Finance Committee

Gwnawn ni symud ymlaen i eitem 2, papurau i'w nodi.

The papers to note, item 2. I propose that we note all these papers, unless anybody wants to raise anything about any of these papers. We've had a raft of them in over the Easter break, and quite a few are dealing with things that we were dealing with and the draft budget and the scrutiny we did before Easter.

We'll move on to our substantive item today, which is item 3, the Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill, and the evidence session with the Minister. Croeso, Minister. I wonder if you could introduce yourself and your officials for the record, please.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. It's really lovely to be here. I'm Julie James. I'm the Minister for Climate Change with responsibility for the air quality and soundscapes Bill. I'll let my officials introduce themselves. Olwen.

Hi. I'm Olwen Spiller. I'm deputy head of the environmental protection division, and I have policy responsibility for the air quality and soundscapes Bill.

And Roger.

Roger Herbert. I'm head of the air quality monitoring and evidence team within the environmental protection division.

Gwych. Diolch yn fawr. Croeso cynnes iawn i chi y bore yma.

We've got quite a lot of ground to cover, and thanks for your time this morning. I'd like to start by understanding the overall costs and the savings of the Bill and how the explanatory memorandum and regulatory impact assessment were developed. There are some unknown costs associated with the Bill, and while you're consulting on some of the proposals, you haven't consulted directly on a draft Bill. How have you engaged with stakeholders that could incur costs due to these proposals, and how have you ensured that the costs presented in the RIA provide a comprehensive picture of the financial implications of the Bill?

Diolch, Cadeirydd. This has been quite a complicated thing to do. We've engaged with a very wide range of stakeholders across the piece, local authorities in particular, but a wide range of other stakeholders, including the cross-party group and an enormous range of other people with an interest. This is a Bill that's been a long time coming, and it's very much part of our clean air overall landscape, so it's not a Bill that should be considered to be a Bill to do everything—it's very much part of a landscape of Bills.

So, the regulatory impact assessment has been done in that light, and we haven't had any responses or feedback to the draft regulatory impact assessment that was included in the White Paper, so that's interesting in itself, because we had a lot of responses to that. We will continue to engage, though, as the Bill goes through. Part of the problem that we've got about the unknown costs is because the Bill is set up as a framework Bill, effectively, which allows us to put specific targets into regulations, and some of the costs associated with that will depend on what the targets are. So, that's a little bit of an unknown quantity, but I'm happy to pass on to either Olwen or Roger if you want very specific things about stakeholder engagement or why those costs are—

That might come out later as we're going through, but it's interesting that you say that it's a framework Bill, because it's a little bit more substantive than some of our framework Bills that have been coming through. Just as something that's of an interest to this committee, how do you think that this committee should scrutinise a framework Bill when we don't actually get a lot of the detail until later, and from a Minister's point of view, how do you think that that would work?

So, from our point of view, what we're trying to do is estimate what the cost will be to people who have to implement the regulations that come out of the Bill in terms of targets. So, hence the work with local authorities around things like the cost of a clean air zone or an emission zone. So, I'm sure that the committee will be able to take evidence as well from those stakeholders, and that, by the time we get to the other end of this process, we will have done even more work with those stakeholders; we will have a better idea of what various targets might look like in terms of cost.

But we think we've covered off that in terms of the amount of money that we've put aside. So, we've made very educated guesstimates of what that might look like, it's just that they're not firm enough for us to put a figure to it. And I know you're not here to talk about the policy, but we don't want to put the targets on the face of the Bill, because we want to be able to improve those targets over time. So, I don't want to have to come back with primary legislation every time we want to lower the targets and have even better air quality. So, that's why it's done in that way. It's not a complete framework Bill, I should row back instantly and say to you, there's a lot of detail in here. But, just in terms of the targets themselves, that's the way it's structured, and the cost of implementing this is very much tied up with what the targets are, to some extent. But either of the officials can tell you a little bit about the calculation that's been done to try and cover that off.

Okay, thank you. You note the Public Health England estimate for the cost of pollutants on the NHS and social care system in England as £1.6 billion between 2017 and 2025. Maybe you could expand on what work you've done to estimate the cost of pollutants on public services in Wales, and what impact this will have on the Bill's costs.

Yes. So, again, some of the complication of this is tied up with what data we have, and, I'm afraid, the impacts of COVID on that data. So, obviously, the most recent years that we would have data for are COVID years, and we all know that they are skewed. So, we know that the data coming out of those isn't the same as it was before, and, also, COVID has significantly impacted, actually, on travel patterns. And, Chair, you will have heard me talking about the change in travel patterns, and you will have heard my deputy, Lee Waters, talking about that. And, obviously, that is also changing what we're trying to do with the Bill, because a lot of the emissions that we're looking at are from traffic. So, that has an impact as well.

So, we're trying to improve our understanding of the burden of air quality control on public authorities in Wales, because that's really what we're looking at, and that's part of the evidence we've commissioned to get a sort of cost-benefit analysis of the various options. So, when we come back with the regulations, we'll be able to put more detail onto that as the specific regulations go through. And, then, Public Health Wales is a really key partner in supporting the development of these proposals, and they've provided us with a lot of advice and support, and, again, either of the officials can talk to you in any detail you like, really, about the interaction with Public Health Wales, which has been extensive.

Maybe if we hear from either Olwen or Roger around what that work has entailed—I'm conscious of time, but, obviously, if you could be brief—and on some of the things that we're talking about in this first section.

I'm going to hand you to Roger on this one, because he's leading the work on this.

Oh, Roger, fine. You were looking at me, that's all. [Laughter.]

I never know which one either, Chair. [Laughter.]

