close involvement of citizens in finding and delivering solutions to improve the places where they live.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This debate is about how we can deliver vital improvements to people's quality of life and to their well-being. I want to highlight the links between multiple local environment issues that combine to make places depressing and unhealthy. These issues can also have an impact on community cohesion, investment prospects and access to services.

In the past, we've addressed poor waste management, litter, fly-tipping, graffiti, dog fouling, poor air quality, noise, local flooding, along with the need for green space and urban trees, and the need to better recycling as single issues. However, the connections between them all are obvious, and people in communities across Wales suffer from their combined effects. In some areas, such as the management of waste and recycling, we are making excellent progress. Wales leads the UK and is fourth in Europe in terms of recycling performance. This achievement follows effective engagement with the public and, for most people in Wales, recycling is now second nature. However, we need everyone to recycle, which means finding out how to influence the people who currently don't. I've asked my officials to look more closely into the behavioural change aspects of tackling this and other local environmental problems.

I've heard the various calls to ban certain food or drinks containers, apply levies, or bring in a deposit-return system for drinks containers. I intend to look at this in the round as we review and update our waste strategy, ‘Towards Zero Waste’, as I do not want to apply piecemeal solutions. I've asked for a study on the potential for new legislation to extend producer responsibility in Wales, to make the producer of products and packaging more financially liable for the end-of-life management of the waste, including litter. On takeaway paper cups, we're exploring with the drinks industry what more can be done to recycle cups in Wales, including the provision of recycling bins and the potential for the cups to be redesigned.

We all recognise the benefits of clean streets, quiet green spaces, urban trees and clean air. However, in some communities, such conditions are a far cry from people's current experience. We know from our debate last June the scale of harm that can come from air pollution. We must tackle poor air quality from all possible angles, from national and local action plans and transport measures to urban design and tree planting. My officials are engaging with transport and health colleagues on the multiple benefits of active travel, in particular its contribution to reduction in air pollution and carbon emissions. Electric car developments and improved public transport are also important measures.

Our recent consultation on local air quality and noise management sought answers to important questions on how we can tackle these issues more effectively through such things as improved reporting arrangements, more integrated action and more collaborative and effective use of resources. I will issue a statement to Assembly Members on the outcome of the consultation before the end of March, explaining how we will be changing the local air quality and noise management system in Wales in light of the responses received.

Then there are the things that are in people's line of sight every day: dog fouling, littering, fly-tipping and the poor handling of waste, which destroy people’s pride in, and care for, the communities where they live. Some residents exist in a kind of paralysis, unable to see any point in trying to improve the place where they live, and often suffering adverse effects on their health. It is also clear these problems can lead to more antisocial behaviour and crime. I'm particularly keen to see the crime of fly-tipping tackled more efficiently across local authority boundaries, and we’re currently consulting on the introduction of fixed penalty notices for small-scale fly-tipping. People who live in a poor-quality environment are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression through staying in the relative safety of their homes to avoid dirty streets and anti-social behaviour. They’re also more likely to get insufficient exercise and suffer from health problems such as diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

Children suffer, too, from a lack of clean, safe places to play outside. This is where access to green spaces and active travel routes are so important, and, of course, those too have to be kept free from litter and fly-tipping or people simply will not use them. Green spaces and trees are also important for tackling local flooding, poor air quality and noise. This is a good example of how the best and most cost-effective solutions to local environment issues are those that address more than one problem. My department’s single revenue grant to local authorities is specifically designed to encourage the delivery of such multiple benefits.

The effect of a poor environment quality on a local economy is clear. Infrastructure suffers and the general poor condition of a place deters investment. There are also costs associated with constant clean-up activities by local authorities, which are a drain on scarce funds. So, the need for prevention must be a driving force behind the action we take. It is increasingly clear that neither national nor local government can be effective without the involvement of individuals and communities.

We can of course look to strengthen legislative and regulatory measures and I’m always prepared to examine strong cases for doing so. However, as local authorities often remind us, legislation costs money to administer and enforce. Effective early prevention is always preferable to chasing people for fines they’re not always able to afford. Our new Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 is legislation of a different kind, however, encouraging us to focus on prevention, to involve people in well-integrated measures and to collaborate across organisations as we work for long-term sustainable solutions.

