The statement does, of course, contain the ritual tilt at Brexit, and talks about threats, but I hope the Minister will recognise that, in environmental terms, what is the threat here? The threat is that we take these decisions for ourselves rather than have them taken for us by others. We are in charge of our own environmental policy from the day that we leave the EU, and that gives us the opportunity to correct some of the deficiencies of EU environmental legislation. In the specific example of Wales, I'd like to repeat something I've said before in this connection as well as regards the wilding of the hills, for example, because I fully applaud what's said in the Senedd about biodiversity in all its forms. We've seen, through the wilding policy, which is consequent upon the EU habitats directive, some disastrous changes. There's been a catastrophic increase, for example, in most predators, and the corollary of that is declines, sometimes towards extinction, of many vulnerable prey species.

Leaving the EU gives us the opportunity, because environment is one of the most important areas of responsibility that we will gain, to take a very different approach to the one that's been adopted hitherto. We've seen, again, a rise in rank and unpalatable grasses infested with ticks as a result of unburnt mature heather, and also other infestations, such as heather beetle, have been the result of that. Out-of-control bracken can also sterilise a landscape, and bracken is a vector of Lyme disease. I think we've got to reconsider the way in which we look at these areas of the countryside, and Brexit gives us the opportunity to do that to the benefit of biodiversity. So, if we do that then we'll all be marching in the same direction together regardless of what differing views we might have upon the bigger issue of national self-government.

I was intrigued by the mention of the reintroduction of native species where it's sensible to do so. She'll know that there is a vigorous debate going on about the reintroduction of the lynx, and even the wolf, into the landscapes of this country. So, it will be I think valuable for us to have some reassurance on this. Certainly, farmers are very concerned about animals of that kind being loosed into the wild to the danger of sheep farmers, in particular.

As regards areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks, again, I fully support what David Melding said earlier on. And, again, I'd like to make my ritual plea that, where there are potential conflicts between the objectives of environmental policy on the one hand—in the case of renewable energy, for example, which I've raised many times, the siting of windfarms in areas of outstanding natural beauty—we must take, I think, a more proportionate attitude towards this. Without entering into the debate on man-made global warming, the cost to the landscape of siting a significant windfarm must be regarded, I think, as greater than the benefit overall of the energy that the windfarm can produce, and so we have to be sensitive in landscape terms, I think, and that's where I would like to put my priority.

I fully support, as an enthusiastic planter of trees myself, what she says about woodlands, but, again, David Melding has made the point that the Government is way behind in its objectives on this, and I'd also like to point out the need for greater diversity in the forms of woodlands that we plant. In the past, the deadening of the landscape by excessive conifer plantations is widely accepted now, and we have to move towards a more diverse form of tree planting.

Again, nobody could quarrel with what she says about the need to improve air quality, but it is a paradox, isn't it, that within relatively recent memory we've been promoting the use of diesel, for example, on environmental grounds, only to find that—it should have been pretty obvious, I think, from the start, when you simply look at the emissions themselves, physically, by observing them—they are pretty disastrous, in comparative terms, compared with the alternatives.

And, finally, she mentions plastic pollution. Again, nobody wants to see litter on the streets or in the countryside, but, again, we have to, I think, bear in mind the distinction between costs and benefits and the limitations of what anything we do is going to achieve in respect of the global problem, particularly in respect of the marine environment, for example, which is mentioned specifically in the statement. I think we have to recognise that more than half of the global plastic waste flowing into the oceans comes from five countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and the only industrialised western country in the top 20 polluters is the United States, at number 20 itself. China is responsible for 28 per cent of the world's plastic pollution—2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste. Ninety-five per cent of plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from 10 rivers, eight of which are in Asia and two of which are in Africa.

So, I think we need to look at solutions that concentrate more upon the visual aspects of the use of plastic, where it's unsightly and diminishes our enjoyment of the environment, more than what you might call the environmental aspects. After all, where does plastic originate? Of course, these are oil molecules that are changed. The oil starts off in the ground, and it ends up in the ground if it's put into landfill. I personally don't see any objection to putting plastic into landfill because it is inert, it isn't going to degrade, it's not going to do us any harm.

I just take issue with one thing my neighbour Simon Thomas said about recycling plastic into plastic. I don't necessarily see anything wrong in doing that if it's commercially sensible to do so, but what we need to do is to have more of a cost-benefit analysis of what we do. When I was a member of the EU Council of Ministers as a deregulation Minister for the UK Government, I often made speeches to my colleagues about, before legislating, trying to take a proportionate attitude towards what we were trying to do, and trying to measure the costs as well as the alleged benefits.

So, when we come to reconsider all the environmental legislation that we're going to inherit from the EU, it gives us the opportunity not to take an absolutist view that everything that's there already must be maintained, but to look at it afresh on a sort of scientific and analytical basis. Sometimes it might be sensible to increase the amount of regulation, and sometimes—and I think there'll be lots of opportunities for this at a micro level—to reduce the impact and cost of regulation upon us. So I hope the Minister will accept that that is a common-sense approach to regulation in the future.