Okay. Well, they provide ad hoc support to us, but we have the clean air advisory panel that we set up, an independent group of experts, and they provide advice through that in terms of how we're going about assessing interventions such as targets and broader policy development. So, there's been a fair amount of engagement through that, and advising how we take that process through into its full development and commission the work with consultants, and, then, also engage with the UK Health Security Agency.

Thank you. You've talked a lot about targets, and anybody who's listened to me in different places talking about targets knows that I'm a fan of targets as a way of improvement. I'm getting the sense from you, Minister, that you're probably in the same space as me, because some Ministers are shy of targets. So, is it something that you think is a way of improvement rather than as a stick to beat people with?

So, in this particular instance, for sure, it's an improvement tool. So, what we want to do is—. Well, we want to do a number of things. We want to be able to set a target that is stretching but achievable; I'm not a fan of targets where everybody goes, 'We'll never get to that', because people just give up. So, we need to have an achievable but stretching target. We need to have a target that can change according to the evidence that we have. The Bill sets out a duty to set a target for PM2.5, but an ability to set targets for other things. The reason for that is that the science is changing and the monitoring equipment is changing. So, we want to be able to do that, but we definitely want to do PM2.5—that's the one that everyone is most concerned about. And, we want, as I say, that to be stretching and achievable.

We also want to make sure that we're able to take account of scientific advancements in monitoring and in what expectations look like. So, as, for example, other elements come in, so speed controls, emissions controls on vehicles idling outside schools, controls and all that kind of thing, then it may be that the target could be lowered quite rapidly and be much more achievable. So, I don't want to come away from that; we want to be able to do that. I also want the Senedd to be able to scrutinise that. So, the regulations will be brought forward, and I'm sure that all the committees will recommend this, but we're very happy to bring it forward as superaffirmative, and I really want for any Government to have their feet held to the fire about those targets being substantive.

There are a number of things that we also need to take into account that are difficult to do, and that's part of the question you just asked me. So, what are the health improvement effects? So, what are the savings for the health service and what are the improvements to life expectancy, and so on? Because of COVID in particular, those are difficult, but they were estimates anyway. So, those are quite difficult to quantify, but we know they're there. So, we'll also be working on data coming out of that. So, we know that everyone's life expectancy will be improved by better air quality, but some people's life expectancy will be improved much more, and we think that some people with specific illnesses will have less need to go to hospital, and so on. So, we've worked very closely with the cross-party group and a number of other people with an interest in this. But, it benefits everyone, of course. But those things, I'm afraid, are well known but very hard to put a specific figure on, and that's why we're sort of hesitant, a bit.

Thank you. I'll move on to Peter.

Thank you. Good morning, Minister. I want to, through my questions, just explore the costs associated with setting those targets and promoting the awareness of air pollution. We know that the single largest cost identified and the significant range of costs is to do with the monitoring capabilities that are going to need to be put in place, and there is a significant range there. Could you give us a bit more information on circumstances that might push us to the higher part of that range, and perhaps an indication of how likely you think that might be?

So, again, this is all about how we get the data in in the first place and then how we use the data to set the targets. So, the Bill requires us to put in place arrangements to collect that data, and that's really important because one of the problems we've had all the way through this process is that we don't have the data necessary. So, that will be used—. The data then that's collected as part of the duty on us to put that in place will be used to assess progress towards the targets and to assess whether the targets are realistic, achievable, or to be improved, and so on. We've got technical consultants—and, again, officials can tell you much more about this than I—who will develop indicative costings for enhanced monitoring network arrangements, and I must say that I've had lots of discussions with the officials about exactly how that works. And in the end, you've got to say, 'Well, if we spend this much, we'll get this', and, 'If we spend that much, we'll get this'. I mean, it's very difficult otherwise to do it. I mean, you can spend as much as you like, is the answer. You could monitor every single street corner, but obviously we aren't proposing that.

So, what we've done is we've tried to give you examples of arrangements that might be in place. So, the example that I've discussed with the officials a lot is that an enhanced air quality monitoring network for PM2.5 would cost about £10.4 million to install, and recurrent costs of up to £3.6 million. But that depends, doesn't it, on what we mean by an enhanced air quality monitoring system. And then, for further pollutants, if you want to put more monitoring equipment in, then obviously the costs increase, because the monitoring equipment has to be able to measure whatever it is that you're looking for in the air. So, apologies; I mean, this is a difficult conversation to have in the Finance Committee, but they are just—. We know how much an air quality monitoring station costs, so it depends how many we put in. And then that's a little bit driven by what we think the target should be. But the duty to collect the data is one of the most important parts of the Bill, and that drives some of the cost as well.

I recognise it's difficult to identify actual costs, but perhaps, then, could you elaborate on the functions and costs involved in delivering that sort of service?

That's Roger as well.

In terms of the functions, I think the Minister mentioned the upfront capital costs, the upfront investment. The instruments are quite specialised in order to monitor different pollutants, and they'd need to be put in the right places to represent whatever target metrics are developed. Then there's the ongoing maintenance cost for the monitors. There's also the data quality checking, quality assurance, quality control procedures, and there's the publication costs of the data and data repository, data handling costs. And obviously, then, there's the analysis costs, which are all rolled into that recurrent cost.

What sort of period do you base those costings over, the lifetime costs? Because there's obviously a recurring cost.

They're an annual—. You've got the upfront capital cost, then the monitors last as long as they can. It would be dependent on the instruments that are procured and how well they're maintained. It's difficult to say for those. In terms of recurrent cost, they're an annual cost.

And the burden for those ongoing costs falls to the Government.