Collaboration across all sectors will be essential to effective prevention, involving the third sector, landowners and local businesses, who have a vested interest in improving local environment conditions. Problems occur in both rural areas and urban areas and, in every place, the people who live and work there are vital to developing effective local solutions. I believe people are probably more strongly influenced by the opinion of their fellow citizens than they are by Government. We need to help caring citizens find a voice and a platform from which to influence in practical ways the behaviour of others in their areas.

A lady in north Wales who’s been an active anti-litter campaigner for many years recently wrote to me asking for points to be added to the driving licences of people who allow litter to be thrown from their cars. In my reply to her, I explained that we don’t have the powers in Wales to make that happen, although I will raise her idea with DEFRA and the UK Department for Transport. In her letter to me, this lady spoke very passionately about her litter-picking work with children and about the need for stronger measures to prevent the problem. Her words struck home with me very strongly. She said, ‘Can’t we work together and make it happen?’

We all know people like this lady in every community—willing and determined. If we can help them to join forces with Government, national and local, to tackle the problems blighting their lives, with the right help and encouragement, they can be an even stronger force for good in their communities.

Of course, litter isn’t all down to the behaviour of an anti-social group of people. It can also be a result of the careless handling of waste and recycling by residents or by those who collect and transport it. So, care and thoughtfulness are needed on the part of everyone.

So, Deputy Presiding Officer, I’m very keen to hear the constructive thoughts of all Members in the Chamber on any measures that will help build pride of place and empower people and organisations to bring about real improvements in 2017. Thank you.

Thank you. I have selected the amendment to the motion. I call on David Melding to move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Amendment 1—Paul Davies

Add as a new point at end of motion:

Notes with concern that very few Air Quality Management Areas (AQMA's) have ever been revoked.

Amendment 1 moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I say that we welcome this debate and that we will be supporting the motion? With the concentration that we’ll have this week on, broadly, liveability issues, combined with our debate tomorrow—the minority debate the Conservatives have put down on the urban environment—I think it’s right that we spend a lot of time on these quality-of-life issues. I welcome the approach to stress the need for various agencies and players to combine and, above all, citizen involvement, which is also—we didn’t talk to each other when these motions were put down, but it does appear that a call for neighbourhood and citizen involvement is key to our debate as well.

I was also pleased to hear about the upcoming statement on the responses you’ve had to the air quality and noise pollution strategy. I think we all agree that that strategy needs updating. The consultation document you put out, I think, was an interesting one and there were many things in there that indicated a way of progressing that would find support right across this Assembly.

Anyway, I’m going to concentrate on air quality and really to underline what I’ve just said, the need to improve air quality and do that with concerted action I think is accepted both at a Wales level and a UK level. Indeed, the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee last autumn called on the UK Government to, I quote,

‘act now to tackle this public health emergency’.

I think that many of us now do view it as such. Indeed, the High Court last year also ruled that the UK Government does not currently meet all its legal requirements on air quality, so I’m not picking out the Welsh Government in particular.

But as the Welsh Government itself, in fairness, acknowledges, the position in Wales does, to some extent, mirror that in England and the rest of the UK, and also common approaches are needed to ensure that we do have the maximum effect on reducing pollution.

Just to remind Members that pollution levels in Wales—I’m using 2015 figures—were low for 204 days, moderate for 137 days, high for 16 days and very high for eight days. What we must remember is that there are many people in our community who are particularly vulnerable, especially the young and older people who are frail. The impact of poor air quality can really be very, very considerable. We heard, Minister, last week in the environment committee some very powerful evidence from the Public Health Wales, and I do commend them for the work that they’re doing—there’s great rigour there, and I think that the quality of the evidence that we heard from them, and also from the British Lung Foundation, was very, very high and very helpful.

So, we really do need to focus on this, in terms of its impact on our most vulnerable people and, as the Minister did point out, people in some of our poorest areas. That brings me on to our amendment, which focuses on the 40 air quality management areas. The way these are managed is part of the consultation, so I’d be interested in hearing some of the Minister’s, perhaps, initial views on this.

