Thank you, acting Presiding Officer, and I'm sure some Members from the previous Assemblies will have fond memories come to mind of seeing you in the chair. May I also put my congratulations on the record for your investiture with a CBE yesterday from Prince Charles?

The Petitions Committee, I was quite struck that the Petitions Committee was coming here today notwithstanding how long ago these petitions initially came.  There may have been particular reasons for delays, but for my part, I would like to thank David Rowlands as Chair, and the committee, for continuing to pursue this, and the fact that it had been there for a long time wasn't a reason for it to be forgotten, but actually to be brought here today for a debate. I think that, at least, is positive.

Lynne, I think, has spoken clearly about the particular difficulties, and I would concur with her criticism of the inspector's report on that Torfaen application, but at the end of the day, the Minister made the right decision that was consistent with the guidance. And it strikes me that the guidance regime provides for a sensible level of local discretion, and every application and every proposed development will be different, and for Ministers, Government and this Assembly having input to provide guidance on what are the appropriate things to consider strikes me as sensible. Then the planning committee can take into account local situations and, as importantly, local representations. It's clear that opencast mining is rarely popular, and, where it's been brought forward, generally there have been significant objections. I see no reason why a locally elected planning committee would not properly take into account those objections from the people that live in their area, and I think that regime is probably better in supporting localism, which we on these benches strongly support, rather than either making that guidance statutory or having a requirement that, in each and every case, irrespective of the particulars of the local area, above a certain size, you should call in an application.

However, I think the petitioners have largely succeeded in their objectives. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us further when she speaks. But I think the draft Planning Policy Wales 10, where consultation finished in mid May, seems to have quite a significant tightening of the policy, and it's difficult to see how opencast mining gets through this. The Chairman of the committee gave the first sentence; it does continue:

'Should, in wholly exceptional circumstances, proposals be put forward they would clearly need to demonstrate why they are needed in the context of climate change emissions reductions targets and for reasons of national energy security.' 

I think that's interesting and, in some ways, challenging, because it puts the onus of the exception on national and, presumably, UK-wide considerations of climate change targets and energy security. I just wonder, within that, if there is a proposal that's been put by UK Government and a policy—I think it was previously supported, to a degree, by Welsh Government—that coal should be phased out to a certain extent, I think, into the mid to late 2020s, if, in the meantime, someone said, 'Well, that's the policy, that's agreed, but, in terms of energy security, isn't it better this should be produced domestically rather than relying on imports from far afield?' I just wonder what a planning inspector would make of that argument, and we'll look forward to seeing the final guidance that the Minister puts forward in this area.

The Valleys have moved on since the days of coal mining and being perhaps the leading coal mining area in the world, and certainly in terms of the quality of the coal. We've had some opencast mining, but it's been pretty unpopular when put forward. I know there's been a proposal about the Dowlais Top where people had very strong views against it. Also, I think the Rhydycar West area, where there were previously proposals for opencast mining—I think it's very exciting that Marvel are now putting forward this really substantial proposal for a development that I hope, at least, will be more popular than opencast mining, an indoor snow centre, a skate and bike park, an indoor water park, and holiday accommodation and homes, and really very substantial investment has already gone into this and I thank them for their invitation to an information event on Friday.

But I think the issue of call in and local decision making—clearly, in some areas, particular applications are very, very demanding and very difficult and they have a huge amount of detail. For cash-strapped local authorities, particularly small ones, they can be very substantial things. But I think the importance of local democracy is key, and I've put a written question in on this, and I understand the difficulties if it comes to Ministers following an appeal and a planning inspector, that you don't want to prejudge things, but I wonder if Welsh Government could do more to provide planning support or perhaps resources smaller local authorities could draw on for particularly large applications at a central level, while ensuring that that provision of a general resource and expertise didn't prejudice any later appeal that Ministers might have to deal with.

I congratulate the petitioners and the Petitions Committee for finally dealing with this, and look forward also to what the Cabinet Secretary will have to say.