Yes. We may pass those on to local authorities, but we will be paying for that. Local authorities or the highway authority, for example, might actually run them for us, but we'll be paying for it. Just to say, Peter, there's an additional complication, because there's a possible Barnett consequential coming from proposals in England. We have asked the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for further information on their proposals to fund additional PM 2.5 monitoring duties in England under the Environment Act 2021. That's what I was looking for in my notes, Chair, sorry. We don't know yet whether we will get consequential funding from that; we've asked the question. If we do, then we will take as many steps as we can to seek to ring-fence that. But, as you know, consequentials that come to the Welsh Government are not necessarily used for the same thing. I just wanted you to be aware that there's a similar move going on in England. They have some data that we're interested in as well, and there may or may not be a consequential flowing from that.

Thanks for that.

Peter, before you move on, if I could ask a question about the data. Again, you've talked a lot about data, and as somebody who studied systems engineering and data, I'm a bit of a fan of data as well. What conversations have you had across Government with the health Minister, and with others, to make sure that the data you collect around air quality matches up and can be used, then, to look at health outcomes and that sort of thing, so that it actually makes sense across the piece, rather than just, 'Oh, the air quality's brilliant, but we can't tell you if it's helping people's COPD' or whatever it might be? What conversations have you had? Is there going to be an agency that brings this data together?

We do have those discussions right across the Government. The officials have a working group that works right across the Government on that. I mean, obviously it's in our interests, isn't it, to be able to say that the measures that we spend on air quality are improving the health of our citizens, and we very much want to do that. We're very keen to make sure that vulnerable settings are particularly monitored. I'm sure the committee will come on to the anti-idling things at some point; certainly, the policy committee was very interested in that. We're very interested in understanding what the measures will do around vulnerable settings—so, care homes, schools, hospitals and so on. That's part of what we're trying to do. I think it's you, Olwen, who does the cross-Government stuff.

Would that data be held by your department? It's more of the 'how' and the mechanisms of collecting that data and making sure that it's shareable and monitorable.

It's a bit of a combination approach around that. Like the Minister said, we link with the UK Government and the networks they operate for the UK, so we'd have that link in there. We also sit on a number of UK panels, and health panels as well link to this as well. Roger has oversight over a clean air advisory panel, so you've got the data from there, but also we're linked in to health protection advisory groups as well, we're linked in with the active travel boards, and we're also linked in with the national delivery groups for the transport strategy as well. We've created a delivery group internally to bring a lot of this together. A lot of the data is held centrally by the various teams, including the climate change team, for example, but we do have mechanisms where they input to what we're doing. We also sit on the other groups to make sure there is that shared understanding and it all comes together as a whole and links in and we're not duplicating as well, to a certain extent.

And then, from the finance point of view, how do you divvy out? Who pays for it?

We have a knowledge and advisory service in the Welsh Government as well, and they are very keen that the data we collect is useable and is as open source as possible, and so on. So, the head of—. I've forgotten his name now; digital something or other is the—. What's his name? I can't think of his title, but, anyway, he's the head of digital services in the Government, and they have knowledge and analytical services underneath. They are very stringent in their requirements on us about the sort of data we keep, what it's used for, and who has access to it. And that's across the piece on data. I've had many conversations with them over the time, and in fact, at one point, was the Minister responsible for them. I can assure you that they are very keen to understand what the data sets look like, make them as accessible as possible across the Government, and get the most out of them as well. They have statisticians whose job it is to make sure that it's collected in the most useable way and that we present it in the most useable way. And obviously, it's in our interest to do that anyway.

And then, just the last piece of that, which Olwen just touched on there, with one of my other hats on, obviously, I'm responsible for the carbon budgets across the Government as well, and across Wales. And obviously, part of air quality monitoring is monitoring other things, so we will be looking very carefully to see what we can get out of that. This Bill isn't aimed at that, but it will probably have additional information that will be useable elsewhere across the Government.

Thank you. Sorry, Peter, back to you.

Thank you. As we know, this is all very complex. Can you give us some assurances that you targeted the appropriate areas to ensure the best value for money, so that we know that we are pointing in the right direction, if you like?

Yes, absolutely, Peter. What we've tried to do is we've tried to express the costs as a range all the time, to make them understandable and to make you able to see the kinds of choices that would be made. Engagement costs for the development of the framework, for example, are a range, because we can conduct meetings and workshops virtually or physically, and, obviously, they cost very differently depending on that. What we're doing is a mix of those, so you're able to see in the costs set out what the range is and how we make those choices. We've tried to do that all the way through. It's impossible to say it as a single thing, for obvious reasons, but we've tried to be as open and transparent as possible, not least for our own use, to understand where on that sliding scale we are. We've put in front of you the top costs as well as the bottom—we're not trying to hide that—so you can see what we think it could be. To some extent, this will be constrained by how much money we have. We want to be able to enhance it where the money is available. I'm very keen to put in place a system that is more than adequate, but I would love to get it to 'excellent', so if we could get the money in, then we would be able to do that. We want a Bill that allows us to do that as well.

Could you give us an idea of what existing activity or infrastructure is already in place? How is that going to integrate into your proposals?

I don't know if you want to talk about the existing network, Olwen. Again, I'm sorry, but all of these things are just ridiculously complicated, really, Peter.

Yes, I know. I accept that.

Is that you, Olwen? Or is it Roger again?

There are existing air quality monitoring networks across Wales, as I'm sure you know, or you might be aware, and the rest of the UK, and monitoring is organised into networks depending on the specific purpose, the pollutants that are measured, why they're measured, and what you're trying to achieve. The largest network is the automatic urban and rural network that goes across the UK, a set of automatic monitors that measures hourly concentration of many common air pollutants that we have existing legislative targets for. For example, there are around 20 sites in Wales that measure levels of nitrogen dioxide in representative areas. There are fewer fine particulate matter—PM2.5—sites around, so more would be necessary for those if we set new targets there. And then separate to this, local authorities have many monitoring stations and samplers across Wales, although these measurements are subject to different standards, because they have different requirements, they have different objectives, and because they're trying to tackle local air quality as opposed to a national picture.