Of those 40 air quality management areas, only four have ever been revoked, and most have been in place for many years. So, I think we need to bear that in mind. I’m not saying that improvement and then revoking those orders is particularly easy—they are very challenging and there are often deep-seated infrastructural issues involved—but I do think we need to ask ourselves if 10 per cent have ever been revoked whether the action plans that we put in place are sufficient.

I also think—this is part of the consultation—there’s a need to base a strategy more on a general approach to air quality, because most of the harm actually occurs outside the high-risk areas. But I think to complement that, you then need intensive work on top of that general approach in those high-risk areas, because that is really crucial to see them improve. I think that one approach would be to list the practical measures required to improve air quality in the high-risk areas. Sometimes, it does come down to some pretty stark choices, but I think at least they should be on the agenda so that then we can have a proper debate and effective citizen engagement.

Can I just finish, Deputy Presiding Officer, by pointing to the recent Norwegian example in Oslo, where they will close diesel traffic to Oslo when the pollution levels rise above acceptable standards? I’m not saying we should follow that, necessarily, but that is an example of taking very, very effective action. Thank you.

I also welcome this debate, and I welcome as well the content of the Cabinet Secretary’s speech. I think the motion could have had a bit more detail to it, and I think the Conservative motion tomorrow, to be fair, has got more detail and more ideas, so we’ll be supporting both—let’s have a consensus to take this forward.

I want to pick up where David Melding concluded, actually, on air pollution, which I think he rightly described, as I would, as a public health emergency now in the Welsh context. We had another day today when the Mayor of London said that he advised people not to take exercise outdoors. When you think about it, it’s that kind of emergency around the environment that created the Clean Air Act back in the 1950s, which cleaned up London. It didn’t clean up the community I lived in, because we had the coking plant, which created the smokeless fuel. So, there are issues to read across from here, and it often is a richer against the poorer area in terms of achieving air quality. So, social justice in this is something that we also need to bear in mind.

Now, the Cabinet Secretary in her opening remarks made much of the voluntary approach, or rather getting people to work together and, of course, talked about the cost of regulation. But it is also, I think, vital that where we do have regulation we must insist and ensure that those regulations are implemented. And so I don’t apologise for returning to the question I asked the First Minister today, which was about Aberthaw power station.

That power station was found to exceed, in great numbers—twice, I believe—the emissions levels for nitrogen dioxide back in September. And the UK Government was instructed by the European Court of Justice to take action. Now, the regulator in Wales is not the UK Government, it’s Natural Resources Wales. And so we were told by the First Minister earlier today that they’d written to the company, demanding some sort of action, and the letter had to be replied to by 17 February. And I was thinking, ‘Well, the decision was in September. They have a letter they’ve got to reply to by 17 February. Any link there to the fact that I raised it on 17 January, and they’ve been given a month to reply to it, I wonder?’ I do wonder what Natural Resources Wales has been doing here. It certainly hasn’t taken any action around the permit. That certainly means we still have excessive emissions from the power station, as the First Minister confirmed earlier on today, and that feeds in, as David Melding said, to that very powerful evidence from Public Health Wales’s very accurate and well-evidenced work that particulate matter causes 1,300 avoidable early deaths in Wales, and nitrogen dioxide itself is responsible for 1,100 avoidable deaths annually. And if we look, therefore, at the role of regulation in both dealing with emissions and greenhouse gases and climate change, then clearly we need to see more action from the Government and, if necessary, instructing organisations such as Natural Resources Wales to take those right steps to protect our environment and to protect health in Wales. It’s not just about what we see out of the window, it’s about what we breathe and the way we live our lives. So, there’s a real issue there for action from this Government on Aberthaw and the wider question of air pollution, which David Melding dealt with.

I’d also like to see, making a link to the more local environment, more work go on on the role of trees and tree-planting in urban environments to deal with this. There’s plenty of evidence, which again the committee heard last week, about how trees—if they’re planted correctly, because the wrong sort of trees in the wrong way can actually trap particles in an urban environment, but if they’re planted correctly, they actually naturally scrub particles and gases out of the local environment. And, of course, they look good as well. They raise the well-being sense, they make it easier, as the Cabinet Secretary said, for people to go out for a walk and feel that they are part of an environment they want to be a part of and then, in turn, respect. So, there’s a win-win in all respects when you plant trees: you clean the air, but you make the environment better for those who use it.

