4. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline the Welsh Government’s plans to reduce littering? OAQ(5)0146(ERA)

Thank you. The Welsh Government’s aim is to prevent littering from occurring in the first place. We support and fund a range of programmes focusing on education, improving enforcement action, and community engagement and involvement. By encouraging people to take pride in their environment we will achieve longer lasting improvements.

It is good to see you back and I know that, like me, you and most of the other Assembly Members here will have received many constituent representations over concerns with littering, dog mess and fly-tipping, and of course it’s vital for public health, and particularly in areas that rely on tourism, that we have clean, safe and pleasant streets to walk in. Pembrokeshire has recently been recognised, through the ‘how clean are my streets?’ campaign, as having the cleanest streets in Wales, and I’m unabashed in saying this is a shout-out for Pembrokeshire. So, Cabinet Secretary, I wondered if you would join me, first of all, in praising the work of the street-cleaning teams in Pembrokeshire who are out all the time maintaining these streets, particularly in Pembrokeshire’s weather, which is either wonderful or totally inclement. But, above all, could you tell us how you intend to use that example of best practice to be percolated throughout Wales to improve our general streets, litter, dog messing, which does upset so many of our constituents, and so often.

I’m sure most Members in the Chamber will recognise what you’re saying. Our postbags are often full of such complaints and I certainly congratulate Pembrokeshire on having the cleanest streets, and it’s really important that that best practice is shared out. You’ll be aware of many schemes we have. We support Keep Wales Tidy, for instance, and I know they recently undertook a survey of street cleanliness and it found 95.5 per cent of the streets surveyed were graded B and above. So, that’s sort of acceptable to members of the public, but I think it’s really important that every area aims higher.

May I add my welcome to the other welcomes back that you’ve had, Minister? We’ve had some interesting ideas lately that may help to reduce littering. I’m thinking in terms of ideas about tackling the issue of excess packaging on food. It may be premature to ask you this, but what are your initial thoughts about whether that may be a good thing?

I certainly think we need to reduce packaging and I was horrified to see—my daughter bought something from a very well-known company that I won’t mention, and I think that the article was this size and the packaging was absolutely enormous and it made me get onto officials straight away to remind them that this is something that I think we really need to look at. And what we’re going to do is commission a feasibility study, and that needs to look at the costs and the benefits and all the options available to reduce food and drink packaging, in one area. We need to have a look at increasing recycling and reducing litter under an extended producer responsibility scheme. I met with a very well-known drinks organisation about what they can do in relation to disposable cups. I think there are huge opportunities here for us to be able to reduce packaging.

Cwestiwn 5 [OAQ(5)0149(ERA)] is withdrawn. Question 6, David Melding.