So they don't become obsolete—they'll integrate into the wider picture going forward, I suppose.

Yes. We'll have air quality monitoring stations that are much more specific for the targets that we set. They tend to be more general. They're all published, by the way, on our website. They all have publicly available information. My own constituency, as you all know, is the centre of Swansea, and I'm very familiar with the stations through there, and I'm very familiar with a number of citizens who are very keen to tell me what's happening with the outputs. It's very definitely publicly available, and we have a very definite group of citizen scientists who are very keen to look at it and are very actively engaged in it. I have a number of people in my constituency who have been very helpful over the years in highlighting what's going on.

I know you're not here to look at the policy, but there's a real social justice issue here as well, because of, interestingly—. Apologies for using my own constituency for a moment, but the way that the air works in Swansea is it comes along the coastal plain and then it goes up and sits on top of what's called Townhill. So, middle-class and higher socioeconomic brackets live along the coast and towards the west, and lower socioeconomic brackets live on top of a hill. The emissions caused by the higher socioeconomic people are directly affecting the lower, so there's a really serious social justice issue here. Actually making people understand that that's what's happening, and that their behaviour is causing that, is part of what we're trying to do, to drive some of the changes.

Moving on, then, the monetised cost of dealing with the impacts of particulates you've assessed at around £950 million. It's a significant figure, and I know, Minister, you said earlier that a lot of these figures are guesstimates, but that is such a substantial one that justifies so much of what this is about. Could you give us an idea of how that might have been built, and how effective do you really think the Bill will be in mitigating some of that cost?

Say the number again that you were quoting at me.

Nine hundred and thirty million pounds is what it's suggested the impact of particulates is on the health agenda. I'm assuming there was quite a lot of evidence—medical evidence, I suppose—that has underpinned that.

I suppose one of the problems we've got is what I was talking about in terms of the data, isn't it? We know that it affects people, we know that it has a very substantive effect on people, but unfortunately we don't have the data to drive the exact cost-benefit of that, and so one of the things we've done is we've done an estimate of that. We know how many people who have those kinds of respiratory illnesses there are in Wales, for example; we broadly know where they are, and so on. We've done an estimate of that, and then we'll underpin that when we put the regulations in place. A lot of what we're doing here is trying to get the data necessary to get a better cost-benefit analysis. As I say, we're working pretty closely with a range of stakeholders to do that—so, Public Health Wales and the clean air advisory panel that Roger is in charge of—but, you know, there's no getting away from the fact that we don't have the data necessary to just give you an answer to that.

No, no, I accept that. It's just such a large figure, I wondered what were the key things that, perhaps, public health had put forward, but I accept what you said, Minister.

Just on that, Peter, again, I can't emphasise this enough: this Bill is just part of a package of measures. So, there are other things in place as well to do that. This Bill is not intended to be able to do everything and be everything to everyone.

No, no, I understand. My last question, Chair: the RIA describes the analysis around targets as 'preliminary', with a detailed analysis to be carried out during the course of the development of secondary legislation. How much can we expect the costs to change between now and then, or is that difficult to assess?

Well, we think we've made a good estimate—that's the point. I don't want people to think we're just guessing here. These estimates are based on the data that we already have. They're good, professional estimates; they're not just a wet finger in the wind. So, we've done our best with that, but, obviously, we do expect them to change a bit. I would not expect them to change out of all proportion to what we're looking at here, because the estimates are good estimates based on the data that we've got.

They will, however, change, because, as the data comes in, we will know more about it. Then, as we put each regulation through to set the targets, we'll have a better position to give the committee at that point in time. As I say, I'm very keen that those regulations are affirmative procedure so that we can have a proper discussion of them. They will have their own impact assessments, their own consultation and their own set of data driving them. This Bill puts a duty on us to do that, and then the regulations will be consulted on, the targets will be consulted on and the data will be consulted on. Then, the committee will have a chance to have a really good look at that as well, because, again, I can't emphasise this enough: I want this to work. This isn't to make it look good; we want this to work. So, for the local authorities, the highway authorities and us, we have to have reliable monitoring so that we can actually drive these things down in our air.

The other thing is, Peter, that we have a number of other things that we're doing, some less popular than others, and, actually, we need this data to show people whether they work or not. So, we've reduced all of the speed limits on the motorways along the south Wales corridor, for example. That is not popular, let's be clear, but if you live in one of the hotspots there, it's very popular, because the air quality is quite visibly—literally visibly—affected by it. I would love to have the data properly to be able to show people the real effect of that, so that's what we're looking at, really.

The last thing to say on that is that that data also then drives whether the highway authority needs to put an emissions zone in place or whether the measures we've got in place are already effective, and we need the data to be able to drive that as well.

Thank you, Peter. I'll move on to Mike, if we could unmute Mike Hedges—lovely, thank you.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. You have budgeted £500,000 per annum for awareness raising in relation to air pollution, and you can work within that budget when you decide what to do. What I would like to ask you is: what about zero-cost work that can be done, actually making people aware of air pollution? If you talk to most of my constituents about air pollution, what they can see in the air, such as steam or the red oxide from Port Talbot, or smoke and other things, they can actually see that. But, most of the pollution that does the most damage is that which you cannot see—small particles that end up in your lungs. What can be done to try to get a media campaign to simply explain that it's not only those things that you can see, but most of it is damage from things you can't see?

