I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will also be suspensions between each debate. I remind Members participating virtually that they must leave their camera on for the duration of the debate, and that they will be visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks at westminsterhallclerks@parliament.uk. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I would also like to remind Members that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall.
That this House has considered measures to combat climate change in Wales.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd.
Despite being confronted with a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic, climate change remains the single largest existential threat to people across the world. The UK has a responsibility, as one of the first industrialised countries, to combat climate change and take a progressive, proactive approach to mitigate and reverse its effects.
In Wales, we are extremely fortunate to have access to natural resources that can provide cutting-edge alternatives to curtail our reliance on fossil fuels. How we deal with these issues in the next few years will have a defining impact on future generations and their wellbeing. Changing climate will cause huge problems across the globe and lead to massive population displacement and challenges for food production in many parts of the world. Rising water levels, loss of biodiversity and extreme weather events have already been seen in many places, and we must take urgent action to tackle that.
Wales is a small country, but it can play a big part in the solution. The Welsh Government are taking a progressive and proactive approach to mitigating and reversing the effects of climate change. I am proud that the Welsh Government have gone further than the target set by the Climate Change Committee for the UK and committed to a net zero target by 2050. That is an ambitious target, but one which we have to reach if we want to tackle temperature rises.
When I was granted this debate, I was contacted by the excellent parliamentary digital engagement team and asked if I would like them to use their channels to engage with the public on this issue. The responses that came in were varied and really thoughtful. I would like to thank everyone who got in touch with ideas and comments. There were 168 replies to questions on a wide range of topics, such as reducing consumption, changes to transport use, and housing. There are too many excellent contributions to mention them all, for which I am really sorry, but I would like to pick out a couple and respond to them.
2:38 pm
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con) [V]
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for securing this important debate.
The UK Government have been a world leader on this issue, with a 10-point plan presenting a vision for the UK that is green and more prosperous, and at the forefront of the industries of the future. The UK Government and the devolved Administrations have to work together to implement measures that will combat climate change.
In my constituency of Bridgend, an increasing number of residents are contacting me about air pollution, which concerns them a lot. They are worried about high levels of pollution outside schools, in particular from idling vehicles. They fear that that can be a cause and aggravating factor of many respiratory diseases. and action is needed. With little thought for wider infrastructure to support communities and a lack of investment in safe routes to schools, the local authority in Bridgend aids that growing epidemic of idling vehicles and worsens the pollution around our schools.
It is reprehensible that our Welsh colleagues in Cardiff Bay have halted plans for the M4 relief road to ease congestion in south Wales. That would also help with the levels of pollution around Newport. We agree with the Welsh Government that decarbonising the transport sector presents a key challenge to overcome to reach net zero, but rather than halting the development of necessary infrastructure, the UK Government’s vision for a net zero Wales includes accelerating the shift to zero-emission vehicles. Electric vehicle infrastructure funding schemes such as the on-street residential charge point scheme, the electric vehicle home charging scheme and the workplace charging scheme are examples of the Government helping to achieve 100% zero-emission cars and vans by 2035.
Wales will also benefit from further funding to aid our movement towards a greener economy, including the £289 million industrial energy transformation fund, the £250 million clean steel fund, the £240 million net zero hydrogen fund and the £1 billion carbon capture and storage infrastructure fund.
Decarbonising the UK steel industry is fundamental to our ambitious green industrial revolution. A movement to lower-carbon iron and steel production is essential to meeting our net zero goals. To do that, we must invest in new technologies and processes. Although the Tata Steel site is in the neighbouring constituency, in Port Talbot, many of my constituents work there, and it is concerning that they would struggle with the movement to the more mature technology of carbon capture, but a movement to hydrogen power, rather than coal power, could be a way forward.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am very pleased to speak in the debate. It is about an issue of great importance to many Newport West residents, and this afternoon I am giving voice to their concerns and calls for action.
It is no longer a surprise to any of us that we face a dangerous and very real climate emergency. We cannot sit back and watch our country burn, flood or, indeed, collapse without taking action—and we need to take action now. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for securing this debate on measures to tackle climate change and for all she does, including in this place, to preserve our planet and protect our environment in Wales.
