Diolch, Llywydd. Can I thank all the Members and the Cabinet Secretary for contributing to today’s important debate? As I said at the start of this afternoon’s debate, the Public Accounts Committee has a crucial role in ensuring the efficient expenditure of public money in Wales, so it was very important that the committee had an opportunity to bring this issue to the Assembly, and I’ve appreciated that today.

It is not every day that a major public body such as NRW has its accounts qualified in this way and for the reasons that have been set out today. If I can just turn briefly to some of the contributions. Firstly, Neil McEvoy, you referred to the lack of a proper business case. Initially, NRW told us that there was a business case. When we questioned the veracity of the business case, we were then told that it was not a business case, it was an options paper or some similar language. We found that absolutely extraordinary, as Neil McEvoy said, that a £39 million contract was awarded without a proper business case, and without any financial background. I think, when we asked for further financial data to support the decision, they weren’t forthcoming, so there was clearly a major flaw there.

David Melding took the wider view and questioned the whole merger process, which ended up in the creation of NRW, I think during the last Assembly, and the merger of the previous three separate bodies into that. You questioned whether that process had actually worked and whether this problem that we’re discussing today actually highlighted a major flaw in the way that that process had happened, and whether, when you merge together separate bodies in this way, it will almost inevitably lead to wider problems. That’s probably a debate for another day, but I think it was important that you brought that perspective to the Chamber today.

Jenny Rathbone, I liked your expression ‘the crime that was committed twice’: no tendering process at the beginning and then no real re-evaluation or remediation later on when there was clearly a problem that needed to be dealt with. And, yes, there was a problem with the way that the larch was going to be marketed. You can’t simply flood the market with a huge amount of larch in one go. That hasn’t happened in the past. Evidence we took from the forestry organisations that we spoke to said that it was unusual that that approach had been taken, and we never got a satisfactory answer from NRW as to why that approach had been pursued.

Simon Thomas gave us the Finance Committee perspective. I sit on the Finance Committee as well, so I’ve seen both sides of this, and, yes, I know that for the Finance Committee, the primary issue was the failure of the auditor general to lay the NRW accounts in a timely way and according to his statutory obligation. We know that there was a conflict between, on the one hand, his statutory obligation, and, on the other hand, applying his own code of conduct, and he had to wrestle with that. But you’re quite right, that shouldn’t have happened, it shouldn’t happen in the future, and we need a wider discussion with the Welsh Government or within this Assembly about how the system can be changed so that, in future, either the current auditor general, or a future auditor general, as the case may be, is not put in such a difficult position and has to take a decision that both sides are going to be unhappy with.

As the Cabinet Secretary has said, Natural Resources Wales should have viewed the contracts and the awarding of the contract as novel, contentious and repercussive. It was very hard for the Public Accounts Committee to see why a recognition of the contract awarding as being novel, contentious or repercussive hadn’t happened. There was some flaw in that process, and Lee Waters—well, you referred to a broader arrogance. Yes, that’s a very strong term, I know, but I think that you said that for the right reasons, and NRW certainly showed, in the evidence they gave to us, whether it was a broader arrogance or complacency—I’m not quite sure how you would describe it, but there was certainly a problem with the attitude, I thought, in the way that they felt that we considered the sale of the larch had been dealt with and the contract that had been awarded. Thirty-nine million pounds, at the end of the day, is not a small amount of money, and it’s something that really does need to be done with a proper business case and a proper strategy behind it.

In light of all this, we recommended that NRW review its delegation arrangements alongside its awareness of raising state-aid law, public law and the process for awarding contracts. We’re pleased that, as the Cabinet Secretary, has reported, an action plan has been put in place. We, as the Public Accounts Committee, will be watching that closely, and I’m sure the Assembly will be interested in how that pans out. But let us be quite clear in this debate today, Presiding Officer, that this situation shouldn’t have happened, and we need to make doubly sure that it doesn’t ever happen again.