Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd, and I’m pleased to move amendment 3 in the name of Paul Davies. It is a notable feat that Wales is a leading nation in global efforts to increase recycling rates, and this is a credit to the work and determination of the Welsh Government, the National Assembly, local councils and, indeed, people across Wales who have enthusiastically responded to this challenge. I also welcome point 2 of this motion with regard to the environmental benefits that a circular economy can bring to Wales. This is a concept that we support. And I think it’s unanswerable if we want to meet these ambitious targets, as mentioned in the motion. It’s crucial that we should maximise the value of our resources beyond the life of a product. I’m glad that the circular economy aspect has been emphasised today, because the Welsh Conservatives feel strongly about this and, indeed, it’s been previously championed by my colleague Darren Millar in a previous debate on waste and recycling in March.

I would like to run through the amendments, because they’re all fairly policy-heavy and, I think, deserve a response. We’ll be supporting amendment 1 to the motion and offer our congratulations to Ceredigion council, who are leading the way as the best-performing council in Wales. I think it’s only fair that we commend the efforts of local authorities. We often criticise them. So, if we are calling them out when we think their performance is poor, I think we should then commend when they are exhibiting excellence. I’m glad that, in my region, South Wales Central, two of the three local authorities are performing above the average and I’m disappointed that the third, Cardiff, is a little below the average, and I will be taking that matter up with them to see what they’re going to do to raise their performance.

Unfortunately, Presiding Officer, amendment 2 is not so straightforward and, for that reason, we will abstain on this particular amendment. Whilst I think it’s bold and ambitious, I do believe that it may be a little impractical, if that’s not an impolite way of putting it. When the Government announced their target for reducing food waste by 50 per cent by 2025, there was agreement across the majority of stakeholders and across the majority of political parties here, that this was extremely ambitious. To offer some comparisons, the EU recently agreed to halve food waste by 2030; I understand the USA has a similar goal. Additionally, Scotland, which led the way in the UK in introducing a food waste target, actually set it at a 33 per cent reduction by 2025, so we are heading for a more ambitious target as it is. So, I’m not sure that it is going to be achievable and therefore is an appropriate thing to establish now.

We will be supporting amendment 4, as it echoes our own amendment. I fear Simon thought I was damming the concept with faint praise. I’m not at all. I think some form of deposit scheme is required and the reason I phrased it as I did is that there’s actually a consultation going on and whilst we’ve suddenly now had this pilot pop up as a result of your obviously great negotiating skills with the budget, this has kind of disturbed the policy environment a little bit. But, again, you know—