If my esteemed colleague would just hold on a few more moments, I will develop that a little bit more. But, what you have just said absolutely reinforces our call for a clean air Bill, because those are the kinds of discussions that we as an Assembly, within all our committees and taking appropriate evidence from people, could actually start to boil down—how far can we push it, where do we lead, what are the promises, what's the stick, where's the carrot, how does it work?

Because it is down to us. The vast majority of these pollutants are man-made and the rising levels are our choices. We must accept that our decisions, the ones we make when undertaking those car journeys or those foreign holidays or whatever, do have an impact on the quality of air that we breathe. I'm not advocating that we should legislate to reduce car usage, but I am saying we should all consider how we make use of our cars, and that means that public transport has to step up and we need to reduce our car usage and improve our public transport usage.

A simple solution, and here's one thing that we could put in our clean air Bill, would be to reduce the pollution in some of our cities and towns by encouraging local authorities to enforce current bye-laws around idling cars, by which I mean cars that are parked up and leave their engines running for an unreasonable period of time. We've all seen it, there's a range of people who do this kind of thing. We know it, we've probably done it ourselves. There's evidence that for every £1 invested in tackling this problem by a local authority, there is a return of over £4. I'd like to urge the Welsh Government to look at how this issue could be better addressed, because this would be a quick and simple win.   

The Welsh Government have often hidden behind the environmental arguments when it comes to their reluctance in going ahead with the M4 upgrade, but the counter argument conveniently ignored is that for several hours each day that motorway around Newport is blocked with vehicles stationary or travelling at very slow speeds—the same problem—pumping pollutants into the atmosphere. The Government also seems to think that investing in electric vehicle infrastructure will help solve the problem of emissions, but it doesn't address the whole issue. Whilst such vehicles do not produce the same levels of greenhouse gases, they still emit particle matter pollutants, and 45 per cent of those pollutants, as I said earlier, are from brake and tyre dust. What we need to focus on is fewer cars rather than newer cars. We need to be looking—you need to be looking—at how we get people off the road and expand those public transport networks.

The health risks associated with poor air quality are very well known. There is an exacerbation of existing cardiovascular diseases and an increased risk of asthma and lung cancer. Children, as I think Huw Irranca-Davies already mentioned, are particularly vulnerable. The effects of the pollution that they're taking in today will be seen into the future. They tend to breathe faster than adults and their lungs are still growing. Air pollution exposure during pregnancy is linked with low birth weight and premature birth. Children are smaller so they're often much lower and are therefore nearer. In their little pushchairs, they're being pushed up and down the pavements and they're breathing in all those exhaust fumes.

According to Asthma UK, the number of people dying from an asthma attack in 2018 increased by 8 per cent from the previous year. And 33 per cent—over a third—more people are dying since 2008 because of this. Furthermore, in the elderly population, poor air quality can have a detrimental effect on existing conditions. Chronic exposure to elevated levels of air pollution has been correlated to incidences of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic bronchitis, asthma and emphysema.

Pollutant-attributed mortality is significantly higher in urban areas compared to rural areas and there is a deprivation gradient, with the most deprived areas having the highest nitrogen dioxide concentrations and pollutant-attributed mortality. It is interesting and sad to note that, according to the British Lung Foundation's 'Toxic air at the door of the NHS' report in 2018, two Cardiff hospitals and more than half of the city's GP surgeries report particulate matter levels above the World Health Organization guidelines. Preventable deaths due to respiratory disease in the most deprived areas of Wales run at over 60 per cent in men and 66 per cent in women, compared to only 11 per cent in both the sexes if you happen to live in a nice leafy suburb or out in the country. A shocking statistic, wildly unfair and leads yet further to the inequalities in society.

It is not just respiratory conditions that air pollution has an effect on, but also circulatory conditions. British Heart Foundation research has found that even short-term inhalation of elevated concentrations of particulate matter increases the risk of a heart attack within the first 24 hours of exposure. Studies have also found that particulates in diesel exhausts exacerbate the disease atherosclerosis—gosh, it's my day for saying difficult words today, isn't it?—more commonly referred to as a build-up of fat around the arteries. Globally, it is estimated that 80 per of deaths attributed to air pollution are from cardiovascular disease.

Now, Minister, I have set out much of the background here as to why we urgently need to tackle poor air quality and just want to touch on what action we are going to ask you to take. As a party, we welcome the direction of travel the Welsh Government is going in when tackling air pollution and air quality, but we do call on you to go much further. In June 2019, the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs told the Chamber that clean air is central to our well-being, and I call on her to consider this statement when you consider our motion today.

The UK Conservative Government has set out an ambitious plan to reduce levels of particulate matter by 30 per cent next year and by 46 per cent by 2030, cutting the costs of air pollution to society by £5.3 billion every year from 2030. And our motion today calls on the Welsh Government to follow this lead. The UK Government's clean air strategy works in tandem with the clean growth strategy and the 25-year environmental plan creates a holistic approach to cleaning the UK's air and improving all of our health. But we think you've dragged your feet on sufficiently reducing emissions in Wales. Here, emissions increased by 5 per cent between 2015 and 2016 and, on average, between 2009 and 2016, by another 1.4 per cent per year, whilst throughout the UK emissions reduced by 5 per cent. We want this clean air Bill. We do think that we would like to have very clear ideas of what it could do. We do think that we could get to it by cohesive cross-party working together on a good Bill that would tackle this awful and very difficult problem.

I just want to very quickly turn to the amendments. We're delighted and very grateful for Plaid Cymru's amendment. We are supporting it. I do want to make one point, which is that we really need to encourage the manufacturers of the technology to keep pace with our political ambition, because we want to have these 2030 targets, but we need them to step up to the plate and really make it happen. And, as for the Government, I have to say that the Government amendment, a 'delete all', is so unhelpful for a discursive debate and it does go against the spirit of co-operation that we look to see on such an important global issue. I look forward to hearing everyone's contributions today to see how we can work together to deliver better, cleaner air for the people of Wales.