As well as being the Welsh Labour Member of Parliament for Newport West, I am the shadow Minister for the natural environment and air quality in Westminster. While many of the departmental responsibilities relate to powers devolved to the Welsh Government, measures to tackle climate change in Wales are very much at the top of the agenda. We need to implement bold, ambitious and proactive measures to tackle climate change in all four nations of our United Kingdom.
Like so many of my constituents, I very much welcome the bold commitments of the Welsh Labour Government to tackle climate change. Those commitments are exemplified by the creation of a Minister and a Deputy Minister for Climate Change. That is a reflection of how important the battle to save our planet is to Welsh Labour and to the First Minister.
In recent years, there has been sterling work in Wales that has seen more innovative ways of developing renewable energy and that ensured Wales is one of the top three recycling nations in the world. We have also seen more than 800,000 trees planted and more than 843 water refill stations installed. These are tangible and pragmatic policies that carry the people of Wales with them and that mitigate the worst effects of climate change. However, for all the positive steps taken in Wales—and there are many—there is still so much more to do. With the horrific flooding in Wales last year, we saw that we have far more to do to stem the unbeatable flow of physical effects triggered by climate change.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for securing this debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), who is a fellow member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, where we have heard from witnesses and discussed in great detail climate change and renewable energy in Wales.
I grew up in rural Wales at Lake Vyrnwy, a few miles south of my constituency, and there I experienced a community that had a healthy balance with nature. Our water came from a small reservoir above the hotel that my father ran in the hills and was filtered through a sand bed. A few years before we moved there, the electricity was still generated by the hydroelectric unit in the Vyrnwy dam, and I hope one day it can be back in action.
This highly formative experience has played a key part in my championing renewable energy schemes in Clwyd South, such as the hydroelectric potential of the River Dee in Llangollen. I warmly welcome the decision by members of Llangollen Town Council in April to set up a task-and-finish group to investigate the feasibility of using the site of decommissioned hydro units in the town.
Further up the River Dee in Corwen is the perfect example of a community energy project, namely the Corwen community hydro power scheme. People came together as a community to build a 55 kW, high head hydro scheme in the town. The scheme is 100% owned and run by the community. The success of this first project has led to a second, larger project in Bonwm, near Corwen, where work is expected to start this autumn on building a 100 kW hydro scheme, which will be completed ahead of the end of feed-in tariffs in July 2022.
The Corwen projects have benefited significantly from the support of the local landowner, Lord Newborough, whose Rhug estate has put sustainability firmly at the heart of its business mission, particularly through its own renewable heat and power generation. That has led to the recent announcement that Rhug has won a net zero award from the North Wales Mersey Dee Business Council.
It is great to be under your chairpersonship today, Mr Dowd, and it is a pleasure to join this debate, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi).
I will just remind us of the scale of the problem that we face. Global temperatures are now 1.2 °C higher than the 1850 base rate and are rising at 0.1 °C a year, so by 2025 the world will breach the Paris limit of 1.5 °C. In fact, the temperature is already plus 2 °C over Europe and plus 3 °C over the Artic, because of differential impacts. That means that for every second of this debate, 8,500 cubic metres or 8,500 tonnes of ice will melt from Greenland.
In particular, we have seen a massive escalation in the Chinese production of carbon. China now produces more carbon than Europe and the US combined—7 tonnes a person, compared with 5.8 tonnes in the UK. However, on a consumption basis, the UK produces 8 tonnes a person. The reason I mention this is that the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 committed to measuring our consumption as well, because we cannot simply subcontract out all our manufacturing and reduce our carbon footprint but then import it all.
That is particularly the case for steel, because Welsh steel has 50% less carbon than Chinese steel. What is needed is a carbon border tax. It is being initiated by the EU, it will be agreed at COP26 and is certainly supported by Wales, so that we have fair trading and do not have a situation where the Chinese are allowed to continue producing more and more carbon. China’s carbon production will not peak until 2030; it already has 1,037 coal-fired power stations and is planning another 300. Closing our coal-fired power station in Wales, at Aberthaw, accounts for 55% of the Welsh reduction in carbon. We need to think very globally about this issue, as well as taking our own initiatives. I am proud that the Welsh Assembly Government are the only Government, not only in Britain but across the world generally, to have sustainable development as part of the country’s constitution and the Assembly’s founding principles.
