I was going to intervene on Huw Irranca-Davies, so I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to speak, actually. I agree that it is time for us to be reviewing the purpose of our designated landscapes and reviewing the strength of the protections that are embodied in those at the moment. I mean, it’s not so long ago that we were standing here talking about the national parks and the opacity of their governance arrangements, for example, so it is quite right that these matters are reviewed. The paper, even in its early consultation stages, raised a few questions for me. If I’m right in thinking that one of the purposes of this paper is to jolt our national parks in particular out of their silo thinking, and perhaps to influence the use of landscapes outside their boundaries, for me, I’m wondering if that’s your ‘Sandford plus plus’, Cabinet Secretary. Because my understanding of that is that it would probably have protected Mynydd y Gwair, which of course is a famous bridge between the Brecon Beacons National Park and the Gower area of outstanding natural beauty. If it isn’t intended to do that, perhaps you would explain to me what it is intending to do. Because, of course, there is a risk that this could work the other way, and that it would leave designated landscapes more vulnerable to the incursion of disproportionately intrusive infrastructure in the name of green growth.

On that, I do actually recognise something that you’ve said in the paper about beefing up the duty on planners and developers to have due regard to the purposes of the designations of various sites. But if those designations are going to be much broader in their purpose—and I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be, but if they are going to be—how can Government ensure that the purpose that builds in protection for the integrity of landscapes isn’t then diluted to a point where the stronger due regard duty becomes irrelevant, it becomes meaningless, or indeed, even might become an agent of negative change? And when I say ‘negative’, that would be in the eyes of some people whose sense of identity, as you acknowledge in your paper, is so firmly bound up with the landscape that they inhabit.

Your first principles of governance—David Melding mentioned a few of these—include words like ‘participation’, ‘voice’, ‘acceptance in society’, ‘representation’ and ‘consensus’. I’m wondering if that’s—I hope it is—a hint that you might be paving the way here for the repeal of TAN 8, because TAN 8, in all cases that I can think of, has trumped any attempt to rely on those concepts at the moment.

Finally, just briefly, I notice it took until the last page of the narrative in the document to mention the concept of the UNESCO biosphere, and of course we have an amazing exemplar of that in the Dyfi valley—even though the fact that it’s a biosphere is underused in its potential in terms of tourism. On which, incidentally, I’m very glad to see the u-turn on the branding issues regarding national parks and AONB, because I think the earlier discussions, a couple of years ago, about changing the name, were completely counterproductive. So, I’m curious—I don’t know if you’ll have time to address this, Cabinet Secretary—about how much of your vision that is embodied in the document we’ve read today is based on those principles of a UNESCO biosphere. Because, certainly, my family that lives in that biosphere would recommend it as a way of looking forward to how we deal with this—I don’t think it will be that easy—balance between protecting the environment and expanding its purposes.