10. What action is the Welsh Government taking to enhance the natural environment of Wales? OAQ52254

We continue to implement the seven key parts of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016. That puts in place a plan to manage Wales’s natural resources and environment in a proactive, sustainable and joined-up way.

I thank the First Minister for that response. Last week, it was very pleasing to see that Wales had been awarded 47 blue flag beaches, which means that we have more per mile of coastline than any other country in the UK. So, that was very pleasing news. But what, First Minister, do you think the effect of leaving the EU will be on environmental standards, as it has meant until now that we have had to have a high standard for things like bathing water and coastal management?

Well, it has to be said that it is our membership of the EU that drove up environmental standards in the UK. Our standards were appalling; the rivers were awful. There was one river in greater Manchester that was flammable in the 1980s if you've threw a match into it. My own river, the River Ogmore in Bridgend, would run different colours according to what had been thrown into it up river. I was looking at it on Sunday—crystal clear. We often used to see diseased fish in the river in the 1980s. There was a major pollution incident there that killed all the wildlife around the river. We are a long way from there, and the last thing we should be doing is going back to those days.

In terms of blue flag beaches, I very much welcome the fact—and I have nearly 10 per cent of them in my own constituency—that we can say that our beaches meet a European standard that is a high standard. The last thing we should do is have a lower standard for our beaches. To my mind, it makes perfect sense to stay as part of the blue flag scheme or, if that's not acceptable or palatable to the hardline Brexiteers, to have at least an equivalent scheme that's recognised as equivalent by everybody else in the world, but not to go backwards and go back to the days that I remember in the 1970s and 1980s when basically our beaches were filthy and our rivers were polluted.

Thank you, First Minister.