The next item, therefore, is the debate on a Member’s legislative proposal, and today we’re focusing on the non-carbon emission public vehicles Bill, and I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move the motion.

Motion NDM7020 Rhun ap Iorwerth

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes a proposal for non-carbon-emission public vehicles bill.

2. Notes that the purpose of this bill will be:

a) to promote the use of electric vehicles or non-emission vehicles in Wales in order to help reduce carbon emissions; and

b) to place a duty on the Welsh Government and other public bodies to develop a strategy to move towards using electric vehicles or non-emission vehicles in the public fleet in Wales.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Llywydd. Well, a little over a week ago, this Senedd voted to declare a climate emergency—an important symbolic step. It was Plaid Cymru that had tabled the motion, and, shortly before that, the Government stated that they were willing to make that statement. It was a very important symbolic statement, and I look forward to discussing that with environmental campaigners in my old school, Ysgol David Hughes, tomorrow.

But, whilst the symbolism was significant, our willingness to take action will be the measure of our success in tackling that emergency. And, in the Chamber yesterday, we listened to a statement from the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport on active travel. The Welsh term is better than the English, 'teithio llesol', rather than active travel. 'Llesol' in Welsh means 'beneficial', and, through that legislation, what we’re doing is to ask people to make travel choices that are more beneficial to them—in terms of their health, yes, but we are also talking about benefiting the environment.

The Minister gave this statistic yesterday: 13 per cent of climate change emissions in Wales come from transport, and virtually all of those come from the private car with its petrol or diesel engines. Now, yesterday, we had a discussion on how to help people to choose active travel, either on a bike or walking. That’s one way of tackling emissions. More significant is encouraging people to use public transport, to get out of their cars and to choose mass transport options that are kinder to the environment. And I do agree 100 per cent with that. We must invest in creating networks and travel systems that are attractive, efficient, clean, that can drive that kind of change in the way we get from A to B. We can also discuss ways of preventing journeys from A to B, so that people can work at point A and live there, too, rather than having to travel to point B in the first place.

But, in the midst of all of this, the private vehicle will still be an important feature of our transport landscape for years to come. There will be changes. There will be more car sharing, hopefully; automation will take place, whereby vehicles can arrive without a driver. But, for some years to come, I’m sure we will have cars on our roads. And not just cars, of course; there'll be vans, goods lorries, heavy goods vehicles maintaining public services, and so on and so forth. Therefore, we have to make them cleaner. Outside the Senedd earlier today it was wonderful to welcome Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan and Renault, who were demonstrating their latest electric vehicles. The technology is making progress very quickly, with wholly-electric vehicles being able to travel further—200 miles and more on one charge, and 300 for some. Charging can take place more quickly, but there are urgent steps that need to be taken in order to normalise low-emission vehicles.

Earlier today, I also published a report that drew on my visit to Scotland and outlined the lessons that we can learn from Scotland for the future of electric vehicles in Wales. I presented a copy to the Chair of the economy committee, Russell George, and I’m grateful to that committee for carrying out an inquiry in this area. I hope that my report will be of some use to the committee. But, perhaps, the main thing I learned from Scotland was that we need a clear focus, a particular strategy. We need determination to drive that strategy forward, to introduce far more charging points, to ensure that they work, to gather data on their usage, and so on and so forth, and also to provide further incentives in different sectors—taxis, for example—to think how we can combine the use of electric vehicles in our cities.

Thank you for allowing me to speak. I have had an opportunity to look at the report that you’ve written. I think it’s an excellent report, and it shows the kind of ambition that we need. I will be supporting you this afternoon when it comes to the vote. Do you agree with me that what we need now is a strategy and a timeline and funding to ensure that we can achieve the kind of ambition that you describe in your report?

Thank you very much for those comments. It was good to see the Member for Blaenau Gwent in the event outside the Assembly earlier, and I do appreciate that support. Yes, certainly, we do need a clear strategy, and that’s one of the concerns I have: that we are falling behind.

But, for this Senedd as a legislature, in responding to the fact that we have made that statement on the climate emergency, we need to consider how we can use the tools that we have. One of the things that we can do as a legislature is to legislate. Last year, I made a legislative proposal on a planning Bill to put guidance in place for the infrastructure for charging systems in new developments, and I was very pleased to see the Welsh Government reflecting some of those priorities in their recent low-carbon plan. But what I have this time is a Bill for public vehicles that are non-carbon emission. The hope is to promote the use of electric vehicles or non-emission vehicles such as hydrogen by placing a duty on the Welsh Government and other public bodies, from councils to local authorities, to develop a strategy to move towards specifically using electric vehicles and non-emission vehicles in their own public fleets. And it’s important to say that there are signs of good practice emerging in several councils across Wales.

One thing I learned from Scotland, in Dundee specifically, is that you need a few determined individuals. In Dundee, it was those individuals that have driven innovation. We need to identify those determined, enthusiastic individuals in Wales. But, I do think that legislation can be a tool that we should use, and I am proposing that a boost should be given through legislation to ensure that every public body publishes a strategy as to how they are going to move in the right direction. NRW, as it happens, has carried out an assessment of its own situation and has come to the conclusion that it can change a little over half of its fleet—. They can't change all their vehicles at the moment, but if they changed about half of their fleet, they would save 413 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, and on top of that would save £136,000.

