Air pollution must be regarded as one of the many growing challenges to improve public health in Wales. Air pollution is a direct result of human activity, whether through vehicle usage, agriculture and industry, and burning fossil fuels. Although there have been some vast national improvements in air quality management in recent years, the need to target localised pockets is essential to improve the inequalities that exist in Wales’s air quality. Simon Thomas made the comment about walking to schools. Well, let’s be really clear about this—Wales is home to some of the most polluted areas in the UK, and if you were a schoolchild walking along the edge of the A472 near Crumlin, you’d be walking through a place that has the highest rate of pollution in any area outside London. It’s predominantly caused by congestion from heavy-duty vehicles—it’s the fold of the hills—but ultimately the people living in that area are increasingly being exposed to harmful pollutants, which is denigrating their health.

Research is enabling us to have a far fuller understanding of just how harmful long-term exposure to air pollution is for our health. In order to curb the impacts of air pollution on our health, we need to explore what can be done in our devolved capacity to manage our air quality effectively. Fundamental to this is delivering infrastructure projects with sustainability and pollutant reductions in mind, but also by raising awareness through public health messaging, so that individuals are aware of the threat air pollutants pose to their health. These amendments tabled by Simon Thomas have laudable aims and are a step in the right direction when it comes to confronting the need for collective action on air quality.

Although there are a number of initiatives in place, it is critical that all public bodies are accepting their responsibilities and are working in tandem together. At present, local governments have a requirement to effectively monitor the local air quality and alert the public when levels exceed guidelines. Equally, they have a responsibility to deliver localised air management strategies, so it is essential that these are tied in with national strategic objectives.

However, although we will be supporting all bar one amendment, we do have concerns with amendment 45, and we’ll be grateful for further clarity from the proposer. We’re concerned over the potential impact that amendment 45 may have on the finances of local health boards, because, of course, not everyone has access to a website. Not everyone can access good health messaging in that way, and we have concerns that we are not keen to give Welsh Government a power to issue guidance that may be extremely difficult for the local health boards to follow through, because we are firmly of the view that we can drive public health improvements without adversely impacting on the funding available to overstretched health boards, and we have concerns that that amendment might bring forward a much greater level of pressure on their already overstretched funding. But the rest of the amendments we absolutely accept, and we’d like to thank Simon Thomas and Plaid Cymru for bringing them forward.