7. Member Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): Air Quality

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:42 pm on 20 June 2018.

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Photo of John Griffiths John Griffiths Labour 4:42, 20 June 2018

Llywydd, I very much welcome this debate today as well, which is very, very important for health in Wales and quality of life in Wales, and there are practical things that can be done. One thing I've mentioned previously, for example, is the possibility of having LPG conversions for taxi fleets, which would be one important and significant contribution to improving air quality in our town and city centres. It's very affordable and very quickly repays itself in terms of lower fuel costs. We had the active travel Act, which Julie Morgan has just mentioned—it's there, it's on the statute book. Local authorities are working up their policies and implementing their new routes and, as Julie mentioned, we have examples such as here in the capital city around some of these cycle highways.

But there is also the need, of course, to make sure that it does all connect up, as Julie said. I think one way of facilitating that is by having a default 20 mph speed limit as a national policy, right across Wales, which would then be the starting point for local authorities. They could exempt certain roads from that blanket policy for valid and particular reasons, but that would be the starting point. What that would do then would be to help create these more cycle and walking-friendly urban environments that would facilitate people feeling safe and secure to cycle from their homes and connect up with the new cycle network under the active travel Act. We also have other important drivers—we have the metro system going forward, new possibilities for bus travel with the greater powers that Welsh Government will have to make sure that we do make this modal shift to a properly integrated transport system. It's not going to happen overnight, but there are, I think, a lot of policies now aligned, pointing in the same direction, which offers new momentum and real possibilities for us.

That '20's plenty' campaign that I mentioned, Llywydd, to have this default 20 mph speed limit right across Wales, is a very important part of this wider picture. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NICE, strongly advocate it, for example, and they make the point, with the research that they've done, that it would facilitate more walking and more cycling in our urban environments, create more friendly environments for children to play outdoors, and as they point out, and indeed as an article by Dr Sarah Jones in the British Medical Journal has pointed out, it does meet the public health challenges of addressing air pollution, addressing road traffic casualties and addressing obesity. They link those three together as perhaps one of the very major public health challenges that is faced in the UK at the current time and identify a default 20 mph speed limit as one of the most obvious and effective ways of addressing all three of those major challenges.

NICE also point out that as well as addressing creating more walking and cycle-friendly local environments, a 20 mph default speed limit would also address the particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide aspects of air pollution. So, I think, looking at what that policy has to offer in the round, and the fact that it is being implemented in the UK by a number of local authorities—you know, it's something that's practical, it's something that's very affordable, and it's something that's becoming an increasing reality in the UK—gives us a worked-up policy that we could adopt in Wales that would be a major contributor to many of these air pollution issues and much else besides.