Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Welsh Conservatives spokesperson, David Melding.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, yesterday, the Institute of Welsh Affairs published its report on funding renewable energy projects in Wales—here in the Neuadd, I’m pleased to say—and it identified the difficulty in raising capital, or particular difficulty in Wales. And I’d like to ask you will the Welsh Government be taking note of the recommendations of this report and responding to them positively.

We certainly welcome the IWA’s contribution to what is the transformation of Wales’s energy system. We’re already delivering on many of the areas that were highlighted in the report, and we look forward to working with the IWA to further develop their ideas to benefit Wales.

Cabinet Secretary, the report urges the Welsh Government to use its levers ambitiously right across the scope of its activity to develop a sustainable energy strategy and, although the UK Government has a role to play as well, to focus on what the Welsh Government can do in terms of business rates, but also the public sector, which is a big purchaser of energy, and that we need to use our levers very, very effectively. Will you be urging your Cabinet colleagues to look at this in a holistic way?

We will, of course, and this is a cross-Government issue. We have begun to explore options providing further access, for example, to low-cost finance and equity solutions, using Welsh Government funds to leverage any further financial investment in order to remove barriers to capital, which you mentioned earlier on. I will say though, of course, that the greatest barrier to further deployment of renewable energy is the lack of a suitable funding support mechanism at the UK level.

I’ve been nice to you so far, but I note that barb. [Laughter.] In an attempt to move us back on to consensus, or a consensus, the report says that, to encourage more community-owned schemes, we need to look at greater use of co-operatives to attract funding. The Welsh Government talks big in this area and has a lot of support across the Assembly in doing that, but I hope that you will pick up that part of the report most enthusiastically because there is a great degree of empowerment that could go on, and using that model in terms of its general ability for regeneration and not just for renewable energy is a key way of perhaps addressing some of the shortfall in attracting funding that we’ve traditionally suffered from.

Yes, and, David Melding, of course, you are acknowledging that that’s within the grain of the direction in which the Welsh Government would want to take us, and we’ll look with interest at those recommendations around the co-operative model. We invested £35 million by the end of the last financial year on energy projects and, indeed, £5 million in the local energy fund, separately providing direct loans to some of the community projects most at risk. So, it’s clearly important to look at that recommendation in terms of the way forward.

UKIP spokesperson, Neil Hamilton.

Thank you, Llywydd. I’m sure the leader of the house is aware that the biggest headache for many farmers in Wales at the minute is the vexed issue of bovine TB. This is a vitally important issue in the context of the Brexit negotiations because it’s possible that the EU might use the TB situation in Wales as some kind of justification for banning exports of beef and other meats. I wonder if, therefore, she can give us any idea of when the current consideration of the result of the consultation on the refreshed TB eradication consultation will be published.

The consultation on the TB eradication programme—the refreshed programme—closed on 10 January. The Cabinet Secretary is currently considering the responses, and I’m sure that Neil Hamilton will be as pleased as the Cabinet Secretary to hear that there were a significant number of representations—993—a large number of which were from farmers.

Indeed. I was wondering though whether we could have any idea of how long the Cabinet Secretary is likely to take before she’s able to announce what proposals the Government might have. There are a number of relatively uncontroversial things that it would be helpful to have some advance indication on. For example, many farmers are worried that, whatever testing regime emerges from this, it is practical and takes account of the facts of life of being a livestock farmer. Tests that fall at inconvenient times, such as when the harvests are occurring or when cattle are calving, would be very, very difficult. Also, there’s another issue that ought to be borne in mind, namely that there is currently a county parish holding rationalisation programme going on, and many farmers are concerned that this would add further complications to what’s already a very complicated situation, if that’s not taken account of in the Cabinet Secretary’s decisions.

A statement on the refreshed TB eradication programme will be made in early May, but I think it’s also important and relevant to note that new incidences of bovine TB in Wales are at a 10-year low. Progress has been made, with over 95 per cent of Wales’s herds now being TB free.

Perhaps unrelated to the consultation that is going on at the moment, can I draw attention to a problem with the testing regime as it is at the minute? A strict liability regime is applied to the testing of cattle. If you fail to test within the 60-day window, then you automatically are fined, in effect. But very often we find cases—it’s possible that the leader of the house may have had constituency cases in her postbag along these lines—where a test has had to be abandoned because cattle become agitated, or even violent, and it’s unsafe in health and safety terms for the testing to continue. In those circumstances it’s possible, indeed highly likely, that the retesting can’t take place within the window and the farmer will automatically therefore attract penalties, even though it will be for something that is actually beyond his control. So, what I’m asking is: can there be some flexibility introduced into the testing regime, so that where events beyond the farmer’s control prevent compliance, he will not then attract penalties or there will be some mitigation?