2:59 pm
Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Dowd. I first of all pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), both for securing the debate and for the tone in which you opened it. Your tone made me rip up half my speech, and I appreciate that balance. I also echo your comments on digital services and the engagement around this debate, which I think is terrific.
I could touch on the comments of other Members but, in the good old tradition of Welsh Westminster Hall debates, the Welsh Government are good and for the UK Government are bad, unless the Member is a Conservative, in which case the UK Government are good and the Welsh Government are bad. We have approached this debate in the usual fashion. I will try to break that down a little bit. I appreciated a lot of the global context that the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) introduced. I was taken aback today at Prime Minister’s questions when it was noted that 52% of the world’s urban global greenhouse gases come from 25 cities, of which 23 are in China. Clearly, the pressure on COP26 this year is immense.
There is excellent best practice coming out of Wales, and there is excellent best practice coming from Powys County Council and the Welsh Labour Government. There is also a huge amount of work, finance and regulatory change coming out of the UK Government, and it would be churlish of Labour Members speaking after me not to at least acknowledge that, if those before me have not. It is absolutely fascinating to see the pace of change. I will touch briefly on an issue that I have a little bugbear with the Welsh Government about— I have been nice, but I will have a little bash—and that is new road building.
Montgomeryshire is blessed with clean air and low emissions. The one thing that has helped Montgomeryshire more than anything to tackle emissions and improve air quality is the Newtown bypass, with Welsh Government studies and independent studies unquestionably showing that emissions have dropped around Newtown—the biggest town in my constituency—and the quality of air has improved. That is to be hugely welcomed.
In conjunction with the banning of new petrol and diesel cars, that means that road building in the future will be very different. The vehicles on the roads of the future will emit very different pollutants, if any. It is old-fashioned and traditional thinking to see road building in the traditional sense—that the roads will have heavy-polluting vehicles on them. They will not. Clearly, that is demonstrated by the ban on petrol and diesel vehicles. Clearly, that is demonstrated by great companies such as Riversimple in Powys investing in hydrogen cars. Clearly, that is demonstrated by the huge investment in hydrogen production and electric car production in this country. I hope there is time for a pause for thought. I welcome that this is a review and not a blanket ban, but road building projects in the future should not be judged on the environmental effects of the past. That is incredibly dangerous thinking as we see smaller, better, cleaner cars emerging on to our roads.
Thank you, Mr Dowd, for allowing me to leave early to go to another Committee; it is much appreciated. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on securing this timely and important debate ahead of COP26 this autumn.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), I was reminded of the proximity of the conference this week when my hon. Friend and I welcomed and spoke at an event for the Young Christian Climate Network, which was stopping in Newport as part of an epic 1,000-mile relay on its way to the conference in Glasgow, not only to raise awareness of climate change, but to raise awareness of the UK Government’s promises to tackle climate change. It really did typify the dedication to climate justice shared by so many young people across our society—a generation that will really help to define the future of the planet left to them, so I thank them.
I also want to point out that in Newport East we have two of Wales’s 12 youth climate ambassadors, Maham Aziz and Poppy Stowell-Evans, who very much reflect that passion for a sustainable future. Members can hear more from Poppy, who will speak virtually at the all-party parliamentary group on youth action against climate change next week, so watch this space. The youth climate ambassadors’ campaigns are around making businesses in Wales more responsible for their carbon emissions, and they focus on the amount of plastic that people use. Those are initiatives that we would all like to get behind.
There are lots of volunteers and organisations across my constituency doing great work to restore local habitats and biodiversity, which goes hand in hand with the fight against climate change. I want to thank the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for its work in the Newport wetlands, the Gwent Wildlife Trust in Magor Marsh, the Rogiet wildlife-friendly village team, the Woodlanders, and the Bee Initiative at Penhow. As the young marchers we met last week said, “This is a critical decade for action to prevent climate change and for action to prevent future harm to our planet.”
It is a privilege to speak in this debate, which has been brought forward by the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), and to follow the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden). The debate enables me to highlight the opportunities that my constituency of Ynys Môn has to contribute to the Government’s net zero 2050 target and to tackle climate change in Wales.