Yes, Mike, I couldn't agree more, really, and that's exactly what I was just talking about in my own constituency. As you know—I know you've seen those figures as well—it's about making people understand that their actions affect others, not necessarily right where they are at the moment, but, you know, two miles down the road, where the air moves, and I think that's really important. So, we've done a number of things. We'll be having two big action categories. So, we'll have a big digital communications campaign, and we're also doing a lot of support for local initiatives in areas where we know that people need support for that. We're also really keen to support Clean Air Day and to develop a whole series of digital and physical resources to support local authorities, third sector organisations, schools, and other delivery partners to deliver those initiatives so that people do become aware of what we're doing, and the delivery plan for this Bill will include a large part of that.

So, in terms of this committee, we've got a budget that we think is sufficient to do the first bit of that piece of work. We've used the maximum cost within the ranges that we've done to calculate the £500,000 a year for that, and that's from 2024-25 onwards, because, obviously, by the time the Bill's gone through the Senedd, we'll be into the next financial year. I mean there'll be some variance, won't there, about how that works, but that's our estimate for it.

And a bit like the speed limits, really, and the way that emissions controls are changing on vehicles, that's a moving feast. Sorry for the pun. We'll have to keep an eye on that as the data comes in, and then educating people as to why it makes a real difference if you travel at the maximum efficiency of your engine and not very fast indeed, which is what the 50 mph limits are about, and how much difference that actually makes, is really important. And, again, we've got anti-idling provisions for outside schools; Mike, I know you've had that problem in your constituency.

So, it's a multipronged approach to a behavioural campaign, and, again, the Bill is not the only thing we're doing. So, we'll also be doing a whole series of behaviour change work around climate action and carbon budgets that will play into this space as well.

Thank you. I've got parents who think we ought to have drive-in schools so that their children can minimise the amount of walking they do after they get dropped off.

Just going back a stage, before what you were talking about there, it's actually getting people to realise that it's the things you can't see that are those that are most dangerous, not the things you can see. And that really does need not so much money, but it needs a media campaign. It needs to enthuse the media about it so that you can have the same effect as we had with microplastics, which people now realise that they can't see but they're there and they're dangerous. The same sort of thing is that you're breathing nitrogen oxides in; you can't see them, and we need to actually get people to realise that what you can't see is more dangerous than what you can.

I couldn't agree more, Mike. And, again, the behaviour change costs in the Bill are very much directed towards a campaign to do just that.

Sorry, Mike, if I can, on that, what work have you done with the education Minister, then, because, obviously, part of this is educating children to educate their parents, because it's in the nature of things that that happens? Is that something that's outside of this £500,000, but it's something that's may be picked up in the new curriculum, and that sort of thing?

Yes, that's right. And this is a direct public information campaign; it's not particularly directed at schools, although schools will be able to pick up information from this and put it onto Hwb, and so on. But we've had conversations with the education Minister across a range of things, not least the active travel measures, for example, in encouraging schools to encourage those behaviours. I know that there are some schools across Wales—not all schools, but some schools across Wales—who, for example, when taking a register in the morning, get each child to say how they arrived and allocate merit points depending on whether they had a form of active travel. Not to discriminate against children who have to come to school by car, by the way, merit points are given if you've persuaded your parent to park slightly further away from the school and walk the last 250 yards. I was very keen to say that, because, obviously, some children don't have a choice there. But it is about where you choose to park and come to school. So, encouraging those kinds of what seem like little things, actually, the children get really enthusiastic about and then take them home, don't they? So, it's that kind of thing.

And then the anti-idling provisions, I mean, are very much directed at schools, with parents who—inexplicably, in my view—keep their engine running while they drop their child off, to the extreme detriment of the air around both themselves and their children's friends. I mean, it's the most extraordinary behaviour. So, the Bill has a range of measures aimed at deterring that kind of behaviour.

Mike, back to you.

I'll just make a comment that the Minister might want to respond to or not. We're aware of how long it took to get people to accept that smoking was bad for them, and it took a whole range of activities, a whole range of media campaigns, a whole range of things to enthuse the media to talk about it. While this is not a cost in terms of expenditure, actually enthusing the media to talk about the problems of nitrogen oxides in particular, but also of microplastics in the air and the effect they have on people, although it's not a cost, is certainly a very good use of time and effort to try and explain this to the general public.

Yes, and I completely agree with that, and, obviously, we hope the Bill will provide yet another opportunity to do just that.

You estimate that the cost of publishing and consulting on a new national strategy on the Bill will be the same as existing duties. Can you explain why?

So, the current requirements in existing legislation are that Welsh Ministers must review and, if appropriate, modify the national air quality strategy every five years. That's from the Environment Act 1995, and it was amended in 2021 by the Environment Act of that year. So, the current legislation requires us to consult a specific list of people before modifying the strategy, and that does not include the public. But our existing Welsh Government consultation guidance says that the Welsh Government would consult on a review and modification of a strategy—would consult the public. And we've already got to review and modify the strategy under the existing legislation, and we also think that current Welsh Government costs would cover the staff time resulting from the consultation with the public because it's part of our normal operating behaviour, really.

So, I guess we think it's covered already is the short answer to that, because we already do it and it's part of our normal operating. There might be some very limited additional costs with that—some staff costs maybe—but they'd be absorbed inside the Welsh Government overarching civil service budget. It's not attributable in any way in that sense, so that's why it's like it is, and it will enable the public to input into the Welsh Government's air quality policies in the future. So, we're happy with it, really.

It's an opportunity cost, not real money.

Yes.

Local authorities and health boards will also have costs. I think you accept that, don't you? What estimate have you made of those costs?

So, this is really difficult because this depends, as I said—. There used to be joke when I was doing my law exams—Chair, forgive me for telling you it—but we always used to say that credit could be given for writing 'it depends' in the margins, and I kind of want to do that here, really. So, future policy for air quality might have a direct impact on a local authority, or it might not. It depends where they are, it depends what's in them, it depends what we're targeting. So, you know, it depends. Local authorities already consider air quality in making decisions. They are obliged to do so—they have to take it into account when making planning decisions and infrastructure decisions. It's part of the infrastructure already, if you'll forgive the pun.

