3. What is the Welsh Government’s strategy for tackling air pollution in light of the warnings from the World Health Organization? OAQ52869

Tackling air pollution in Wales requires a multi-pronged approach. As part of the clean air programme, the Minister for Environment has established an air quality evidence, innovation and improvements project that will, amongst other things, consider the practical application of WHO guidelines for air pollution in Wales.

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?

Well, on 24 April, the Minister announced the package of measures that will improve air quality throughout Wales. We have the clean air Wales programme, the clean air plan for Wales, the Welsh Government supplemental plan to the UK’s for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide emissions, with a clean air zone framework for Wales as well. All these are issues that will help Cardiff council in terms of developing its transport and clean air strategy. I know that paper has set out the issues for the city as it grows, and the potential options for the future. What are they? Well, there are a number of opportunities to significantly change transport within the city. Charging is one possibility. That would be a matter, of course, for the council. But, of course, we see the development of the south Wales metro, improvements in cycling—and I’m glad to see Cardiff taking that forward now at a good rate—improvements in the walking infrastructure, and, of course, further roll-out of the nextbike cycle-hire scheme. So, yes, more work to do in the future, but, obviously, there are schemes already in place now that will look to help in the future as well.

First Minister, this is a very serious issue. When the Public Health (Wales) Bill was going through its passages in the committees, we had some very compelling evidence from many companies and organisations about how we could tackle air pollution and how we could improve the quality of air. Your Government chose not to take those recommendations forward, despite some of the committee recommendations. Given the severity of the World Health Organization's report, can I ask you if you intend to revisit the Public Health (Wales) Bill? And will you ask your Minister to review, again, the evidence that we took, and the recommendations we made, to see if now might be a more appropriate time for your Government to actually take action?

Well, the concern we have about the World Health Organization guidelines is that they are based solely on scientific conclusions about public health aspects of air pollution. So far, so good. But they don’t consider the technical feasibility or the economic, political and social aspects of achieving that. And this is where we have to have a balance as a Government. There is no doubt at all, for example, that air quality in Port Talbot would be mightily improved if there was no steelworks there, but nobody would seriously suggest that that is a reason, then, to see the end of steel production in Port Talbot. And yet, we know that the steelworks inevitably—despite, of course, the fact that it's improved hugely over the years in terms of the reduction of its carbon footprint—will always be a polluter in that way. So, the balance we seek is a Government is, of course, to promote, for example, more sustainable forms of transport, and we're doing that through the south Wales metro, working with local authorities like Cardiff to do that. But, of course, there will be—. If the guidelines were incorporated into Welsh law, that might well create many problems in terms of the economy and jobs if we weren't careful.