There is no doubt whatsoever that Wales and my constituency in particular could be fundamental to tackling climate change, not just locally but globally. Anglesey stands on the brink of becoming a centre of excellence for energy production. Morlais and Minesto are honing in on tidal energy and wave production, with innovative operations planned off the coast of the island. This month, the National Nuclear Laboratory has established a new office in M-SParc. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Welsh Government are seeking to establish a thermal hydraulic facility on Anglesey. There are currently only two such facilities worldwide—one in Italy and one in the US. In the March Budget, the Chancellor and this Government committed £4.8 million to develop the Holyhead hydrogen hub. And there is, of course, Wylfa Newydd.
Wylfa Newydd offers the best new nuclear power site in the UK, possibly the world. Anglesey is known already as energy island, but in all honesty it feels like we are treading water. To truly tackle climate change and to achieve our 2050 net zero targets, the UK needs a base-load generating capacity that can only be met consistently and within the timescales offered by new nuclear. Wylfa Newydd has the potential to power 2 million homes. It offers Wales’s biggest single contribution to tackling climate change. Not only that; it is a site that has the support of local people and would offer 8,000 construction jobs, 1,500 long-term, permanent, skilled, well-paid careers and thousands of supply chain roles across north Wales.
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Wendy, along with others, said that we should:
“Retrofit or convert housing stock to passive housing to maintain human health while reducing dependence on energy sources to warm or cool homes”.
The Welsh Government are making £13 million of funding available through the innovative housing programme. The aim of that programme is to make 1,800 homes across Wales more energy-efficient. As well as helping to reduce energy bills for residents, optimised retrofit will help reduce the carbon footprint of each home. There are currently around 1.4 million homes across Wales that need to be made more carbon efficient to help with the 2050 net zero target, so getting retrofit right and making it happen by delivering the skills and training needed will be key to building a strong future economy and helping to tackle the climate emergency.
Several respondents to the consultation highlighted the importance of restoring nature. Both Joshua and Jools suggested that there should be targets for nature restoration and tree and woodland planting. I am happy to say that just this week, Lee Waters, Deputy Minister for Climate Change in the Welsh Government, announced that Wales will plant 86 million trees in the next nine years.
To achieve our net zero target, we need to plant 43,000 hectares of new woodland. Planting those trees will not only help avoid catastrophic climate change, but create jobs and address the nature emergency, increasing wellbeing and mitigating floods and air quality issues. Hon. Members can find out more about that scheme and the support for individuals, organisations and companies that want to get involved in planting on the Welsh Government website.
As part of that, Wales is also putting in place a timber strategy. Using timber in construction has a number of benefits, including the capture of CO2during growth, acting as a carbon store for the lifetime of the structure, and it can be used again after the building is no longer in use. The Welsh Government want an increase in off-site manufactured homes as a way of reaching net zero, and the timber industry will play a big part in that.
In Gower, we have one of the most efficient storers of carbon, our fabulous salt marshes. They are a haven for wildlife, with more than 20 species of salt marsh plants, which in turn support insects. They are also used by juvenile fish, and many different birds roost in them. Protecting and, in places, expanding salt marshes could store millions of tonnes of carbon and offset emissions.
I pay tribute to the National Farmers Union, which is encouraging farmers across the UK to take positive steps to make their farms net zero by 2040. We celebrate their positive actions leading up to COP26, to be held in Glasgow in November. There are so many farmers and growers, not only in Gower but across Wales, who are positively demonstrating that they are committed to taking net zero measures on their farms, to help the sector reach the 2040 ambition. I saw that at first hand recently, when my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) and I visited the farm of NFU Cymru president John Davies. To see that vision in action and discuss the future of Welsh farming was very positive.
Climate change does not respect borders. We all know that the only way to tackle climate change is to work with other countries. That collaboration is sadly lacking in the relationship between Wales and the UK Government. Having promised to electrify the main line to Swansea, the UK Government decided to go only as far as Cardiff. After the big fanfare around the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, the Government decided not to go ahead with the project. That decision meant that, instead of becoming a world leader in tidal technology, we will now have to rely on other pilot projects to pave the way. I believe that Swansea bay will get a tidal lagoon but, instead of being able to export the associated expertise and technology, someone else will do that. We have got to push forward for Swansea and I commit to doing that.
