3. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: The Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:02 pm on 21 March 2023.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:02, 21 March 2023

Yes, thank you, Jenny. So, as I said, we have a national strategy, but we have a locally delivered and local plan, and in some cases, actually, a regional plan, where obviously Cardiff and its hinterland will need to work together, as will other cities across Wales. It's a bit more of a complicated piece. This isn't a stand-alone Act; I can't emphasise that enough. So, the national air quality strategy is established across three separate pieces of primary legislation. So, that's the Environment Act 1995, the Environment Act 2021 and this Bill. So, it's quite important that people understand that this doesn't stand alone. It is amending the other legislation to bring it up to date and to stiffen the duties therein. So, I think that's quite an important point there. 

We do expect local authorities—. We will issue statutory guidance to the local authorities, and we do expect them to follow it. We are assisting them with resource, and then we expect them to produce their own air and soundscape plans—separately or together; the Bill deliberately allows them to do them together, if it's suitable to do that. And then that will target a range of ambient air quality.

The issue around particulate matter—I know Delyth brought it up as well—is a complex one. We don't have a safe level of particulate matter, we just need to get it down as low as possible. Zero would be great. So, there isn't a safe level. So, what we want to do is to clean up the air as much as we possibly can, and we want to have a Bill—I think Janet did make this point—that's suitable onwards into the future. So, we don't put it on the face of the Bill, we have regulations that allow us to upgrade the target as more data becomes available and, frankly, more ways of cleaning the air become available to us. So, we will expect quite a bit from our local authorities in putting the plans together.

And then the point you make about the kinds of noise and the kinds of emissions that we're looking at, that would be expected to be included in the local authority plan for that and what they do about it. So, you'll know already that deliveries are restricted to particular times of day, for example, idling vehicles should not be permitted, all that kind of stuff. So, we would expect each local authority to have a fit-for-purpose-for-its-own-area plan, and then that will sit inside a national strategy that will pull it all together. We have given ourselves powers to enforce that, but actually I can't imagine they'll ever be used. We work very well with our local authorities in this regard, and they're very anxious to do the right thing too.

So, I think this is a huge step forward for Wales. I'm glad we've been able to put the soundscapes stuff into it as well, because that actually is just as important in many areas of Wales. And just to make the last point, we know that it really enhances mental health for people to be able to hear the sounds of the natural world, so if you can get the ambient noise down so that you can hear the dawn chorus, we know that that really helps people. So, it's really important to do that. It might seem ephemeral but it really isn't.