So, let’s make progress. Let’s vote for this motion today and support the idea of developing legislation—because we are a legislature—to push a strategy that we all agree with in principle, but where we consider what we can do specifically as elected Members in our national Senedd.

Thank you for putting forward the legislative proposal this afternoon. Can I say that the Welsh Conservatives and myself fully support the legislative proposal put forward by Rhun ap Iorwerth this afternoon? I was also pleased to support the event that Rhun mentioned earlier today, where he launched his report talking about the Scottish experience, and indeed I was very grateful to him for supplying me and committee members with an advance copy of that report, because the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee is currently doing a piece of work on electric vehicle charging infrastructure. In that piece of work that we're doing, we've taken a slightly different approach to normal, in that we've taken evidence and, rather than publish our findings with recommendations and conclusions, we have published our report in draft with our emerging conclusions and recommendations to further consult, and that approach has seemed to have worked. There'll be another opportunity for me to talk to some of the emerging conclusions when we come to debate that in this Chamber.

But I would pick up on one point. One of the emerging themes, or certainly one of the responses that we received recently, was that Wales is a charging desert and that, currently, infrastructure is insufficient in coping with existing demand, let alone increased demand. I regret, actually, not using the screens we've got here today to show the Zap-Map, which, indeed, Government uses as well to obtain its own information of coverage and charging points across England and Wales, because if you saw that map, the story would speak for itself. England is quite well serviced, certainly in urban areas, but Wales—we've got a scattering in the north, a scattering in the south, with a big desert in the middle.

Now, the Government's announced £2 million of investment to improve charging points and charging point infrastructure, but we note that in Scotland the Government there has committed £14 million to support infrastructure and to support the low-carbon agenda, £8 million of which has been dedicated towards charging infrastructure from the UK Government's Plugged-in Places scheme. I think that we, or certainly the Welsh Government, should also be promoting private sector investment as well as public subsidy, particularly in rural areas as well, and in some cases, the Government might not even need to promote public funding, because that'll come itself through the normal channels. But what we do need to address is the infrastructure in rural Wales, and we don't need infrastructure in rural Wales just for those who live in rural Wales, but, of course, to get anywhere, if you're going to go from north to south, you're driving through rural Wales, so you do need infrastructure there to support the network.

I was also pleased, as well—very grateful to the Minister for allowing his official to come to a meeting on Monday in Newtown, where I got a Welsh Government official, Powys County Council and other stakeholders together to explore some of the issues and exchange information as well. The key issue that was driving through that meeting was the lack of charging infrastructure in rural Wales and making sure that any strategy that does come forward, as it will do, as the Minister has said it will come forward in 2020, will address some of those issues. I'm over time—I'm so sorry, I've not said as much as I would like to say—but I will have another opportunity when the committee comes to debate this report later in the year, no doubt.

Thank you for introducing this proposal for a Bill. I agree that we must find a cleaner way of getting from A to B, and I'll be supporting the motion. However, although many people dream of the day when we're all diesel and petrol free, and I would join them on that, we have to be careful about rushing ahead with the promotion of electric vehicles and seriously consider the realities of mass electrical car roll-out. So, in my contribution today, I'm just going to focus on electric vehicles. When it comes to the environment, we often talk about our responsibility for the sake of not just Wales but the rest of the world also, and we need to be mindful of that when promoting electric vehicles.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

Electric vehicles rely on batteries. Batteries require cobalt, and the vast majority of that is sourced from the Congo—an area rife with conflict. Furthermore, children are exploited to work in the cobalt mines for slave wages, and much of the profits the companies make is used to fund civil war. The term 'blood batteries' has now entered the lexicon of those talking about development of electric vehicles, and we must ensure that we're no part of it. We have to make sure that in our scramble to find a different form of fuel for our cars we don't end up fuelling conflict, poverty and child labour—however many miles away it is from Wales. Tesla have reportedly said that they're looking to source cobalt from Cuba, but in the global scramble for this finite resource, once the ethical sources have been depleted, it will be sourced from less ethical sources. There will be no other choice. Therefore, where point 2(b) mentions a strategy to move towards using electrical vehicles, please can we ensure that a constant element of that strategy is to only use vehicles that are free of conflict materials or blood batteries?

But it's not just the ethical sourcing that concerns me. Some of the practicalities have to be sorted before we rush towards mass use of electrical vehicles. The biggest problem is obviously going to be the recharging. Where, at the moment, we can fill up quickly mid journey, there's not the infrastructure or technology that allows that to the same degree at the moment, and other speakers have alluded to that. Many petrol stations, even now, have a queue of cars waiting for the petrol pumps, and I appreciate that charging points don't have to be restricted to the petrol stations, but there will have to be some centralised charging points for people to use when they're actually en route. So, we've already got queues; how big are these recharging centres going to have to be if a recharge takes, say, 30 minutes as opposed to a five-minute pit stop to just fill up with petrol or diesel? What happens if a car runs out of charge before it can get to a recharging point? The driver can't exactly take a petrol can up the road to a filling station. 

