Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:56 pm on 17 April 2018.
Thank you for your numerous questions and contributions there. Firstly, can I say that I welcome your support in terms of making sure that we don't roll back on any of our environmental protections as we exit the European Union and that those mechanisms are in place in terms of actually retaining those protections and adhering to our international obligations? In terms of work done on the environmental body, conversations and work is ongoing in terms of regular meetings with DEFRA, both at an official level and at a ministerial level through the Cabinet Secretary.
On woodlands, this is a conversation that I recognise and that we've had before. One of the first debates I responded to in the Chamber was on the environment committee's report, 'Branching out', and I did recently come before the committee with the Cabinet Secretary in the scrutiny session just prior to the Easter recess. We recognise that we are off meeting those ambitious targets in terms of woodland creation, but I identified it as making sure that this is something that we do need to have a step change on.
I mentioned that I visited Scotland and met my colleague, Fergus Ewing. They are making more progress in Scotland, but their approach has been very much based on purely conifer, whereas as I said, here, we're looking for more biodiversity and that balance between broad leaves and conifers. We're looking for a solution that fits us in Wales. But, there are opportunities in terms of posts when we look at the future of land management; it will open up an area for us to go at scale on that, but in the interim—which will be outlined in the refresh of this strategy—it's actually about what steps we can take now and what are the barriers that exist at the moment in terms of woodland creation and tree planting and what we can do now. Can we look at whether there is potential to identify a presumption of woodland creation in some areas, so going back to the right trees in the right places and making sure that is place appropriate?
I very much welcome the Member's—I did spot it today—statement of opinion on plastic-free July. I'm sure that there is something that we can be doing in terms of that to back that, and I think it's a fantastic initiative and one of those things that actually brings things to the fore of the public's and media's consciousness. You were talking about the Assembly estate and single-use plastic free, that is something, from my perspective, in terms of the Welsh Government estate, work is in hand to look at how we can take steps. We're already working with the contractors and caterers to see how we can take that forward to work towards making sure that the Welsh Government estate is single-use plastic free.
In terms of resource efficiency and deposit-return schemes, you're aware that we have had the initial summary of the extended producer responsibility report, now, and I hope to be in a position to come back to this place in the very near future to outline the key recommendations of that and the next steps, and obviously, I very much welcome your scrutiny and input on that when we get to that point. But I think we should recognise too that when we look at the levels of recycling here in Wales, we are ahead of our counterparts in Scotland and England, but that is not to be complacent, because we do need to look at actually how we continue that progress and think of things and innovative solutions and different approaches that we can take. That's why I think there is so much to learn from the kind of community wave of action that we've seen and how we can bring that altogether. Like I said, there is action that we need to take at a Government level as well.