Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 10 March 2021.
If leadership is having 'several discussions', to quote what you just told me in answer, I mean, crikey, you've had 10 years' worth of several discussions, Minister, as a Government, and you've gone from leading the UK on this agenda to playing catch-up. Those aren't the actions of a Government that's taking the plastics crisis seriously. And you can ask your own constituents, because I know of a group—the Wrexham Litter Pickers—who recently collected over 1,000 bags of rubbish and plastic waste, underlining again the need for more urgency on this matter.
Now, I could point to other areas of your responsibility where you've not produced the goods. We know about the clean air Act. That's something Plaid Cymru has been advocating for many, many years—something you eventually agreed with us is necessary, but still a painfully slow response from the Government means, once again, that you haven't delivered, and it's going to take a new Government and a new Senedd to finally get this life-saving legislation in place.
But I have to say, maybe the biggest disappointment for me is your failure to ensure the highest standards of energy efficiency in new homes. I remember, six or seven years ago, Labour passed new standards to be incorporated in the Part L building regulations. Now, Plaid Cymru called at the time for higher energy efficiency standards. You voted that down, insisting on more modest standards, but you did so—Labour did so—saying that you'd address that in this Senedd. And now, of course, we know that, six years later, you failed to do so, and with that failure, of course, you've locked in the higher level of energy inefficiency in new Welsh homes that a future Government will have to address through retrofitting and other costly interventions in years to come. So, why is it that this Labour Government has broken its word on so many of these issues? And, frankly, why should the people of Wales believe anything you say in future, given your failure to deliver on your promises?