And it is important to emphasise there’s a real link between deprivation, litter, crime and what people think about their urban environment. The DEFRA report in 2014 found that 28 per cent of sites in the most deprived areas fell below an acceptable standard for litter, and that’s nine times worse than the least deprived areas. And it’s a vicious cycle. We all know that, once you start to see all the cups and all the fast food accumulate on the local green bit outside the houses, that the people are then more reluctant to treat that with respect and it attracts litter. It’s a kind of force field for attracting litter and antisocial behaviour in turn.

I very much welcome what the Cabinet Secretary said about examining the need for possible further regulation in terms of plastic, glass and can deposit schemes in Wales. I think we really need to go down that path. Anyone who has done a beach clean or a local environment clean will find that these are the items that turn up time and time again. And in Germany, where they have introduced a mandatory one-way deposit system, 98.5 per cent of refillable bottles are being returned by consumers. We led the way in plastic bags, we can lead the way on plastic bottles as well.

Can I join with Simon Thomas and David Melding in welcoming this debate? The environment people live in is hugely important to them. The state of our environment is important for how we live now and the legacy we will leave for future generations. Whilst Brexit dominates discussion at the Assembly, it’s the state of the environment that my constituents talk to me about—not just in surgeries, but when I walk down the road, go to my local shops, in the supermarket, in the club and on the sport field. It’s the state of the environment. People will quite often point out to me where things have been dropped, where there’s dog mess and a whole range of other things. That really comes down to the concerns—it’s litter, it’s fly-tipping, it can be noise, especially when people engage in that very late at night. My constituency has knotweed, which seems to create a huge problem that not everybody has the disadvantage of having.

Long-term empty houses and empty properties—buildings that have been left until they fall down. Would you like to live next to a house that had been left empty for 10 or 15 years, with overgrowth from probably whenever those houses had been left empty for the last 10 or 15 years? Dog mess, which is a perennial problem—despite the hard work of Swansea council, which has done a tremendous job in getting dog-mess bins, I often worry that dogs can’t read very well and fail to put their mess in the bins, and their owners obviously can’t read at all. And there’s air quality.

I will start with one of the great success stories in recent years—recycling and the reduction in landfill. According to figures I have recently seen, waste sent to landfill by local authorities has reduced by over 70 per cent from its peak. The Welsh Labour Government, and most of my constituents and I want to see zero waste in Wales. That will not be possible because you’ll always have some residual waste, but we really do need to move towards as little waste as we possibly can. A zero-waste nation is a wonderful ambition. Recycling rates have increased more than anywhere else over the UK in the past decade, and Wales now leads the UK in the recycling of municipal waste. If we were a country in our own right, we’d be fourth in the European Union.

A lot of the credit for this should go to local authorities—their council leadership who are promoting it, and those working in refuse and recycling who are making it happen. The problem of waste crime—or, as it is better known, fly-tipping—is a significant cost to local authorities. Unfortunately, fly-tippers tend to go to some of the most inaccessible places—down lanes et cetera—which also creates a huge problem in collecting afterwards. It can be dangerous to the environment, potentially threatening to human health, it can also be dangerous to animals, but it is always an eyesore—wherever it goes, it’s an eyesore—whether it is dangerous at all, it is an eyesore and it’s a problem. I always ask the question, ‘Would I like to live in an area where substantial waste was being dumped?’ If the answer is ‘no’ from me, then it’s got to be ‘no’ for the rest of my constituents as well.

The Welsh Labour Government has used new powers to strengthen Natural Resource Wales’s ability to take speedier and more effective action to tackle the small fraction of poor-performing and illegal operators in the waste industry. We’re looking at the current Bill that is making its way through, and, hopefully, that will, with the suggestions of the Minister, Mark Drakeford, involve people who do set up their own illegal sites having to pay twice, and that should bring it to an end.

