I would like to, first of all, declare an interest as a Powys county councillor. I would agree with the Cabinet Secretary, I think that the Welsh Government has got a good story to tell with regard to its recycling rate—not only, of course, the best in the UK, but one of the best recycling targets around the world. I think that’s to be absolutely commended. As well as that, the Cabinet Secretary said in his opening comments that he wants to build on that performance, and I want to see that happen as well. But what I wanted to do today, I hope, constructively, was to bring forward some examples in rural Wales where I do believe that there is a stumbling block to that actually happening, and I hope I can do that in a productive way today.

But I think it’s right to make you aware that rural authorities, I think, in particular, are facing a real challenge when it comes to recycling. I would like to bring some examples from my own constituency, but note that they’re happening across Wales in rural areas. For example, I look at Machynlleth in my own constituency—the local authority closed the recycling centre there last year, and now residents there have to travel on a 60-mile round trip to dispose of their recycling waste.

I held a surgery, actually, just before Christmas, and one constituent came to my surgery with a big tub of oil and helped me put it into my boot—he asked me where I was going next. I said ‘Newtown’, and he said, ‘Can you take this to the recycling centre?’ He had a motorbike and couldn’t do it, and, of course, that’s all he wanted to see me about, and he was making a very important point that was received by me, as that oil sloshed around the back of my car all the way back to Newtown.

The other issue as well is that, at the moment, the two largest towns in my constituency, Newtown and Welshpool, both have a recycling centre open seven days a week—very well received by the public, very busy. I use them myself. One of the recycling centres—the one I use—actually often has queues to use particular skips within that centre, but what the local authority is doing now, due to a cost-saving measure, is reducing that, as of next month, from seven days to three days a week, and there’s a big public backlash against this. What this does, of course, is make recycling more difficult for people. This is done as a cost—yes, I’ll take an intervention from Mike Hedges.