Thank you for this report. I have a longstanding issue, along with other AMs in this area, having chaired Wales Against Opencast Mining here in Wales, so that puts me perhaps in a unique position to talk about the ones in my area, but also knowing quite a lot about opencast in other areas as well. In my own area, for example, we still have Ochr y Waun and East Pit in Cwmllynfell, where we know historically mining has happened illegally, where extensions have taken place against the will of the people. In Kenfig, in Margam, in my region, we still have this huge void of water where there still has not been action with restoration, which is absolutely criminal in my view—that companies are able to get away with this. We see Merthyr, with Ffos-y-fran, we see the issues over the lack of paying from the company. They've now changed their name from Miller Argent to—what can I say—Blackstone, to try and perhaps get away from the bad press that they've had over the year. They should be paying those instalments for the restoration of that land so that the people of that town can get back to normality and not live a life of being worried about their health, continuously making complaints about the way that Miller Argent have worked in that area. The same goes for other operations across south Wales.

Now, while I'm pleased that we have this report, I am probably a little bit cynical as well as to, especially, conclusion 1, that there is so much faith being put into the Welsh Government that, even though they don't welcome it, potentially because of the policy changes, it would

'appear to make further new opencast coal mining developments highly unlikely'.

Well, I'm afraid, with this being policy, and with MTAN still being guidance, I am not entirely convinced that we should be as laid back as what this conclusion seems to reflect. I don't necessarily agree that we need to put MTAN into law, because I feel there are too many exceptions in the MTAN. I think we needed to have totally amended the MTAN and created a new legislative process whereby we defined those exceptions, we defined what it meant would be acceptable or not acceptable, and we made that law. For as long as it's guidance, for as long as it's policy, there will be planning inspectors out there, there will be local authorities out there, who will be able to say that, in these exceptional circumstances, which are quite big—they are wide-reaching, looking at UK trends in the industry—they could go forward in the future. So, I would like to be as positive as you, but, having had the experience that I've had, I don't feel as positive personally, which is why I would like to see the Cabinet Secretary go further. Pinning our hopes on this policy is fine for some, but it's not fine for me, I'm afraid.

In relation to restoration, I do agree with conclusion 3, you'll be pleased to hear, from the Petitions Committee, but, again, we need to be talking about restoration now. There are companies flouting what they should be doing here. They are companies that have money that should be being put into restoration. There are communities that have had this backdrop in their society for years and years and years, and the inaction by these companies should be an embarrassment for the local authority and for the Welsh Government for not acting sooner on this. There are laws already in place to hold these companies to account, and they're putting their money in offshore accounts, they're siphoning off their funds to different parts of the world. So, they can't be accountable, and I think that is absolutely unacceptable.

With regard to call-ins, I attended the conference that was initiated by the Welsh Government a few years ago with regard to competency in relation to local authorities' mineral planning authorities, and I thought it would have been a better idea to have amalgamated mineral planning authorities as opposed to straight away going for call-ins as an option, because, if we can have expertise on a local level, share that expertise, by all means, as opposed to going straight to that call-in process. Now, I know John Cox and others may not agree with me on that, but I think that to go straight to that national decision-making process should not be the first consideration, but we should try and build expertise through the local authority system, where that can be done, and I don't know if that was ever taken on when the portfolio was passed to somebody else within Welsh Government because, at the time, we were hearing from officials that that was something that they would seriously consider. It just doesn't seem to me to fit that the Welsh Government potentially would want to make these decisions when they've said anyway that they don't want to have opencast mining. So, if there is going to be that policy against opencasting, then I think that needs to be permeated through all of our policies. We do have the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, we do have sustainable development policies at the heart of Welsh Government, and that means we need to practice what we preach in relation to this and ensure that opencast mining is a thing of the past.