During the last Assembly term, my predecessor, Alun Ffred Jones, worked tirelessly in order to secure the success of two community hydro schemes as they started the process of providing an opportunity for the public to buy shares in these projects. I’m pleased to be able to say that these projects have been exceptionally successful, attracting a number of people in those communities to purchase shares in those projects, and Ynni Ogwen and YnNi Padarn Peris are now proceeding well. Ynni Anafon in Abergwyngregyn is also a community hydro scheme that has been exceptionally successful. But, with the Ynni Ogwen project particualrly, it did take two years for this scheme to gain its water abstraction licence from Natural Resources Wales, which goes way beyond the four months in their statutory guidelines to process such applications.

In an evidence session to the Environment and Sustainability Committee in November of last year, it was stated that it was a problem of staff and resources in Natural Resources Wales that accounted for this problem. Has the Minister carried out any assessment of the resources needed by NRW in order to achieve its functions in full? If so, are you content that they have the necessary resources to achieve that, and, if not, will you commit to carrying out such an assessment and report back to the Assembly?