If there is a new duty on a local authority, then we're under an obligation to consult fully with them and to fully fund it. That's one of the commitments we've made to local government. So, if, in the future, that happened, then it would come into that strategy, but it is near impossible to say at this point in time, because it depends on what the policy ends up saying and what we're targeting and where, and it certainly wouldn't be universal to every local authority, for example, so you couldn't do it on a formula or—.

I think that, if you don't mind, from local authority colleagues, that sentence you said there, 'fully fund it', would be the thing that they would be worried about—more duties and no cash to deliver it. So, having that assurance from you, I'm sure, would go a long way for our local authority colleagues to be able to embrace the change that's needed and embrace some of these regulations. So, that is good to hear—that sort of positivity from you, for your budget, then, to be able to help with it.

For sure, and we want this to work. So, if we're doing a national air quality strategy, then we'll be consulting with our local authority colleagues, and, as part of the consultation, they always raise, 'If this puts a duty onto us, will it be funded?' So, that's part of what we're looking at here. But it's self-evident, isn't it? If you've got a large motorway running through the centre of your local authority, you've got a different problem than if you're a completely rural authority. So, quite clearly, they're very different, depending on where you are and what you're looking at.

Mike, do you have one more question?

I have one and a half questions.

One and a half, there we are.

The half question, I'll start with, because local authorities, would you want them, if they've got areas of very poor air quality—as we had on Neath Road in Hafod, and then we had the Hafod relief road built and that has improved air quality there dramatically. Hafod had the second-worst air quality in Wales. Are you looking to use roads as a means to stop having the problem of bottlenecks in Valleys, like you had in Caerphilly, like you had in Hafod, where you had very poor air quality, but people who wished to travel along there actually had to travel and drive very slowly through an area that was renowned for having very poor air quality?

Yes, so it's one of the things, isn't it? One of the things we want is to be able to have the right data to get the right solution in particular areas. What else can I say to that, really? So, if a diversion around an area is a way to solve the air quality, then clearly, local authorities should consider it, but there are lots of examples of other issues. So, there are examples across Wales of local authorities that have stopped traffic in a particular area because that improves the air quality there, only to find that it has disimproved the air quality in all of the surrounding streets. So, it's quite a complicated thing to do, and you need to have a very serious overarching policy for an area solution. So, it might solve the problem in one area, but you're actually making it worse somewhere else. So, I'm really keen to make sure that we have holistic solutions to that. Some of it, Mike, is just getting traffic off the road in the first place and having a better public transport system, but that's obviously outside the scope of this Bill.

The other important thing is that you turn data into information, because raw data can be misleading, quite often.

The last question I've got is: the RIA doesn't estimate any cost for strengthening consultation requirements relating to air quality regulations, saying that the Bill

'formalises what would be done, in any event, as a matter of good practice.'

So, just to, without putting words in your mouth, simplify it, what you're saying is that it shouldn't cost any more because what needs to be done should be being done now.

Yes, pretty much, really. So, at the moment, the legislation says that we only have to consult Natural Resources Wales. That's the only absolute requirement at the moment. That's not what we do, but that's the only absolute requirement. So, this Bill proposes in section 12 that we consult natural resources bodies for Wales, every local authority in Wales, Public Health Wales, the national health service trusts, every local health board in Wales and the public before making the regulations, but that's what we already do, it's just that we're not under a duty to do it. So, what we're doing is putting ourselves under a duty to do what we already do, and just strengthening the duty that existed in the first place. It's just good practice, basically.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. John has been waiting quietly there, so I'll bring John Griffiths in. Thank you, John. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. Bore da, Gweinidog. In terms of local air quality management and smoke control, Minister, and, in particular, what that would mean for local authorities, you intend to allocate £1 million a year for a local air quality management fund from the next financial year. So, could you tell us how you have estimated the potential costs and resources that local authorities might have to face? And what criteria will there be for local authorities accessing that fund?

Yes, so the way we've done this is we've asked local authorities directly for their costs, and we've used costs outlined in the local authority air quality action plans, and we've used bids submitted to pilot phases of the local air quality management support fund. So, most of the local air quality management provisions amend existing legislation, John, and they don't put new requirements on local authorities. That includes the annual review amendment, which is implemented through the annual progress report that local authorities already have to do, so they already have to do a large part of this. But there are additional costs for those with air quality management areas, and that's for projecting compliance data for the area. We're looking at between—there's a huge range, really—£20,000 to £150,000, and that doesn't include officer time, which might vary according to the project as well. So, if all 12 local authorities that currently have air quality management areas applied for the maximum indicative revenue costs of £150,000 and a mid-range implementation cost of £380,000, the total cost would be £6.36 million. But they are staggered across several financial years, because it depends on which point in the cycle you're at that you apply for the thing. We've used mid-range costs for that reason.

The fund, then, invites bids that meet the criteria that we've set out. The criteria, which is like a little mantra in my head now, is: prevention, mitigation, innovation. So, action that seeks to improve air quality, action that seeks to put an air quality management area in place, and action that uses innovative methods or technologies to improve air quality. We've got an ongoing budget of £1 million, which is enough, given the cycle that we're looking at, and we're pretty clear that that's enough, and that's because (a) not all local authorities have them, and (b) they're not all on the same cycle. So, that's how it's being done. They can apply if they've published their most recent annual progress report. That's a backstop so we know what they're doing it off the back of, effectively, John. I think that was a complicated way of answering your question.

