Air Pollution

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 6 November 2018.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 2:00, 6 November 2018

I'm sure you'll join me, First Minister, in deploring the fact that 90 per cent of the world's children are now breathing toxic air as a result of our collective failure to safeguard our environment.

We know that air pollution kills more people than road traffic accidents, and the British Lung Foundation published data in the last 10 days highlighting that there are 57 health centres and three hospitals in Wales that are in areas that exceed the safe air pollution levels. Unfortunately, 26 of them are in Cardiff, including the five most polluted, which are in my constituency, where the PM2.5 levels are just well above WHO guidelines. Will you, as a Government, consider adopting the WHO guidelines as the bible that we need to adhere to? And how does the Welsh Government think that this ought to be informing City of Cardiff Council’s transport and clean air green paper, which considers, amongst other things, charging for people entering a clean-air zone as one of the measures that they are considering?