Fly-tipping is the scourge of communities. A fixed penalty fine to me cannot come quickly enough. Get people and fine them, rather than having to go through the whole process of taking them to court. Let’s get a fixed penalty fine. Let’s get these fly-tippers picked up. It’s not just people dumping the odd bag—sometimes it’s organised fly-tipping where whole lorry-loads are dumped, often in areas that don’t have very many houses around them, where people try and avoid paying a price for disposing of the waste they’ve got.

I’m going to join everybody else now in talking about traffic congestion, carbon emissions and the state of air. Some communities, such as Hafod in Swansea, are impacted by high levels of pollution from road transport. It is important that Welsh Government works with local authorities to help them to implement their local air quality management responsibilities, and to target problem areas through local air quality action plans. Sometimes, this can be achieved by getting more people walking and cycling. Other times, we need a bypass to ensure cars are not stationary or moving slowly through our communities. There are major roads—the Neath road going through Hafod is a major road—that are slow-moving and that are in a valley with air movement in such a way that particulates are held close to the ground. There are those who will say that an additional road is not the answer. Well, I welcome the Morfa distributor road that is soon to open, and that will reduce traffic in the Hafod. For those who do not believe such road work, two suggestions: try living there and ask the people who do. New roads are not the solution everywhere, but they cannot be discounted as an option.

Finally, as someone born and who spent their early life in the lower Swansea valley when it could have been used for any film that wanted to show an urban landscape scarred by industry, I want to leave a better environment to my children.

The debate today covers a wide range of areas, so I will concentrate on one aspect, which is air quality. Air quality matters to everybody, so it is right that we take what steps we can in the Assembly to improve it. We in UKIP support the Government’s motion today. We also support the Conservative amendment, which tackles the issue that the Welsh Government has the ability to impose AQMAs—air quality management areas—in places where air quality is particularly bad, but these AQMAs are only supposed to be temporary measures until the air quality improves, whereupon the AQMA is revoked. However, in reality, as we’ve heard from David Melding, only four out of 42 AQMAs have ever been revoked and, in two of these cases, they were quickly replaced by other AQMAs covering the affected areas. So, in truth, only two out of 42 have ever effectively been revoked and a success of less than 5 per cent can hardly be construed as a breath of fresh air.

So, what can we do to improve air quality? Well, problems that can cause a decline in air quality would include a proliferation of extractor fans in a relatively small area. These are often used in premises where there are kitchens. But when I consider how two areas just outside Cardiff city centre have developed in recent years, that is Cowbridge Road in Canton and City Road in Roath, there have been more and more licences granted to restaurants, cafes and fast food outlets. Many of the fast food shops also use delivery vehicles. These developments in such intensity can only worsen air quality in those areas. So, one question is: how does the Welsh Government co-ordinate its air quality drive in its dealings with local councils in their role as licensing authorities and how effective are these measures?

Another significant factor in air quality decline is increasing traffic congestion. Now, I also observe that several major organisations are due to relocate to Cardiff’s Central Square from outlying suburbs, notably the Inland Revenue, BBC Wales and MotoNovo Finance. Now, I know that parking spaces are being restricted in Central Square, but I’m also fairly sure that many employees of these organisations will nevertheless choose to drive into town to work, thereby increasing traffic congestion and worsening air quality. So, these air quality worries haven’t done anything to prevent the Central Square development, which is being pushed by a Labour council, and it is a scheme that has been enthusiastically endorsed by the Welsh Government. So, how important really is air quality to the Welsh Government? How do air quality concerns factor into these kinds of planning decisions?

A final significant impact on air quality is increasing housing supply in a relatively congested area, yet Cardiff has a local development plan, hatched by its Labour council, which plans for large increases in house building on the green belt. This will clearly impact on air quality. So, what measures can the Minister take to protect air quality from these kinds of environmentally damaging local development plans? Thanks.

I think I agree with absolutely everything that everybody’s said. I think, on this issue, it is important that we do have consensus because tackling air quality is a fantastically important subject. There is no such thing as safe levels of particulates and, frankly, some of the things that we’re going to need to do will require us to tackle the holy motorist, and that will obviously be quite controversial with some people in our community.