There are many more subjects I could have covered, from halting all new road-building projects, to reducing our reliance on private cars, to buying local produce to reduce food miles. I thank everyone who got in touch with me about the debate; I will pass on all their comments to the Welsh Government. I want to finish with a quote I heard yesterday in Lee Waters’s speech. Mark McKenna, of the wonderful Down to Earth Project in my constituency of Gower, said:
“The solutions are there, we need to invest and we need to plan.”
I am pleased that that is what the Welsh Government are doing.
The clean steel fund will support the British steel industry through the challenges of decarbonisation while ensuring that we hit the net zero target in 2050. We must also invest in the development of new technologies that can help ease our movement to net zero emissions and assist in combating climate change. I am proud that my constituency is home to some of the industry leaders that are developing those technologies. One such company is Cenin Renewables. It is at the forefront of visionary thinking: it purchased the first Tesla battery in Europe and is an early adopter of photovoltaic power production. It was recently awarded the Queen’s award for sustainable development, and its pioneering Solcer House, developed in conjunction with Cardiff University, is a blueprint for the carbon-negative and energy-positive home of the future.
A lot of constituents contact us about this issue. There are a number of people with a range of views on how best to proceed. Working together is in everyone’s best interests and in the best interests of our long-term future.
As the shadow Minister for the natural environment and air quality, I also have the delight of covering waste and recycling. Those are two important areas that see me often looking to Wales for inspiration. It is a case of, “Where Wales goes, so go the rest of the nations.”
I am pleased about the steps being taken in Wales to develop a national forest, which will give us the ability to offset emissions. I support the plans to ban 10 of the most common single-use plastics, such as straws, stirrers and plastic cutlery. I am proud that Wales currently has the third highest recycling rate in the world. Last year, 65% of all household waste across Wales was recycled, and back home in Newport West we recycle 66% of waste, which saved over £5 million and prevented 21,000 tonnes of polluting emissions.
The Welsh Labour Government are committed to achieving a carbon neutral public sector by 2030 and to co-ordinating action to help other areas of the economy to make a decisive shift away from fossil fuels, including academia, industry and the third sector. We need rapidly to expand our ability to produce energy from renewables and I pay tribute to the companies developing offshore wind turbines in the Celtic sea and other areas. We also need to develop energy sourced from tidal and wave power. We need to ban plastics that cannot be recycled or composted, and I pay tribute to companies like TIPA that are developing compostable plastic packaging, which is another way of limiting our waste production.
I am gravely concerned that Tory inaction in England could have an impact in Wales. Indeed, the Welsh Labour Government may have difficulty taking the actions the people of Newport West want to see. For example, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 means that the Senedd may be limited to banning just three plastic items to align with the low aspirations of England. Put it this way: level up with Labour in Wales or get left behind with the Tories.
Like so many of my constituents back home in Newport West, I urge this Conservative Government, from the Prime Minister down, to wake up and smell the coffee. We have no time left to waste. If they do not want to act, if they lack ambition and do not want to take the steps necessary to preserve our planet and protect our environment, they should get out of the way and let Labour lead.
There are many other examples of fantastic measures to combat climate change taken by residents and organisations across Clwyd South, including Wrexham and Denbighshire Councils, community councils, local companies, farms and voluntary organisations. I am delighted that the UK Government are pursuing dynamic and effective policies to support these local measures at a national level.
Spanning clean energy, buildings, transport, nature and innovative technologies, the UK Government’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution will mobilise £12 billion of Government investment to unlock three times as much private sector investment by 2030, level up regions across the UK and support up to 250,000 highly skilled green jobs. The plan presents a vision for a UK that is greener and at the forefront of industries for the future. Through it, we will position the UK to take advantage of export opportunities in new global emerging markets in low-carbon technologies and services, providing jobs, supporting levelling up, and reinvigorating our industrial heartlands in Wales and across the rest of the UK.
Specific examples of the plan are many, but I will just mention one. That is the investment of £582 million in plug-in vehicle grants to incentivise take-up of zero or ultra low emission vehicles. Of course, this is as applicable to Wales as it is to the rest of the UK. Also, the cross-Government net zero strategy will be published ahead of COP26. Work is already under way across Whitehall to help inform the ambitious plans across key sectors of the economy. The strategy will set out the Government’s vision and how they will meet its ambitious goals as we transition to net zero emissions by 2050.