Well, the controls and testing regimes are a crucial part of the TB eradication programme in preventing onward transmission of disease, but of course now, as part of the project to examine the TB situation at a more local level, we have a dedicated TB epidemiologist and a team of vets looking at the disease across the country and working through that in terms of the issues that are raised, of course, in terms of those affected.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Simon Thomas.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Leader of the house, yesterday the National Assembly agreed that one of the responses to the decision to leave the European Union should be the introduction of a continuation Wales Bill in order to uphold Wales’s constitution and convert into Welsh law all European legislation related to devolved policy areas. It’s true we voted 9-6, which is more like a rugby score than a vote of the Assembly, but nevertheless it was a majority. What is the Government’s view now on this proposal, and does the Government recognise the importance in particular of enshrining EU environmental law into Welsh law in order to protect public health and the economy as well as the environment?

Well, I’m glad to have the opportunity to follow up from that debate, Simon Thomas, to say we’ve been absolutely clear that we will not tolerate a power grab from Whitehall, and it’s unacceptable for the UK Government to take powers currently exercised by the EU over devolved areas. Of course, this is crucial to the point you raise in terms of agriculture and the environment.

I thank the Minister for that statement and I look forward to seeing very firm proposals from the Welsh Government to ensure that that does indeed take place. In particular, I want us not to rely on the UK Government to represent our interests here in Wales, and looking at air pollution in particular as an area, we are already hearing of some extreme measures—some would say ‘extreme measures’, some would say ‘necessary measures’—for dealing with air pollution. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is introducing a higher rate of congestion charge for very polluting vehicles; the Prime Minister has hinted at a scrappage scheme to ensure that diesel car owners are not blamed for the previous Labour Government’s mistake over promoting diesel cars, to declare an interest. So, what input now is the Welsh Government having into ensuring that the interests of the people of Wales are represented in terms of public health and social justice in UK Government proposals around a UK-wide pollution plan, bearing in mind there are 6,000 premature deaths from air pollution in Wales a year?

We are firmly committed as a Welsh Government to improving air quality across Wales. We support and provide guidance to help local authorities fulfil their responsibilities, particularly in terms of reviewing local air quality, with regular assessments and monitoring. But you will be aware, of course, that the Cabinet Secretary undertook a public consultation in Wales on how local air quality and noise management can be improved, and, in fact, in response to that the Cabinet Secretary published a written statement on 30 March. Our next steps have to be taken forward in terms of issuing new statutory guidance to local authorities, new guidance to local health boards, and launching by 24 April—and this is important to your question—a joint consultation with the other UK administrations on a new air quality plan to achieve the EU nitrogen dioxide limit values for Wales and the rest of the UK within the shortest possible time.

I thank her for referring to that consultation, due to begin on 24 April. I look forward to seeing how that works out between the different devolved administrations. There is, however, as we are talking about nitrogen oxide emissions, one very big polluter here in Wales—Aberthaw power station—which has already been found to be in breach of EU law and putting out double the amount of toxic nitrogen oxides from 2008 to 2011. We are still awaiting a programme to set out how emissions will be reduced at Aberthaw, and this is the responsibility of the licensing authority, Natural Resources Wales.

On 8 March, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs responded to me on questions around Aberthaw, saying that she expected to meet with Natural Resources Wales on 15 March to discuss whether there had been a proper proposal from the owners of Aberthaw setting out how they will reduce the emissions from that power station. She also said she’d be happy to provide an update after that meeting. I appreciate, of course, she can’t be here, but are you, standing in for the Cabinet Secretary, in a position to inform us and the public of Wales now whether there is a programme in place for Aberthaw power station to reduce these harmful emissions?

I’m pleased to report an update on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary that, on 1 April, Natural Resources Wales concluded the Aberthaw environmental permit modification exercise, with the issue of a new environmental permit for Aberthaw. This new permit contains a lower nitrogen oxide emissions limit, in line with the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU. Aberthaw must now comply with the new nitrogen oxide emissions limit. Officials will continue to monitor the situation. Any changes to Aberthaw’s coal supplies and operational regime, of course, are commercial matters for RWE.