Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:48 pm on 21 September 2022.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 1:48, 21 September 2022

Excellent. Mission accomplished, in that case.

I don't know where to begin, really. First of all, there has been no imposition of 20 mph speed limits. The Senedd agreed by overwhelming majority at the beginning of the summer to change the default speed limit. It's entirely within the power of local highways authorities to make exceptions to that. And by the way, that process only happened with the support of Conservative Members in the Senedd. It was Conservative Members who voted to set up the process of a taskforce for 20 mph; it was Conservative Members in the last Senedd who voted to bring this policy forward. There's a picture circulating of Andrew R.T. Davies with Rod King on—[Interruption.] Natasha Asghar is now distancing herself from the leader of the Welsh Conservative group, but very clearly, this would not have happened had it not been for the support of Conservative Members. We are now following through on that and this Senedd has democratically voted to take it forward, giving the full power to local authorities to set their own speed limits under the exceptions criteria. So, that's simply false and erroneous and misleading and disingenuous.

In terms of electric vehicles, of course, we want people to switch to electric vehicles. I've switched to an electric car and I must say, it's a pleasant experience. But the UK Climate Change Committee are very clear: we're not going to achieve net zero by switching to electric vehicles. Again, that is another false point not based on fact or evidence. And I know that the Member's speeches are often fact-free zones, but they need to have some tethering to reality. We clearly need to reduce the amount of journeys we make, and we have a target of a 10 per cent reduction in car journeys. Of those journeys we do make, we need to make more of them by public transport, and of the journeys that can only be made by car—and there are a minority of journeys that can only be made by car—we want them to be done as quickly as possible by electric vehicles. I pay credit to the UK Government for setting an ambitious target for stopping sales of petrol vehicles by the end of the decade. It was a bold and innovative move of theirs, which I support wholly. But I'm afraid yet again the Conservative benches are not willing to follow the evidence on following through their commitment to achieving net zero. I ask again: if every single thing we announce you're opposed to, what's your alternative?