Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:41 pm on 18 June 2019.
As you rightly say in your statement, Minister, obviously road traffic is a very significant aspect of air pollution, and we've already heard reference to the problems on the M4 around Newport. Can I say, Minister, that I very much welcome the decision of the First Minister to go forward with an integrated transport response to those problems? It seems to me that the idea that you can deal with the problems caused by road traffic by building more and more roads, which then fill up with more and more traffic journeys, is not a very logical conclusion to come to. What we really need is a step change and that modal shift to get people and freight increasingly off our roads and on to our trains and buses, and, of course, to increase active travel as part of that, so we get the physical fitness health benefits as well as better air to breathe.
Would you agree with me, Minister, that 20 mph zones go very well with the sort of active travel increases that we want to see, and that they also go very well with encouraging our children to cycle, walk and scoot to school, which would be a very important contribution, I think, to dealing with air pollution on our roads, in our streets? Because I think we all know that when the schools are on holiday, there's much less traffic around, much less air pollution. We often see the chaos that exists around schools when parents are finding improbable places to park where they really shouldn't park, engines are left running, stationary vehicles are left with their engines running, and the children are in the middle of all of this, along with the school staff and, indeed, the parents who are walking to school with their children.
Lots of things can be done to deal with those issues: walking buses, policies to reward children and to make it an aim of the school to increase walking, scooting and cycling. Indeed, Ringland Primary in my constituency has increased that active travel to school by 20 per cent in the last year, and it's now just under half of the pupils that travel to school in that way. It's perfectly possible, but it seems to me we need something more comprehensive right across Wales, something more systemic, Minister, so that it's not left up to individual schools or, indeed, local authorities.
Just two other matters I'd like to mention. One is taxi fleets. I've mentioned to you before, Minister, that if we had a conversion of taxi fleets to Calor Gas, for example, we'd get a huge improvement as far as the air pollution issues are concerned. And the cost of the conversions typically repay themselves in just a couple of years. I'm puzzled, really, as to why we haven't seen more of that sort of initiative. Also, does your remit on air pollution run to smoking in public places? Because I know many people feel very strongly, particularly people with conditions like asthma, that breathing in smoke in the outdoor areas of cafes and restaurants, in parks, in town and city centres, is a real health hazard to them and a big pollutant of the air that they breathe.