6. Debate on a Member's Legislative Proposal: Electric Vehicle Charge Points

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:01 pm on 5 February 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Rhun ap Iorwerth Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid Cymru 4:01, 5 February 2020

To keep my answer short, electric vehicles are still more efficient than internal-combustion-engine-driven cars even if they're fuelled by electricity generated by fossil fuels, because they're more efficient. But you're absolutely right, of course: that's where we need to get to, that we're using clean electricity to drive the car. So it's a central point.

There's much that we need to do in Wales. I published this report along with my team member, Jamie Thomas, last year, looking at lessons from Scotland, and there's so much that we can learn from what they did in Scotland. They took this seriously years ago. They put measures in place through central Scottish Government, and through local councils such as Dundee, in order to drive that culture change, and there are so many questions for Welsh Government to look at. What incentives can people be given to make the switch? Who can they work in partnership with to make ULEVs more attractive to people? How will the benefits of ULEVs be communicated to people? How can Wales innovate and normalise in the ULEV field? How can we control things centrally, as they've done in Scotland, in having a central, publicly owned hub to which data from private companies are fed in so that they know how people in Scotland are behaving in relation to electric vehicles?

So, this is another important piece of legislation being proposed by David Melding. I hope the Government really run with this.