I think some of the issues that have just been raised by Gareth are very important, and whilst there is a role for parking for a BBC cameraperson who is carrying thousands of pounds worth of equipment—they have got to go by car—it is obviously not the case that those who are doing a desk job need to come into the city centre by car. That’s something that needs to be reflected in the Cardiff development plan.

I mainly wanted to concentrate on other aspects that are much less controversial but nevertheless extremely important. I represent the most urban and built-up constituency in Wales, I think, in Cardiff Central, and therefore making more green spaces is absolutely essential to improving the quality of air. Simon’s already mentioned the importance of trees, and I would just like to highlight one fact, which is that one tree can remove 26 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, which is equal to 11,000 miles of car emissions. Two thousand five hundred square feet of turf releases enough oxygen for a family of four to breathe. These are really important figures, and it really should be concentrating our minds on the way that we approach our town planning, because all communities need to benefit from this. In terms of tackling climate change, if we have green spaces, it counters the warming effects of paved surfaces, recharges groundwater supplies, and protects lakes and streams from polluted run-off. It reduces soil erosion—a dense cover of plants and mulch holds the soil in place, keeps sediment out of storm drains and roads, and reduces flooding, mudslides and dust storms. These are fantastically important issues for all of us, whichever part of Wales we are in.

A healthy sodded garden will absorb rainfall six times more effectively than a wheat field and four times better than a hay field. I think that these are really important issues, because water is the new gold; we cannot survive without it. Green spaces reduce stress and boost children’s attention span. There’s other research that has found tha, attention deficit disorder symptoms in children are relieved by contact with nature. Greenery in a child’s everyday environment, even views of green through a window, reduces their ADD symptoms. As that is an increasing presentation amongst pupils, this is, potentially, a very important finding and something we should be thinking about in all our schools.

So, what are the levers that Government can use to do more of this sort of thing? I was interested to recall the community grown food action plan, which was launched in 2010, I think by the Presiding Officer, to promote, support and encourage community-grown food in Wales, and to improve food security by increasing the availability of locally grown horticultural produce, connecting people to the food chain, increasing the number of people interested in growing food, and improving health and well-being in the process. I recall that lots of excellent LEADER projects were funded by the previous EU programme, which really transformed some of our most disadvantaged communities, but were never mainstreamed into other disadvantaged communities, which was really a lost opportunity.

I recall that, sometimes, there are lengthy waiting lists for allotments, and, in any case, they’re often inaccessible to people without a car. So, finding land for new growing projects is a challenge that I feel we all need to rise up to. I pay tribute to some of the organisations and communities in Cardiff that have helped overcome these difficulties and got more people growing their own. We’ve got the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, which has 49 community growing projects across our city. And the Riverside community allotment project, an integral part of which is the Community Market Association’s activities, has a growing space just north of Cardiff, where people can learn how to grow food in a sociable and supportive atmosphere.

Farm Cardiff is a community-led mapping process, which has identified over 400 public spaces for growing food and other plants. I recall that the Welsh Government funded the Cynefin project, which led to herb planters being put on Albany Road, which is the town centre for my constituency and probably the most urban environment anywhere, in that there is almost no green space immediately around. There’s a strip of land called the Mackintosh community garden, also in Plasnewydd, which started very modestly and is now developing growing tunnels and helping to educate whole cohorts of school children whose school is a concrete jungle, about where food comes from. My office is working with schools in Llanedeyrn and Pentwyn, which, in contrast to Adamsdown and Plasnewydd, are well endowed with sizeable plots of land, but, to date, there’s not much growing going on on them.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

I’m pleased to say that one school has agreed to set aside a piece of its land for a community garden. My ambition is that all schools will be doing something along these lines to inspire people across this mainly quite financially challenged community to start to grow their own in their own gardens, or in easily accessible collective spaces. This is a fantastically important subject in the face of many challenges that are buffeting our communities, and I hope we’ll have cause to reflect in depth on the benefit of greening our environment in all our communities.