In conclusion, I am proud of the measures being taken by the UK Government to combat climate change, and their reflection in many exciting projects under way in Clywd South. I am also pleased that the Welsh Government are being closely engaged in this policy making and strategy, as we work together to create a greener and more prosperous Wales.
I welcome the initiative for the national forest. Clearly we need to plant trees—everybody knows that—because they store carbon, but we also need to use trees in our buildings as carbon stores, in place of concrete in particular. If concrete were a country, it would be the 13th biggest producer of emissions.
It is important that the UK Government back that approach and, indeed, stop the burning of wood. We have a ridiculous situation where we are importing millions of tonnes of wood, in particular hard wood, which we are simply burning. That wood could have been made, with minimal effort, into a pulp that could be used to insulate buildings, and it would remain as a carbon store.
I welcome the roads review: we cannot keep on building roads. That is not to say that we will not build any more roads, but we need to halt and think about whether we can plan differently. On that basis, I very much welcome today’s announcement by the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, which is calling for HS2 to be an England-only scheme. That makes a lot of sense, because obviously HS2 does not run through Wales: it is more beneficial to Scotland than to Wales, and the UK Government tell us that it will displace jobs from Wales. I welcome that proposal, which should unleash a fair share of funding: in the same way that Scotland gets the money, this should unleash billions of pounds for Wales. I very much hope that will mean that we can make good the promises of David Cameron about railway electrification, and that we can get a high-speed frequent link to Bristol so that Bristol-Cardiff-Swansea, which is 3 million people, has the same level of service as Manchester-Leeds, for example. That has about eight services an hour; we have one.
I also welcome the move to reconsider how we improve and increase home working after the pandemic, and conversations at both a UK and, in particular, a Welsh level about local procurement to reduce our carbon footprint and help local jobs. Indeed, the Development Bank of Wales has a criterion that says, “If you want investment, you should ideally be contributing to net zero. You should be contributing towards economic growth, and you should have local involvement and inclusion in jobs creation.” I welcome that approach, as well.
In Wales, of course, we are blessed with wind, waves and solar, and I hope that—as my hon. Friend the Member for Gower has mentioned—we see the lagoon project delivered, perhaps with extra added value through the new proposals that have been put on the table. That will bring with it a mixed bag of other benefits, as well as energy.
I hope that we will work in partnership with the UK Government and that, when the Welsh Government come forward with new ideas, the money will follow to serve all our interests in helping to contribute towards a more sustainable world. Again, that includes the contribution at COP26. It will be interesting to hear from the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, who will be winding up this debate for the Government: he is a former climate change denier, but I think he may have suddenly seen the light and agreed that we need to combat climate change. Obviously, this is an issue on which we might have wanted to hear from a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Minister or a COP26 Minister as well.
Turning to the issue of plastic, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) mentioned that we have a problem with the Internal Market Act, in that we will not be able to recycle as much plastic as we would like. I very much welcome the fact that the Welsh Government’s initiative to tax plastic bags has been taken forward. I welcome taxing plastic, but the UK Government’s planned level of £200 per tonne is far below that of the EU, which is £685 per tonne. We need to increase that to reduce the amount of plastic used, because frankly, there is going to be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050 on current United Nations projections.
We do need to work together, and I am pleased that the Welsh Government have said that, from a public sector point of view, their planning and ambition is to be carbon neutral by 2030 by using a combination of net zero buildings—that would include wood, as I have mentioned—confronting mobility and transport, more electrification and hydrogen-generated transport, and better land use, including the woodland plan.
Finally, we on the Welsh Affairs Committee have heard that British Airways has been buying up large tracts of land, in Ceredigion in particular, by way of carbon offset. The Government need to do something about that. These schemes were meant to preserve the Amazon rainforest, not to put Welsh hill farmers out of business with no net impact on the climate. Let’s all work together. Well done to the Welsh Government, and let’s have the UK and Welsh Governments working together so that we can focus on COP26 and provide a shop window to the world on best practice for all to emulate.
