Julie James: As I was saying, Janet, perhaps if you ever listen to anything I said, as opposed to reading out your pre-ordained speech, you would know that voting against these regulations will not stop the implementation of the Act—it will simply mean that the Act doesn't work as intended. So, that's an idiocy, quite frankly. If you were successful in stopping these regulations going through, you'd not...
Julie James: Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to thank Plaid Cymru for raising this debate today, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to contribute to it. The Government will be supporting the motion. I would argue that as a globally responsible nation, we, in fact, go quite a bit further than the motion. We clearly support the ambitions reflected in the motion, but the real challenge is in practical...
Julie James: Thank you. I completely agree. I will not have time to go through all of the detail of that, but pockets of innovation do show what is possible for wholesalers and civil society organisations working with local producers and growers to help develop fresh, healthy dishes for schools.
Julie James: I did not, sorry. Go ahead.
Julie James: Yes, absolutely, Andrew. I will not have time to go through every single policy that's been mentioned in a very broad motion, but I completely accept the point. One of the big issues for us is to make sure that we extract all of the value from our food supply chain, and in doing so, we help the processors to come to Wales and make use of that product. But apologies—the Deputy Presiding...
Julie James: I might need a little bit more than a bit more. The sustainable farming scheme proposals contain a raft of actions designed to support farmers in the ongoing sustainable production of food alongside addressing the climate and nature emergencies. Sustainable farming is indeed the key to our future. We already have world-leading standards of sustainability within our red meat sector through our...
Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. Water is one of our greatest natural assets and an integral part of Wales’s culture, heritage and national identity. However, our water sector is facing immediate and unprecedented challenges.
Julie James: Over the next 20 years, Wales faces wetter winters, hotter, drier summers, rising sea levels, and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. The need to achieve decarbonisation, climate resilience, reverse the decline in biodiversity and improve our water quality will require innovative solutions, behaviour change, and long-term investment in our water infrastructure. The onus is on...
Julie James: Well, thanks, Janet. I mean, you know, once again, I’m afraid that I have to point out the contradiction in what you are saying. You don’t want pollution. You don’t want the agricultural pollution regulations. The idea that no agriculture in Wales causes pollution, that it’s all down to the water companies and the house builders is obviously nonsense. Of course, what we want is...
Julie James: Diolch, Delyth. In terms of the increased rainfall—. Well, it's not just the increased rainfall, actually. One of the biggest issues we have is hot, dry summers followed by extreme rainfall events. We still are in drought in most of Wales. We still haven't got our reservoirs up to where they should be, despite the rain that we've been having recently, because it's intermittent. A lot of it...
Julie James: Oh, you are there. Sorry, Mike. Right behind me, Mike. We have a Tawe flood defence, which is a natural solution there. The Tawe floods out into what would have been part of its natural flood plain. It's a reed bed. It has the most incredible biodiversity that's come back to that part of Swansea, and it has prevented the Tawe from flooding along its length for a very long time. It's...
Julie James: Thank you, Mike. As I said before, we've been working with Ofwat to make sure that, in the next price review for water companies, both the ability and the need to invest in stopping sewage outflows into rivers, particularly the combined sewage outflows, is very necessary and that a programme of investment can be put forward. It's very important to us that the price mechanism is put in place...
Julie James: Thank you very much for that. Of course, my colleague Lesley Griffiths and I have been working very, very closely together, as have all our officials, on this. We can't do this without our farmers—that's the truth of it—without our landowners, so of course they're absolutely pivotal. We work with the farming unions and with groups of other farmers. I had farmers on my biodiversity deep...
Julie James: Yes, absolutely, John. I was delighted to come along to one of the meetings, and I know that you've been working very hard there on the Gwent levels, which are a real green lung for the conurbation around them—very, very important for all kinds of biodiverse reasons, but, actually, very important for humans as well: they literally produce the air that we breathe. So, it's an important...
Julie James: Yes, thank you, Peter. So, our river basin management plans, our river catchment management plans are the main mechanism that we use to improve water quality. We implement the plans—I know that you know this already—on a catchment partnership and cross-sectoral co-operation between a wide variety of stakeholders, local authorities, non-governmental organisations, farmers, angling bodies,...
Julie James: Thank you, Jane. We have discussions with Dŵr Cymru, and indeed Hafren Dyfrdwy, all the time. We have a very close working relationship with NRW and our water authorities, for obvious reasons, and as I was just saying in response to John, we're currently conducting a number of reviews about who has what responsibility to do what in this area. We've got a co-operation agreement investigation...
Julie James: Thanks, James. I'll do my best with that. It's quite a long list of things. Just to say that planning for drainage and sewerage services has a lot of interdependencies. Water companies have got to meet their statutory duties under environmental legislation. They have to work with the local authorities who have responsibility for flood prevention and significant drainage assets, and they have...
Julie James: Thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss the important issue of building safety in Wales. As many Members have already mentioned, building safety forms part of the co-operation agreement. Today, Llywydd, the Tories want to focus on sections 116 to 125, and I'm very pleased, Llywydd, that they managed to correct their original error when they tabled the debate. We are, in fact,...
Julie James: Yes, of course.
Julie James: I'm just coming on to that. So, as I was just saying, this provides assurance for leaseholders that they will not have to pay for fire safety works that they are not responsible for, and that the remediation works will be progressed. In Wales, we've worked with developers to secure this commitment to remediate. Now, this is the bit that answers your question, Andrew. The formal legal...