Could I first mention, as many have, air pollution in terms of emissions from vehicles, and particularly diesel engines, which, as we know, are very damaging to human health. I’ve mentioned before in the Chamber that I met with Calor, as an organisation, who talked about conversions from diesel to Calor gas, particularly perhaps for taxi fleets, but this could be applied more generally and more widely. The cost, apparently, can be recouped within a two-year period—the cost of the initial conversion work. Of course, it’s very beneficial to public health, by greatly reducing the particulates content of emissions from those vehicles. So, I wonder if the Cabinet Secretary could say a little bit about what Welsh Government’s thoughts are on supporting those conversions, which could do something very practical and very timely to help contribute to reducing these very damaging emissions, and before perhaps we get onto more permanent solutions such as electric cars and electric vehicles more generally.

I would also be interested in how strongly the Cabinet Secretary is working with other Cabinet Secretaries and other Ministers on agendas that are important to creating a more doorstep-friendly environment for people—those on some of our ex-council estates and current council estates in Newport, for example on the Ringland estate. It’s been the subject of a stock transfer to Newport City Homes. Newport City Homes are looking at the wider environment, having done a lot of work to the fabric of the buildings, and I think they are amenable to ideas as to how they produce the best quality environment for local people. It’s about working in partnership, I think—Welsh Government, local authority and some of our registered social landlords—if we are to achieve the best solutions. One of the issues as well, for example on Hendre Farm Drive on the Ringland estate, is traffic speed. There’s some traffic calming in place, and, on some parts of the road, there is a 20 mph limit in place, but it’s not along the whole length of the road. There’s lots of double parking and lots of children play, but some parents are reluctant to allow their children to go out and enjoy the outdoor environment because of the dangers from speeding road traffic. So, I think that’s one example of how we need to look widely and work together within Welsh Government, and with other partners, if we are to produce the environment that will get our populations in Wales more active, more connected with their local environments, more appreciative of them, and then, hopefully, repaying that thought and work by more responsible attitudes, whether that comes through taking part in recycling schemes, not littering, not fly-tipping, or enjoying the wider environment.

The third matter I’d like to mention, again in terms of connecting local populations with their local environments, is, I think, long-planned circular routes connecting local communities with the coast path. I think this was one of the original ideas when we talked about developing the coast path, that we would encourage these circular routes. I’m not aware of that many being in place in Wales, but certainly I’d like to see those developed in Newport, which would connect estates like Rignland, which are not that far away from the coast path, with that coastal route. So, I wonder if the Cabinet Secretary could say a little bit about whether thought, and hopefully action, is imminent to achieve those circular routes, which I think would be very beneficial, and obviously it could be developed right across Wales.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs to reply to the debate—Lesley Griffiths.

Diolch, Lywydd. I thank Members for the very constructive debate, and it’s good to have everybody’s support. I have to say that, since I came into post, probably air quality is the one heavy part of my postbag from Assembly Members themselves. Just turning to the Welsh Conservative amendment first, I’m very happy to support that. Gareth Bennett mentioned AQMAs, and I should say it’s local authorities that declare AQMAs, not Welsh Government, and just because they haven’t been revoked doesn’t mean that the air quality isn’t better than it would have been if that hadn’t been declared. So, we’re very happy, as I say, to support that.

I’m very keen to crack down on underperforming local authorities, and, certainly, we’ve had the consultation now on air quality and noise. We had about 50 responses, so officials are analysing those responses at the moment and, as I say, I will report back via a statement to Members by the end of March. But, certainly, I want to issue guidance, direct regulations—I can do all that—but I need to also be able to act, I think, much more robustly with local authorities.

If I can just turn to some of the points that have been raised by Members, and, as I say, I think everybody referred to air quality. I think air quality in Wales is generally good, but there are some significant challenges, particularly in the vicinity of busy roads, that we need to address. I absolutely thought it was right to have a consultation when we did, and I’m very much looking forward to how we can improve things.

David Melding mentioned Oslo, and Members may remember when I came back from Marrakesh, I’d met the deputy mayor of Oslo and we talked about that. As you say, we shouldn’t necessarily follow there, but I think it was very interesting to see what Oslo are doing around transport.

