5. What steps is the Minister able to take in order to mitigate any consequential negative effects on the environment caused by business developments? OAQ(5)0020(ERA)

Our Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 enable Wales’s resources to be managed in a more proactive, sustainable and joined-up way. Our statutory climate change targets and carbon budgeting help provide certainty and clarity for investment and business. This legislation gives us one of the most progressive and comprehensive statutory frameworks in the world.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I’m sure, like me, you are a great supporter of rural businesses. However, there is a lot of tension between some of the very large rural businesses, a number of which I have written to you about in the past, and the impact they have and, indeed, I would go so far as to say, the blight effect that they have on local residents in the areas that they are next to. I’ve raised these as matters with both local authorities and with Natural Resources Wales to ensure that these rural businesses actually behave within the law, within the guidance, and try to mitigate the effect of their business upon their communities. Both Natural Resources Wales and the local councils have come back to me again and again and again and said they do not have the statutory powers to take such actions. Cabinet Secretary, I wonder if you would please review what statutory powers these organisations have so that they are able to undertake comprehensive and fair enforcement, not to stifle business, because none of us want to see that, but to ensure that the tension between a business and the local community that it operates in is fair and equal for all.

Yes, I absolutely agree with you. It is really important that they have those powers. I’ll certainly look into Natural Resources Wales to make sure that they have those powers. I am aware that you have written to me on several occasions about businesses in your own constituencies and I know we have corresponded. But, I’ll be certainly very happy to look because it’s really important, for instance, that environmental impact assessment regulations—. They require projects to have very—. You know, the ones that are very likely to have significant impact on the environment, they have to be subject to consent before they can proceed, so it’s really important that this is going ahead.

Cabinet Secretary, I’ve had a number of people approaching me in the Aberavon area who are concerned about the location of the turbines in the Swansea bay development because they are concerned that it will impact the flow of water into the sea and how that will impact their ability to be part of the processes that they enjoy in that area. Have you had an opportunity to look at that issue of the tidal lagoon and have you been able to discuss that with them to ensure that that wouldn’t happen if the tidal lagoon development were to go ahead?

I had my first meeting this week in relation to to the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, but I didn’t look in depth at the point you raise. But I’m very happy to write to you—to do so and to write you.

David Rowlands.

Sorry, no.