Can I ask the leader of the house when she thinks the Government is likely to allow time for a debate on the annual report and accounts of Natural Resources Wales, which were laid on Friday? I don’t know how many Members have had the chance to look at this yet, but if I can inform everyone that the accounts have been qualified by the Auditor General for Wales, and qualified in a very specific and heavy way—. The qualification, which details over five pages, which I won’t read out at this stage—I hope to have a debate where we can go into it. But I would say that it relates to a sawmill and timber operation worth £72 million over 10 years, and the main conclusion that stands out for me from the auditor general’s qualification of the accounts is his conclusion at paragraph 16 that says,

‘the decision to award a number of very significant contracts to the sawmill operator was, in my view, contentious and repercussive.’

On that basis, he has qualified the whole of the accounts, as well as those relating directly to the £72 million account.

Now, there are a number of issues here. For example, one of the reasons for the contract volume awarded to the sawmill operator was designed to enable it to make a major investment in its sawmill. However, the auditor’s qualification refers to information received that

‘the required contracted investment in the operator’s Welsh premises had not been made’.

The auditor doesn’t come to any conclusion on value for money, because that’s not his job when he audits accounts. However, he does say this:

‘In my view, the commitment of NRW to sell the sawmill operator a high volume of timber over a ten year period would appear to be an opportunity which other operators may have been interested in.’

The inference is that £72 million-worth of contracts were laid without a proper tendering process, not meeting state-aid rules or general rules of public law. This is very serious, and it’s compounded by the fact that the introduction to the annual report by the chair and chief executive of NRW makes no reference to this whatsoever, and doesn’t say what they’re going to learn from this process, or what steps they’re taking to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. In fact, they contend that the auditor general has—that his qualification is ‘disproportionate’ to the shortcomings identified. I think £72 million-worth of shortcomings are rightly highlighted by the auditor general, and I would like to see the Welsh Government bring forward as early a debate as possible on these accounts and the annual report so that we can hold Natural Resources Wales to account.