Simon Thomas mentioned public health and social justice together, and I absolutely agree with you. We are going to have to take tougher measures on air quality, particularly, I think, in relation to high-polluting vehicles. John Griffiths mentioned LPG, and I have asked for advice around that to be developed, because you’ve raised that before in the Chamber, John, with me.

Simon Thomas also mentioned Aberthaw, and there is a great deal of work going on between Natural Resources Wales and RWE around modifications to the environment permit. I’ve met both sides following the court judgment to talk that through with them. Officials are in regular contact and also monitoring the modification of the permit. RWE have invested substantially in pollution abatement, and we have seen a significant reduction, but, obviously, we do need to make sure that they come within the environmental limits that have been brought in.

Several Members mentioned tree planting and the importance of tree planting correctly. Again, I met with NRW just yesterday to talk about this, because you’re quite right, Simon Thomas, they can scrub out particles, but they have to be planted in the right way.

I think Mike Hedges raised several points that fill all our postbags from our constituents: dog waste, fly-tipping—and, again, we’re out to consultation on small-scale fly-tipping because council leaders, in particular, have told me that they need to deal with the one black bag of rubbish that’s been dumped. So, again, we’re out to consultation at the moment.

Mike Hedges is also right about the good story we have to tell on recycling. We had a very good debate last week around recycling, and we are leading the way in the UK—fourth in Europe. But the ambition to have a zero-waste country is absolutely right. I mentioned, in my opening remarks, that we need to take the people who aren’t recycling at the moment with us, and that black bin bag that’s still got 50 per cent of materials that could be recycled.

Jenny Rathbone talked about green spaces, green infrastructure and trees, and I had a very interesting meeting with Julie Morgan, just last week, because Julie had raised in questions some community gardens that she’d seen in New York. Every space in New York that can be converted into either a flower bed or for planting trees or fruit and veg is being used. So, again, we’re looking to see what can be developed there. I think there’s an initiative in Swansea that we can look at to see if we can spread that best practice around.

In relation to planning policy, Gareth Bennett mentioned planning policy, and we are reviewing planning policy to see if we can have a stronger focus on well-being and health, and that would fit in there.

Just returning to the importance of shared responsibility for these important issues, I think we do need the energy and commitment of everyone in Wales to help us tackle these problems. I think it is down to people in communities working with us, private landowners, small businesses, large businesses, developers, house builders, third sector organisations and also all public bodies.

John Griffiths asked about cross-government working, and I think it is clearly a cross-portfolio responsibility. It’s really important that we have that joint action across all policy areas. I mentioned that I’m working with Rebecca Evans in relation to active travel, and clearly with Ken Skates in relation to transport.

Small changes, which can be simple and affordable, can really make a big difference. So, going back to placing more waste bins, more recycling bins and dog waste bins, I think, is really important out there.

Simon Thomas spoke about plastic bottles and recyclable cups. Last week, I met with a very well-known high-street coffee shop.

Starbucks.

Starbucks, yes. [Laughter.] They were telling me about a pilot that they’ve got in London, where they have bins where people can tip it if there’s something left in the cup, and then, in the next bin, they can recycle their cup. So, there is work going on out there. I said that we’d be very happy to have a pilot here in Wales, going forward.

So, I think it’s very clear, from the consensus in the Chamber, that the economic, the social, the environmental and the cultural benefits, in relation to this issue, are there for everyone to see. Diolch.

The proposal is to agree amendment 1. Does any Member object? Amendment 1 is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Amendment 1 agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion NDM6211 as amended:

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Acknowledges the combined effect of local environment quality issues on the well-being of communities.

2. Supports:

a) an increased focus on preventative activities with stronger cross-sectoral collaboration; and

b) the close involvement of citizens in finding and delivering solutions to improve the places where they live.

3. Notes with concern that very few Air Quality Management Areas (AQMA’s) have ever been revoked.

Y cwestiwn, felly, yw a ddylid derbyn y cynnig fel y’i diwygiwyd. A oes unrhyw wrthwynebiad? Felly, derbynnir y cynnig fel y’i diwygiwyd yn unol â Rheol Sefydlog 12.36.

Motion as amended agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

That brings today’s proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 18:21.