Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:27 pm on 2 December 2020.
No, don't do that; don't think twice about this. Delighted with the report and the wide-ranging recommendations, some of which I'll turn to in a moment, but I also want to go a bit further as well and see what the committee thinks, what Russell thinks, and also the Minister on some other proposals as well to do with decarbonisation in Wales.
First of all, delighted to see the proposals around recommendation 3, around pop-up measures and the support for those adaptations to promote active travel. Russell and I are both members of the active travel group, and it's been interesting to see those innovations not just in the well-publicised ones in Cardiff, but including in places like Bridgend and elsewhere. I'd be interested in the thoughts of the committee going forward in how those can not only be embedded, but they can also form part of work going forward, where, increasingly, we can pilot temporary ideas of pop-up measures, not to do with COVID, but simply to see if they work in our different environments and different communities. If they do work and if they're popular, then keep them. This is what they do in Sweden. This is what they're doing elsewhere. They try these things, and if people like them and go, 'Do you know? We quite like a quieter environment around the shops. We quite like the idea that we can walk and cycle rather than have traffic fumes everywhere', then they say, 'Right, we'll now make them stay.' So, I like recommendation 3, but I think we might even be able to go further.
On recommendations 11 and 12 on freight, really welcome the focus you've brought to that, Russell and the committee. I'm interested whether or not you looked at the potential of the south Wales railway line to actually really shift some freight onto that, and particularly in terms of delivery in and out of city centres, you know, this last mile thing. Now, that would require some significant investment in depos of old style, where you could actually offload at ports, you could bring stuff down the rail, and then you drive that last mile or two, or you put it onto whatever sort of transport to get it into the city centres. There is real scope and there is expertise in the rail industry to deliver this. I'd like to see Welsh Government thinking about that as part of its decarbonisation going forward, and perhaps setting the standard within Wales for what we could do with pushing freight onto rail. It sounds like an old Victorian approach—actually not. You can now do it with pallet deliveries, where they're straight roll-on, roll-off, the same as they are at ports.
But the thing I really want to touch on is the recommendations 14 and 15 around Cardiff Airport. Now, let me say, right at the outset, I'm a big supporter of Cardiff Airport, I'm a big supporter of actually having investment into not just the airport, but having people from Wales, and particularly south and mid Wales, and from Bristol, flying from that airport. But we do also have to deal, even though it's not a devolved issue, with decarbonisation of aviation. We really have to do it. And I'd just be interested in testing the committee's thoughts, Russell's thoughts, Ministers' thoughts on where we go with this. Now, there's plenty of talk about sustainable aviation. I used to lecture on it 20 years ago. We've been talking about this for years—sustainable aviation fuel, more economic flights et cetera, et cetera. Slowly, gradually, the technology is moving onwards, but at a very slow place. And, in fact, this year, on sustainable aviation fuel itself, it took a step backwards, in the year that we are approaching COP26. But I think we should be looking at other ideas.
We know, from a recent report that came out, that 1 per cent of the super wealthy—the super, super, super wealthy—in the world, actually fly half of the flights, contribute half of the emissions of aviation. This isn't somebody outside my office, living in a flat above the shops, going on one flight a year to Malaga. These are people who are doing the equivalent of three long-haul flights a year, or one short-haul flight every single month of the year. Now, we have to think about this and how we use Cardiff Airport to actually say to people, 'Yes, let's do the equality issues for this as well, so, if you need your short hop flight, that's the place to go. If you need your long one, once every while—.' But I think I'd be interested in the Welsh Government's position, running up to COP26, on where we are on things like levies for those super-duper travellers who just spend money like there's no tomorrow and also burn up our emissions as well.
Finally, I would say, in welcoming this report, and looking forward to the Government's report, I think we've just seen a real good example of decarbonisation in practice, because the Government's response to the Burns proposals have not said, 'Build more roads', they've said, 'Shift the modal shift off there; let's throw the money at other things and encourage people', like me, 'not to use their cars, but to travel by other means.' Diolch yn fawr iawn, Russell, and everybody who's contributed. It's a good report.