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, go on.

I think one of the developments that we'll see in years to come is that you'll be recharging as you go, with recharging miles of highway, so you don't have to stop at all.

Yes, fantastic, but you say it's one of the developments that is to come. What I'm saying is that going for a mass roll-out of electrical vehicles before the technology and the infrastructure has caught up isn't particularly the right way to go.

Okay. So, we can't actually say for sure that the more widespread electrical vehicle use is, the quicker the technology will catch up, and until a driver can do a long drive on a single charge that includes being stuck in a motorway jam for some hours in the winter, electric vehicles aren't going to take off. Don't get me wrong; I'm not against electric vehicles per se. All I'm saying is that there are some consequences that we need to think about. Okay—

Can you think about winding up? Sorry. It's three minutes per Member. 

I'll get on with it, yes. I've just got another point.

Another concern is the silent nature of electrical cars. The ability to hear a vehicle coming is vital to keeping yourself safe on the road and around the road. What concerns me is that electric cars are so quiet that it causes a health and safety risk. So, I would like manufacturers to address that health and safety risk.

And then finally, I'd like to point out that only 50 per cent of pollution from cars comes from the engine and the exhaust. The rest of the pollution actually comes from the tires and the brake dust, so you know, as part of the strategy, we need to be building that into the strategy to look for ways that that pollution can be reduced. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I now call the Minister for Economy and Transport, Ken Skates?

Diolch, Llywydd. I very much welcome the opportunity to respond today, and I'd like to thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for putting forward this proposal. It comes at a particularly appropriate time, following our declaration of a climate emergency on 29 April. The Welsh Government is taking a lead in meeting the calls for action of people of all ages who are concerned about the very real impacts of climate change.

Back in March we launched 'A Low Carbon Wales', our first Government-wide statutory decarbonisation plan. It contains 100 proposals and actions, around half of which relate to transport. The plan includes policies to increase the proportion of vehicles that are electric and ultra-low emission, including a very bold ambition for zero-emission bus and taxi and private hire vehicles by 2028. We recognise the public sector's leadership role, so the plan also includes a proposal that all new cars and light goods vehicles in the public sector fleet are ultra-low emission by 2025 and, where possible, all heavy goods vehicles are ultra-low emission by 2030. Introducing low-carbon vehicles into the public sector fleet will not only contribute towards our aim of a carbon neutral public sector by 2030, but it will also increase visibility and normalise the use of ultra-low emission vehicles for our public sector staff, service users and, of course, the public.

With most of our public bodies already addressing this issue, there is little evidence that legislation is required to stimulate the development of strategies. Indeed, this morning I outlined the development of our vision and our strategy for electric vehicle charging across the country, when I attended the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee. We're planning for publicly available charging infrastructure to meet the demand that will be created by the large-scale uptake of electric vehicles, but I expect the private sector and electric vehicle charging providers to deliver the vast majority of infrastructure. Our role is to assess where there are gaps in provision and to act, where necessary, to address market failure. Our strategy, to be consulted on alongside the Wales transport strategy, will utilise the same approach that we took in procuring the operator and development partner for the new rail franchise, where we use public property and public land to bring the market to invest in the installation of charging points on a concession basis. Our emerging strategy will ensure that a national standard charging network is delivered, mostly with private sector investment, but with the public's best interests at the heart of deployment.

In view of the policies and the proposals that we have in 'A Low Carbon Wales' and the imminent strategy for deploying an electric vehicle charging network across Wales, I do not feel that legislation is actually necessary at this present time. But, of course, I am willing to review this in the future. I would urge every Member to work with us on this. Delivering our ambitious decarbonisation targets will require significant leadership, change, collaboration with our partners, and the involvement of society as a whole. Working together and showing leadership individually as well as collectively on this matter, I am confident that we can deliver and make a real difference.

Thank you very much. Can I now call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate?

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you to all the Members that have taken part, and thank you to the Minister for his response. I have just a few seconds to respond. I think that I've made all the points that I wanted to make in my opening speech, but I think that there is widespread support for principles. I think that Michelle Brown is right to raise questions. I think that I could, if I had plenty of time, address a number of the questions that she had. But this is part of the wider discussion that we are having in building people's confidence in the developing and the emerging technology.

This is a debate on noting this proposal. I hope that the Assembly will vote positively to note this proposal today. Of course, legislation needn't be the only answer, but we have to keep considering legislation as a possible tool. I welcome signs of movement towards having a strategy. For example, when the low-carbon plan talks of wanting to move to a public fleet by 2025 that is zero-emission, what I want to know is how. When are we going to do it? How are we going to do it? That's why we need to move, with urgency, towards having a strategy, Wales-wide, with ultra-low vehicle emissions as a very clear focus, because it is going to be a very prominent part of our transport future.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to note that proposal. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 12.36, the motion is agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.