No, that's fine—thank you, Minister. Moving on to smoke control, currently, there are four local authorities that have SCAs. Is there any expectation that this Bill will encourage the other 18 local authorities to implement SCAs, and if so, have you analysed the cost that would be involved?

We hope that it will encourage local authorities to take a much more holistic approach to tackling poor air quality in their area, including consideration of smoke control areas, but we've based the calculations in the Bill around existing smoke control areas and anticipated costings for the four local authorities that are currently affected. If you wanted to make a new smoke control area, then the current provisions of the Clean Air Act 1993 would support that. Local authorities already support the cost of remedial measures needed to help achieve compliance, so 70 per cent of any expense is covered by that, John, so that's the existing mechanism.

Smoke control areas are just one of the things that we hope local authorities will do. It's not necessarily the right solution for all local authorities; some local authorities will go down an awareness-raising path, providing guidance of best practice around solid fuel burning, for example. Both of those are in the Bill, and information will be available to all local authorities, not just the ones with smoke control areas. Again, I'm afraid I'm sort of saying that credit can be given for writing 'It depends' in the margins, aren't I, really?

Okay, Minister. Just following up on that, there's the Welsh Government guidance on SCAs, and in the regulatory impact assessment, there's mention of unknown costs associated with local authorities implementing actions from that guidance. Will that guidance be optional for local authorities, and what kind of new or additional actions might it involve?

In developing the guidance, John, we will absolutely be working with the local authorities. We can't do it without them. We absolutely need their expertise to do it. So, they will be helping us develop the guidance. They're much better placed to do that for us, and they are much more expert than us in understanding what the current barriers facing them in implementing smoke control legislation are, and what tools and techniques they need to be able to do that. So, we will have a very close working relationship with them, as we always do, actually, with the Welsh Local Government Association, in developing this kind of guidance. And then, once the guidance has been developed, there will be a full consultation process to allow for input from absolutely everybody else.

The Bill includes a duty for local authorities to have regard to statutory guidance. So, I'm sorry to teach the committee to suck eggs, but that means that the local authority must follow the guidance, or say why it hasn't, or be subject to judicial review by somebody who's not happy about it. So, it is quite a stringent piece, but we will absolutely develop it with them. It's utterly impossible to tell you what the costs of that are until we've gone through the measures with the local authorities to figure that out.

Okay, Minister. Still on the RIA, it notes the risk that local authorities deem current funding for improvements to appliances insufficient. So, could you expand a little on what you consider that risk to be, why it's relevant regarding these matters, and what it might mean in terms of delivery and costs?

So, again, this is the clean air Act stuff. So, that has a 70 per cent burden on a local authority or the Welsh Government if they implement it. The assumption is that 30 per cent will be covered by members of the public affected. Given the current cost-of-living crisis, I think that might be a big ask, so we're a bit wary about that. I suspect very strongly, given contacts with local authorities in lots of other areas of my portfolio, that something that's only funded at 70 per cent will not be something they want to do. We're struggling to get them to fund things that are funded at 90 per cent, never mind 70. So, I don't think there's going to be a big rush to make new areas here.

I think what people will do is look to see what difference this Bill makes overall. There are a whole pile of other provisions, aren't there—what the air monitoring shows them and so on—well before they go anywhere near making a smoke control area, and that's kind of what we're hoping they'll do. A lot of this is about—as Mike was saying earlier, actually—education, and an iterative process of just telling people the effect of their actions. So, again, sorry to go on about the idling, but one of the issues we've got at the moment is that the measures to stop people idling outside schools are wholly inadequate. The fine is inadequate. The criminal prosecution is ridiculously disproportionate. So, what the Bill does is put an adequate system in place, but it allows an enforcement officer to say, 'Please stop doing this; this is the effect of your behaviour', but persistent offenders, who are kind of wilfully doing it, knowing what the effect is, then there'll be an adequate enforcement regime to go with it.

We think—because this is what's happened with virtually every other piece of legislation with that kind of provision in it—that almost no enforcement action will ever be taken, because people do comply once they've gone through that process. And there's a stick there, but the carrot is more effective, in fact. And that's what this is predicated on, John. So, a smoke control area is a bit of a stick. So, we think the carrots will be more effective as people understand what's happening. Wood burners are very popular—I have one myself, but I don't burn wood in mine anymore; I burn coffee logs in it. I had absolutely no idea—I'm the climate change Minister, and I had absolutely no idea of the effect of burning all that wood in my wood burner. So, I think, as people understand what's happening, they modify their own behaviour. Nobody wants to be responsible for that. If you use well-dried wood and so on, that's a very different effect.

So, it's about education, isn't it, and about what people are—. People are responsible for their own behaviour, but we have to make sure that they understand the effects of their own behaviour. And in my experience, most people do change it. It's not dissimilar to the way we persuaded people across Wales to recycle. I don't enforce recycling across Wales; people do it because they know it's the right thing to do.

Yes. I want to move on to problems associated with vehicle emissions, Minister. In terms of the anti-idling provisions, I hear what you say that, hopefully, there will not be a great need for enforcement. But, nonetheless, do you expect local authorities to do things differently in terms of their enforcement activities once the Bill is in effect? And, if so, have you made any estimate of cost to local authorities, with different enforcement requirements being placed upon them over and above what's currently the case?

So, as I said, what we're expecting is that—. Well, first of all, the local authority will be able to authorise any of its officers to enforce this. So, it doesn't have to be a particular class of officer, and that will be very much a matter for the local authority. So, if they want to use parking enforcement officers, that's fine; if they want to use environmental health officers, it's up to them, and each local authority will approach that differently.

There may be increased costs arising from fixed-penalty notices in the first instance, but we are anticipating very much what's happened in other areas with this: there may be a small rise in it at first, and then it will drop off as people adjust their behaviour and it doesn't happen anymore. So, that's what we're expecting.

