Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for the opportunity to have this debate about the Petitions Committee's report on two petitions concerning opencast mining. Both petitions were submitted during the previous Assembly session and have been under discussion for a considerable length of time. Therefore, I would like to begin by acknowledging the work that has been done on these issues by Members in both the current and previous Assemblies. In particular, I would like to place on record our thanks to the previous Petitions Committee. 

Petition P-04-472, which was submitted by Dr John Cox and collected 680 signatures, concerns the status of 'Minerals Technical Advice Note 2: Coal', more commonly known as MTAN 2. Dr Cox’s contention is that the content of the MTAN should be made mandatory in planning law in Wales. In particular, he has referred to the requirement for there to be a 500m buffer zone around opencast workings and provided examples of where this has not been enforced.