Equally, I want to be nice: Wales has led. The plastic bag tax is hugely welcome. To give credit where credit is due, the Welsh Government led on that issue, and now the UK Government are following. We must do that more in future: where there is best practice across a border—in Wales, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland or across the channel into Europe, or even further—we need to share best practice. We should not be shy in stealing ideas; after all, I read Hansard regularly and we normally steal each other’s speeches, so we might as well share each other’s policies.
In closing, I will draw the private sector into this. Of course, there is a lot of public money and regulatory change, but tomorrow I will visit Garth Holiday Park in Machynlleth, in the middle of Wales, to celebrate its private investment in electric vehicle charging on the site. A huge amount of EV charging facilities are going in now. Wipak in Welshpool—if you pick up a pack of Cathedral City cheese in this country, the packaging comes from Welshpool, in the middle of Wales—is investing hugely. It is a European-based company that manufactures in Wales, and it is investing millions over the next years to improve its production and to help us achieve our net zero ambitions.
If we do this together—the UK Government, with their sheer scale and international leadership, the Welsh Government, with their devolved powers and regulatory functions, and the private sector as well—we can achieve it. I fear that if we continue with a dogmatic, narrow vision of, “We are bad, you are good. This is right, this is wrong,” we will not get anywhere near the achievements that we need, and we will do a great disservice to the constituents that really care about the issue.
Mr Dowd, I have added to the greenhouse gases with my six minutes, so I will sit down, but I very much welcome this debate.
The Senedd Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee’s third assessment report was published last month. It highlighted that in our children’s lifetime, Wales will experience wetter winters with drier, hotter summers and sea level rises of up to 2½ feet along our coast. I have looked at the maps and I have a coastal constituency, which is why it is so important, as other hon. Members have said, that the Welsh Labour Government have set a legal and ambitious commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, and are pushing to get that ambition even sooner. Ambition is critical. Inaction is not an option; nor is doing the minimum.
We were the first country in the world—I was here at the time, along with the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies)—to pass a Climate Change Act in 2008, and under the Welsh Labour Government we were the first country in the world to enshrine in law the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, ensuring that any decision that our Government make must serve the needs of our children and grandchildren, including on environmental issues. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gower said, we have a Minister and Deputy Minister for Climate Change, too.
Others have highlighted our national recycling rate, which is at an all-time high of 65%. I say to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) that the UK Government could learn from that as we are the third best recycling nation in the world and the best in Europe. I thank Wastesavers at Newport Council for its work, and I look forward to the new youth centre in Magor opening shortly. As others have mentioned, we also have the national forest for Wales to improve air quality and remove harmful greenhouse gases from the community.
Others want to speak, so I will finish here. There is clearly much more to do. Lots of hon. Members have mentioned decarbonising steel. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) was right about the dangers of importing steel, which can make things worse. UK steel should be right at the heart of a green recovery, in terms of jobs and new skills, but also in terms of providing steel for solar energy, the tidal lagoons and for electrification. Green jobs for the future in new industries are important to us, too, as are transport, housing and energy efficiency—all of which are in Labour’s green recovery plan.
Wales and Labour have shown a lead on environmental issues, which the UK Government would do well to follow. As the host of COP26, the UK Government must strain every sinew to keep the possibility of limiting global heating to 1.5°, in line with the goals of the Paris agreement. We owe that to the young people who are out there campaigning for that this week.
Wylfa Newydd would not just tackle climate change but transform the economy of north Wales, give our young people the opportunity to stay in their communities and keep the Welsh language alive for generations to come. I simply cannot overemphasise how important Wylfa Newydd is to Wales.
The UK Prime Minister has declared himself a “fervent supporter” of the project, but to make this happen we need a catalyst, and that catalyst is freeport status. A freeport would turbocharge Anglesey’s energy island credentials and give Wales a step change in its route to achieving net zero. This year, as we host COP26 and commit to building back better and greener, let us take a stand and show the world that Wales and the UK are truly committed to tackling climate change. Let us find a way to make Wylfa Newydd happen. We need the UK and Welsh Governments to work together to bring a freeport to Anglesey. Climate change is real and we cannot afford to delay when we have hard targets to achieve. Every day of delay is a day of irreversible damage to our fragile globe.
I end by echoing the wise words of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams). Now is the time to cast aside our differences and work together, for the communities of Anglesey and the future of Wales, our Union and our children’s future in the world.