The next item is the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2018. I call on the Minister for Environment to move the motion. Hannah Blythyn.

Motion NDM6628 Julie James

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales, in accordance with Standing Order 27.5

1.  Approves that the draft Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 are made in accordance with the draft laid in the Table Office on 11 December 2017.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Llywydd. I look forward to discussing these regulations, which will make an important contribution to improving air quality and reducing industrial pollution.

In the air quality debate on 5 December I set out the range of actions that the Welsh Government is taking to deliver improvements to air quality in Wales. During this debate I made clear the actions essential for the health and well-being of our communities and our environment.

The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 will implement the medium combustion plant directive, helping to tackle the air quality challenge by extending and strengthening our existing controls on the emission of polluting substances to the atmosphere from combustion plant. Medium combustion plant between 1 MW thermal and 50 MW thermal in capacity are used for a wide variety of applications. These include generating heat for large buildings such as offices, hotels, hospitals and schools, and providing heat and steam for industrial processes and generating electricity.

The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 will give effect to the directive's upper limits on emissions of nitrate oxides, sulphur dioxide and particulate matter to the atmosphere from medium combustion plant. These are key atmospheric pollutants. Plant over 20 MW thermal capacity are already subject to environmental controls under our environmental permitting regime, including the requirement that best available techniques are applied to prevent pollution and that no significant pollution is caused. These controls remain in place alongside the newly implemented requirements of the medium combustion plant directive.

The regulations will also introduce targeted additional controls to tackle pollution from combustion plant below 50 MW thermal that are used to generate electricity. Over recent years we have seen significant growth in the numbers of diesel-burning combustion plant used to generate electricity during short periods of high demand. These plant can produce over six times as much nitrogen oxides as the gas-burning alternatives. The controls that will be introduced by the regulations are needed to ensure that these electricity generating plant do not impact on air quality and public health.

The regulations will require operators of effective plant to obtain an environmental permit from Natural Resources Wales. The permits will specify the detailed operating requirements necessary to ensure the protection of air quality, including emission limit values of key pollutants, monitoring requirements and reporting obligations. These requirements will be administered and enforced by Natural Resources Wales for the lifetime of each permit, and the costs associated with permit issue and compliance checking will be met by the operator under existing cost recovery provisions for environmental permitting.

I seek your support today for the implementation of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2018. The directive obligations these regulations will introduce, and the targeted additional controls on electricity generating plant, will make an important contribution to improving air quality and public health in line with the Welsh Government's well-being goals and the national strategy, 'Prosperity for All'.

I thank the Minister for setting out the need for these regulations. We do support what the Minister is doing, and this is a joint set of regulations between England and Wales, of course, in response to an EU directive.

I've got a couple of questions, if I may. Could the Minister just confirm that, in fact, though we welcome these, these regulations are actually being transposed late, and beyond the timescale that was set out by the EU, which I think is a regrettable state of affairs, and I'd like to understand how that happened? The second point I'd like to make is that, as I understand these regulations, they will now include some of the power plants that the Minister referred to, which have not been captured by directives such as this in the past. This is a very important step in terms of maintaining good air quality and better air quality in Wales. We know the public health implications of the poor air quality we have in many parts of Wales.

The permitting process, however, as I understand, also allows the older plants, so, actually the most polluting ones, to have more time to come up to speed, and I'd like to understand how we're going to use the best information we get and the best work of Natural Resources Wales to actually try and accelerate that process, because it seems to me that, rather than giving the older plants more time, we almost should be doing it the other way round. There may be issues here around costs and effectiveness, but they're the ones that are really contributing to the public health emergency that we have in Wales at the moment.

I call on the Minister to respond to the debate. Hannah Blythyn.

May I thank the Member for his contribution in this debate? Your first question was on the late transposal of the medium combustion plant directive. The delayed transposition has resulted from delays to the finalisation of elements of the regulations dealing with the interplay with existing industrial environmental controls. Once the regulations were finalised they had to go through a three-month period of notification to the European Commission, during which the regulations could not be progressed. The notification period ended on 8 December and we laid the regulations before the Assembly the following working day, which was 11 December. The regulations were laid in Parliament on the same day. I'm sure the transposition delay will not affect the timely introduction of the directive's requirements, the first of which must be applied by 20 December this year.

In terms of the phasing for some of the older plants, a large number of these combustion plants that are affected—up to 30,000 in England and Wales—in many cases the operators of these plants will not have encountered the environmental permitting regime, so it's to raise awareness and give it time for that permitting to take place. The phasing in period, it's hoped, will also help to encourage operators to invest in new, cleaner technology rather than retrofitting old plant with pollution abatement equipment.

Thank you again for your contribution. This is a very technical amendment in today's debate, but it's an important one as it helps us work towards our aspirations of tackling poor air quality in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? The motion is therefore agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.