Now I can be political, Chair. [Laughter.] Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to open this debate, which, of course, is a cross-party debate, supported by Members from all parts of the Chamber on Clean Air Day, which is tomorrow, and we, as Plaid Cymru, have used it as a good way of making a clean air action week, but, whichever way you approach it, I know that there is great interest in all parts in clean air. I just want to set out why this motion is so important to me, but also to other Members and our communities, and what we can do to mynd, to get hold—I've come out of Welsh into English and I'm struggling still—what we can do to get hold of some of these issues.

So, we do know—and the chief medical officer's report has made it clear—just the effect of clean air, or, rather, polluted air, in Wales. We have 2,000 early deaths in Wales as a result of this and we have some of the most illegal and damaging levels of air pollution—Port Talbot, Chepstow, Cardiff, Newport and Swansea reported those in 2015. I want to particularly emphasise at the start of this debate the effect on vulnerable people, particularly children. Children exposed to severe air pollution are five times more likely to have poor lung development and increased infection susceptibility as well. There's also a real link with poverty here, because there are five times more carcinogenic emissions emitted in the 10 per cent most deprived wards in Wales than the 10 per cent least deprived areas of Wales. We just need to think a little bit about how we live in our communities and the tendency of people with more money to congregate around—well, to live in avenues, and avenues have trees, and to live near parks, and the tendency of people who are less well off to congregate in housing that directly faces onto the street where there's no barrier between yourself and the pollution emitted by cars.

So, these are the reasons for some real failures in Wales—lately, the fact that Client Earth has taken the Welsh Government to court. Welsh Government has responded with action plans. Last week, it announced 50 mph limits, which will need to be tested, I think, because it's not absolutely clear that that will do enough to clean up the air. There's a theory behind it, but it's not absolutely clear that that will do it, and we need to take further action as well, which is the reason for the motion today.

Just for an example, I'm particularly concerned that we put more power in the hands of our citizens to monitor and know more about the air that's in their local communities. The British Lung Foundation found out, through a freedom of information request, that only one school in Swansea had a pollution monitor nearby and not one single school in Cardiff has a pollution monitor nearby. So, if you're talking to children and parents about taking alternative routes to school, cycling, walking or whatever, or just turning off the engine when they're idling outside the school, you don't have the evidence to give them, because we're not collecting it. And even when we go further, about what we should be collecting—because some of these air pollution monitors say that we have safe levels, but they collect over a long period of time; they're not real-time collecting at 8.15 a.m. when all those engines are running, and that's where we need to get to. So, it's very important, I think, that we strengthen and embolden that aspect as well.

Now, as part of this, I certainly think we should have a clean air Act for Wales. There are individual things that are being done, but I think we need to bring them together, have a piece of legislation, show our ambition and demonstrate that, in the way that we have done with the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and the future generations commissioner as well. That very much, I think, would turn around empowering clean air zones in towns and cities. Now, clean air zones are seen and known to work. Awyr Iach Cymru, the coalition of bodies campaigning for clean air in Wales, say that they're the most effective way of reducing emissions and changing behaviours in the shortest possible time. Just for an example, one introduced in Berlin in 2008, and expanded two years later, led to particle and nitrogen oxide emissions that were 50 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, lower than the predicted trend. So, there's a way of empowering and using Welsh Government to empower local authorities to deliver clean air zones. That's why, I'm afraid, we won't be accepting the amendment tabled in the name of UKIP, because I think the clean air zones are actually a really essential tool in tackling air pollution in Wales.

We also need to look at how we replace our reliance on fossil fuel cars. In my initial proposal for a clean air Act, I proposed that we phase out fossil-fuel-only cars by 2030. I thought that was a bit of a punt, and, as the First Minister himself said yesterday, it's

'too early; I don't think the technology's ready.' 

Well, the mayors and leaders of cities in the UK, representing 20 million people, precisely called for that only on Monday, and they happen to include the mayor and leaders of Cardiff city council as well. I'm not trying to make this a party-political thing in that sense. I think the First Minister needs to get on board, needs to understand that, in fact, this is already happening. China, which is the world's largest vehicle market, is considering a ban on the production and sale of fossil fuel cars in the near future. It's no coincidence that China is also the leading investment country in hydrogen. Copenhagen, countries all over western Europe, are considering—not considering, implementing bans, bans on sale and bans on fossil-fuel-only cars entering those cities.

Now, I think we can use technology to tempt people away from cars that are polluting and we can use technology to encourage people to look at alternatives. So, I think there can be a vision for a clean and green and non-polluting public transport sector powered by hydrogen. We'd like to see the Wales train franchise—it's up and running now, but there are break clauses in it. I'd like to see those used as a way of putting pressure to get hydrogen trains introduced. They're already in Germany. They're already being developed. There's talk of Alstom building hydrogen trains in the north-west of England. Let's be at the forefront of this technology.

We already have an agreement with the Welsh Government on electric vehicles. I confess I've been campaigning for an electric vehicle point to be put in here in the Assembly. It's here, and I'm very pleased to see it, and I know there are at least two members of staff using it, but no Assembly Member yet, because I haven't made the jump to electric vehicles. I can't travel from Aberystwyth here—. I come by train most of the time, by the way. But I can't travel—I know sometimes you need to use a car, and you can't do it. So, that infrastructure has to be there to encourage people to change their mode of transport, and I think we can easily move people to a new technology that's exciting and new, but, in turn, we have to use that as a reason to encourage them to use the car less, as well. So, that has to be part of the equation.

There's an awful lot, therefore, that we can do here in the Assembly, and I think the main thing, to conclude, is that I want us to use not just this debate, but the debates that we'll be having over the forthcoming weeks and months, to show that Wales isn't just at the forefront of thinking about the environment, but at the forefront of investing in the sort of technology that will take us beyond that. To give a plastics example, we've been talking about plastic straws for quite some time in the Assembly. It was very good to see that a new start-up company in Ebbw Vale is now the one that's making paper straws that have been taken up by McDonald's and, I'm sure, other companies as well. That shows that this green economy is not about returning to the past, it's not about rejecting technology, it's about embracing the best to ensure we have clean, green environments, clean air for our children and young people, and jobs, as well, in our cities and towns.