2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:39 pm on 14 January 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 2:39, 14 January 2020

I'd like to raise two issues, Trefnydd. One is looking at the ways of tackling the disastrous air pollution that certainly my constituency suffers from. One of the ways we can do that is by accelerating the switch to clean cars. And we know that a shortage of charging or refuelling points make people nervous about switching to electric or hydrogen vehicles, but we know that 10 new electric charging points are being installed every day across the UK. Nevertheless, one Cardiff car dealer told me there were no hydrogen refuelling points in Wales, and the nearest one was in Swindon, when I know that that is simply inaccurate. If we have that difficulty amongst people who are supposed to be advising people on what the best buy is, I feel we need to rectify that. For example, I'm aware that we are in the vanguard on hydrogen from renewables, due to research done at the University of South Wales, and they've installed a charging point for hydrogen at Baglan. At least one company based in Llandrindod that is pioneering hydrogen vehicles has installed another one in Abergavenny. So, I wondered if we could have a statement from the Welsh Government as to how Wales is not being left behind in this revolution and how we're ensuring that we are continuing to grow a Welsh network of both electric and hydrogen vehicle refuelling/recharging points in order to build on the expertise we already have in Wales on the technologies of the future.

Secondly, I was disturbed to read yesterday that counter-terrorism police are classifying Extinction Rebellion as an extremist organisation, putting it on a par with far-right or religious extremists. So, can the Welsh Government confirm that it will instruct schools not to refer young people who are concerned about the climate emergency to the discredited Prevent programme as if they were a security risk, because I think this is absolutely the opposite to what we should be encouraging young people to do?