6. How will the Welsh Government work with local councils to tackle air pollution? OQ57721

Thank you. We've recently launched a local air-quality management support fund to help authorities tackle air pollution, and have awarded over £350,000 for this financial year. The grant supports action on the ground and we'll continue to work collaboratively with local authorities to deliver cleaner air for Wales.

Thank you for that, Minister. It is crucially important that we get our policies to tackle air pollution right, given the effect on public health, respiratory conditions and other health conditions and, of course, the effect on our environment. And I think these problems are particularly acute in our more disadvantaged communities. So, the sooner we get practical policies in place that are going to make a real difference the better. And I think one example of that is the conversion of our taxi fleets to electric vehicles or certainly more environmentally friendly fuels. And I just wonder, within the money that's been made available, Minister, that you describe and the joint working between Welsh Government and local authorities, to what extent there's an assessment of the state of readiness of our local authorities to make these practical improvements and to work with them to make those positive differences as quickly as possible. Because it really is an urgent problem for our communities, and the sooner we get these practical improvements in place, the sooner public health and our environment will benefit. 

We already are working on practical improvements. The example in Newport of free bus travel for the month of March is a perfect example of a practical scheme to trial something to see what impact it has, to see whether or not the cost of it is justified by the benefits of it, to see what the uptake is, to understand what the barriers are, to further inform our work as we look to achieve modal shift. There are further practical examples in Newport on active travel, with the Burns delivery unit and the independent board chaired by Simon Gibson to deliver the Burns plan—and we saw the interim report of the Burns board recently, and I met John Griffiths and his colleague from Newport West in Newport to discuss it—where we are seeing significant work on a pipeline of schemes for Newport now, which will result in very large investment for the city for active travel. So, I think there are two examples there of practical schemes already under way. 

John Griffiths also mentions what we can do to encourage taxis to convert to electric vehicles and, as he knows, we currently have a pilot of a 'try before you buy' scheme in the Cardiff capital region, in Pembrokeshire and in Denbighshire, to incentivise taxi drivers to try electric vehicles with a view to them then buying them. We're going to be evaluating that to decide whether or not that is the best use of our scarce resource, given the way the market is already moving; it is already competitive to buy an electric car versus a new petrol car. And we'll be evaluating those projects and taking a further view of what other practical schemes we can do, as we develop our clean air plan and bring forward legislation.