4. Topical Questions

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:23 pm on 18 July 2018.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 3:23, 18 July 2018

There's not much I can add, really, to Lee Waters's excellent question. Speaking as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, we are quite literally astonished, baffled—whatever description you want to give it—that the Auditor General for Wales has once again had to qualify the accounts of NRW for the third year running, and again on the basis of their transactions relating to timber sales, contracts, being irregular. We are disappointed that there is further uncertainty on whether NRW has complied with principles of public law, state-aid rules—the list goes on. The committee will be re-examining this issue during the autumn term to ensure that we are satisfied with the action being taken, and we're certainly going to monitor this.

We did hope that we wouldn't be—. Well, we assumed that we wouldn't be in this position again. It is, as Lee Waters said, quite extraordinary that we do find ourselves in this position. In terms of—. Well, I have two questions for you, actually, Cabinet Secretary. You said you had a meeting this morning, I think, with the chair or—