4. Statement by the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs: Delivering a Low Carbon Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:46 pm on 25 June 2019.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 3:46, 25 June 2019

Thank you very much, Minister, for your statement. I'm interested in the fact you state quite openly that the Government—there are certain matters beyond your control. So, the Aberthaw power station is obviously—we can't close it; we have to wait for the UK Government to do the right thing. But it's great to hear that we already have 48 per cent of our energy from renewable sources, and clearly it'd be fantastic to see many more community-led projects. 

I'm keen to understand how the Government plans to encourage uptake of low-emissions vehicles, because every time I escape to go on holiday I need to go up the A470 and I need to be able to get back from north Wales. There are lots of good locations along the A470 for putting in electric vehicle charging points, but to my knowledge there aren't any at the moment, which means I simply can't rely on this mode of transport and am unable to invest in an electric vehicle. I'm also very glad to see that Wales is not going to clean up our act in this country by dumping it on poor countries, offshoring our emissions. I think this is absolutely crucial.

I think, in relation to horticulture, Brexit sharpens our attention as to where we're going to source our vegetables and fruit that we currently import, and I'm not terribly keen to be hearing that fresh veg is going to be substituted by tinned and frozen vegetables, but that's better than nothing. But we clearly need to be growing more of our own. In the cross-party group on food, we heard that Castell Howell, which is obviously one of the main distributors of food, only source 18 per cent of their supplies from Welsh producers. So, I think there's a lot we can do to reduce our food miles, both in relation to food security issues posed by Brexit and the threat of a 'no deal', but also just in order to clean up our act. If we have food produced locally, we're obviously going to be using a lot less carbon. So, I just wondered if the Government could say a little bit more about how we're going to do that.