Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:15 pm on 20 September 2017.
I agree that they are unacceptable and there have been between 70 and 118 incidents of slurry pollution entering Welsh rivers annually, which makes it more than one a week. And I do appreciate that most farmers will comply with the law, but the stats suggest that some are clearly falling outside of that. A recent investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has suggested that some farms do see the fines that they incur as a result of polluting as part of the running cost of their business. If there’s any truth whatsoever in that, then those fines are clearly not working as a deterrent. And the other thing that was found through that study was that there was a persistent problem within some farms in Carmarthenshire. So, Cabinet Secretary, what I want to ask is: what action is the Welsh Government taking to ensure that the non-compliance by reoffending farms is thoroughly investigated? And I do understand quite clearly that it is Natural Resources Wales who will do that. And the other thing that was found by that investigative journalism is that some of the NRW staff are being threatened and not welcomed—in fact, quite the opposite—when doing their jobs on those farms.