Plaid Cymru Assembly Member for Ynys Môn Rhun ap Iorwerth continued to push Welsh Government to commit to developing a bespoke Ultra Low Emission Vehicle adoption Strategy for Wales after his Member’s Legislative Proposal calling for the creation of a non-carbon-emissions public vehicle Bill was noted in the Assembly.

The Welsh Parliament declared a Climate Emergency recently following a motion by Plaid Cymru calling for that to happen, and the party’s Shadow Minister for Economy and Finance has said Assembly Members need to work together on innovative legislation which would benefit the environment in order to go to task on tackling climate change.

For this Senedd as a legislature, in responding to the fact that Wales has declared a climate emergency, Mr ap Iorwerth argued that the Assembly needs to consider how it can use the tools available to it – particularly its powers to create legislation.

Mr ap Iorwerth said:

“This Senedd recently voted to declare a climate emergency. It was Plaid Cymru that had tabled the motion, and it was a very important symbolic statement, but whilst the symbolism was significant, our willingness to take action here in Wales will be the measure of our success in tackling that emergency.

“I’ve proposed a non-carbon-emission public vehicle Bill to promote the use of electric vehicles and non-emission vehicles by placing a duty on the Welsh Government and other public bodies to develop a strategy to move towards specifically using electric vehicles and non-carbon-emission vehicles in their own public fleets.

“I welcome signs of movement towards having a strategy. But when Welsh Government’s Low-carbon plan talks of wanting to move to a zero-emission public fleet by 2025, what I want to know is how. When are we going to do it? How are we going to do it?

“We need to move, with urgency, towards having a strategy, Wales-wide, with ULEVs as a very clear focus, because they are going to be a very prominent part of our transport future.”