So, it doesn't put a duty on local authorities to undertake anti-idling activity; each authority has flexibility to determine how they wish to do that in a way that meets local needs because, again, each local authority will be different. It will depend on their infrastructure; it depends on where your schools and care homes are; it depends what the hospital arrangements are and all the rest of it. So, each local authority will be able to do that.

So, we don't anticipate an enormous cost, but we will cover off the initial phase of that cost for them, and a lot of that will be an education piece as well. We do expect our schools to do a lot of that, as I said earlier.

Okay. Moving on to road charging schemes, Minister, in the regulatory impact assessment it says that the costs of establishing such schemes would only arise should it be accepted that there is a case. You've included some information on schemes established in England, but obviously Wales is a different country, so what assessment have you made of the potential costs of implementing such schemes here in our country?

So, again, I'm really sorry—I really don't want to come to a committee and just tell you, 'I don't know' constantly, but, again, it's really difficult to calculate that, as it depends on the location and the particular scheme again. I mean, the devil in this is always very much in the detail, isn't it?

But we've made an assessment of potential schemes at the M4 Newport junctions, John, which you'll be very familiar with—that's between junction 25 and junction 26 on the M4—and at the A470 Upper Boat to Pontypridd. So, we've just estimated that off the back of the current schemes. And then, what we'll do is we'll fully develop those costs as we go along, and we'll do that during the course of this year. So, by the time we get to the end of this Bill, we'll have a much better set of costs. In the meantime, I'm afraid the last estimates for those locations was back in August 2018, so we have those, but the committee will take a view about how reliable those are. You can see that I'm not convinced that they're that reliable myself. Those were around £20 million for the A470 and about £22 million for Newport, based on that estimate.

So, we've also looked at the Birmingham clean air zone for comparison. That had £17.84 million for infrastructure costs and a mitigation fund of—I can't even say that out loud; I've got to put my glasses on—£50.861 million was made available there. So, about twice what we're looking at. So, that's where we are at the moment, but I seriously believe that by the time we get to the end of this process we'll be in a better position. So, by the time we put the regulations in, we'll have a lot more data.

Okay. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch, John. I'm conscious of the time. I have a couple of questions left, if I can beg your indulgence.

Yes, sure.

Just on soundscapes, which sounds very interesting, but I don't know if I've actually got my head around it yet, the RIA suggested that there's no additional cost to producing a comprehensive plan or strategy for noise and soundscapes compared to the current requirements. Can you set out what the current requirements are and how activity under the new duty will differ?

Yes. So, the current requirements are to review and update our plan in relation to certain types of noise every five years, and that's for major roads, major railways, transport and industrial noises. There is currently no statutory requirement to publish plans for any other types of sound or across Wales as a whole. But, we do have policies in place, and since 2013, we've actually chosen to include them in the overarching plan for Welsh Government that we publish every five years. So, our views, basically, don't differ very much from that. We'll have a new statutory requirement to do it, but we've been doing it anyway, so the cost involved is negligible, really; it's just presenting it slightly differently—that's our view. So, you can see it's in the overarching plan already and, actually, we think it might be a bit of a saving, because rather than doing it the way we do it now, we'll be doing it specifically, so that's pretty much where we are. I mean, really, what this Bill is doing is, it's doing a lot of that. It's making explicit, as a duty, something we've been doing for a while, but we think a government should have to do, whereas we've been doing it on a voluntary basis. So, I think that's quite a theme running through the whole thing, really.

Okay. Thank you very much. And finally from me—and if other questions occur to us as we're deliberating afterwards, we might write to you, if that's okay.

Yes, that's fine.

Because I think the reporting deadline on this is a little way off yet, so that's good for us. But just to understand—. We talked earlier about lots of targets and outcomes. This Bill makes provision in a range of areas and interacts with lots of, as you've said, a patchwork of other pieces of legislation. How will you look to understand the outcomes of this Bill and has it delivered value for money, and what will 'good' look like?

So, I think, really, we'd be concentrating on the new significant bits of the Bill, so we're taking the opportunity to regularise a lot of stuff. But the really significant part of this is the air quality monitoring and data and the outcome of, in particular, the target setting for PM2.5. So, I think, for me, the Bill will have been successful if we manage to significantly lower the amount of PM2.5 in our air. And we will know that very quickly, because we'll put the air quality monitoring in place and we'll put the targets in place, and the regulations will be reported on, and so, very swiftly, it seems to me, once those are in place, we will be able to see what the outcome of the Bill is.

The rest of it tidies up stuff, and I hope that that will help with the public education and perception piece, because it'll be easy to see what we're supposed to do rather than have to have a PhD in figuring it out through various pieces of law. But I think, overarchingly, the issue is to reduce the amount of particulates in our air, so we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that that's really what all of this is about.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Just thinking quickly, you talk about putting the regulations in in the future and you've talked about committees scrutinising that. I don't need an answer now, but for you and your colleagues in the Cabinet to think about what the Finance Committee's role is in scrutinising the costs of regulations, because we're seeing lots more framework Bills coming down the line, it's something that we're interested in, as a committee, as to how do we do our job well in scrutinising what those regulations cost and whether or not they're in keeping with what you've said in bringing the Bill in the first place. So, just something to take away, to start thinking about how we work best in scrutinising your work, going forward, and it's something that we're looking at.

But thank you so much for your time this morning. Sorry we've gone over a little bit, but it's been fascinating. It's a big job of work, so thank you very much, and thanks to colleagues for your questioning.

Pleasure.

Under Standing Order 17.42, I resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting and the meeting on 24 May. Is everybody in agreement? Yes, I see everybody is. Thank you very much. So, we'll go into private.