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.