, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
As I understand it—and officials, please feel free to correct me, because this is a very complicated thing to try and keep straight—what we're talking about is doing data collection, which is published, and feeds into the plan, which is also published, and…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
This is the same thing, really. The main elements of the framework are still in place and all we're doing is amending the local air quality provisions in the existing framework. It didn't seem necessary or optimal in any way to transfer the entire framework…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
To be honest, Huw, if the committee thinks there's a different and maybe better way to do it, I'm more than happy to look at it, but I think it's a very complicated thing to do, and I don't really want to be trying to implement this thing for the next—. I'm a…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
Well, environment is one of the list of things that are very convoluted and difficult laws to follow through, because of the large number of different players. If you think about environment law in Wales, people tend to forget the environment Act here. They…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
I think one of the things we have a problem with constantly is the edge of the devolution settlement with Westminster legislation. The committee will be very familiar with this. The UK Parliament often—. I hope you've recently read the environment Act. I have…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
This is actually something that I had to really think about. I'm going to defer to Helen as well here, but as I understand it, in the 1995 Act, there's a duty to prepare a strategy. That's predating devolution. So, that clearly wasn't the Welsh Ministers…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
Okay, so I think there's some—
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
I think we might want to get Helen to answer a bit of this, but, as I understand it, James, because this isn't an all-encompassing Bill—it's a Bill that's intended to fit into other legislation—the attempt to do that in this Bill would have caused ripples…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
But also, just a very personal thing, I have to say, I do think putting specific organisations into a Bill is an absolute hostage to fortune.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
Only because cherished institutions suddenly go out of favour when things are found out about them, and, all of a sudden, you've got a written-in-stone thing that attaches you to something that either has morphed out of recognition or doesn't exist or…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
I'd rather see that in the regulations, myself.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
So, this is always the difficulty, isn't it, whether you want to wait for a draft Bill to be ready—there's a timescale issue there—or whether you think it's already clear enough. And I think, small 'p' politically, we've waited a long time for this Bill. So…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
No, I think it captures a range of issues that might come up that we are aware of—I don't want to have a Donald Rumsfeld conversation with you, but the things we're aware of that might come up, that might want to be captured in the regulations. And we want…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes. So, what we're doing is we're going to put an actual duty on Welsh Ministers to promote awareness, because at the moment there's a general power rather than a duty, so there's a proactive duty. That will be one of the main changes in it. The duty will…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
So, you are asking me more or less the same questions you asked me last time, actually. As I said before, this isn't a Bill that's an all-encompassing Bill in its own right. This is part of a suite of things that we're doing around environmental improvement…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
So, we've carried out the usual suite of impact assessments, including the equality and socioeconomic duty impact assessments. Obviously, the key aim of the Bill is to improve air quality to reduce airborne pollution and its negative impacts. Inasmuch as it…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes. But, apart from that, we're happy that it doesn't impact on any of the common frameworks and it doesn't appear to be controversial in any way with any of the other Parliaments.
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
No. We've obviously been looking at the EU retained law Bill. I mean, that's a very movable feast, isn't it, at the moment. But, as far as we're aware, there aren't things that we need to look at. I'm reluctant to say more than 'as far as we're aware'…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
So, a number of things to say there. There are no provisions in the Bill that require the consent of various Secretaries of State under Schedule 7B, I'm very delighted to say; that's not the case with all of my Bills, but it is with this one. In relation to…
, Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee
Environment (Air Quality and Soundscapes) (Wales) Bill: Evidence Session with the Minister for Climate Change
Yes. Thank you very much, Chair. We are absolutely satisfied that the Bill is within the Senedd's competence, and, very fortunately, this is also the Llywydd's assessment.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
The Right to Adequate Housing - evidence session 6 - Minister for Climate Change
Diolch, Gadeirydd. Thank you, everyone.
, Local Government and Housing Committee
The Right to Adequate Housing - evidence session 6 - Minister for Climate Change
On that, Jayne, we're basically looking for Welsh context data, from larger data sets, and also, in particular, for very granular data around things like, given the large increase in social housing that this entails and that we are very keen to support, what…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
The Right to Adequate Housing - evidence session 6 - Minister for Climate Change
Thank you, Jayne. We're very well aware of international comparators and examples. We're having a really good look at it. One of the ones the committee, I know, has heard about is in South Africa, but that's very much been hampered by the availability of…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
The Right to Adequate Housing - evidence session 6 - Minister for Climate Change
We're already doing the policy change, and the Green Paper will underline that. I'm sorry, but I think I've already answered that question in a number of different ways, really. The long-term policy is in place, and now what we need to do is the various…
, Local Government and Housing Committee
The Right to Adequate Housing - evidence session 6 - Minister for Climate Change
I set that out at the beginning: the Green Paper will come out before the end of this summer term, the White Paper is scheduled for next summer, and then the Bill will follow. I already discussed with Mabon whether or not the Bill would then follow in this…
