4. Statement by the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs: Clean Air

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:37 pm on 18 June 2019.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 4:37, 18 June 2019

I'm very disappointed that Llyr has taken that stance. You will have heard my answer to Andrew R.T Davies around the clean air Act. Again, you will have heard—I think you were in the Chamber—Vaughan Gething say about the—. In relation to legislation, Vaughan Gething was talking about statutory instruments; I've done 95 statutory instruments this year. You must realise the constraints that we have on legislation. I will be consulting in the autumn on the clean air plan. I would hope to bring forward a Bill next year, but I will have to update the Chamber and Members regarding that following the consultation. But for the First Minister, it was one of his manifesto commitments when he became First Minister in December, so I know he is very keen to bring forward an Act. 

There is a great deal of work going on across Government. I absolutely agree with you that we need to make progress here, and I mentioned in my statement that one of the main issues we have to deal with is road traffic. And I think the more we can do in relation to bringing forward schemes to ensure that people can access public transport easier, that we encourage walking, we encourage cycling—. We've got the active travel and we've put significant funding into that—£30 million. There's a great deal of monitoring being done across Wales with the local authorities that have had that funding to bring forward their schemes. 

You mentioned the climate emergency. I think it's really important that we don't mix up climate change, air quality and decarbonisation. Whilst of course they're integrated, they are separate things. Certainly, I read something in the press this week that made me think that people are starting to put the things together. And, as I said, there's obviously integration, but I think we do need to make sure that we keep them separate when we're looking at specific issues. 

You asked about what additional things we've done. We've allocated over £20 million for an air quality fund and takes us through to 2021. That is helping us to accelerate compliance with nitrogen dioxide limits and improve air quality across Wales.