I do note there is a broad consensus in this Chamber on this area of public policy and I in no way want that to end. I would, however, emphasise in my response to your statement the need now to ensure a qualitative assurance as well as quantitative.

I don't know if you've seen the recent audit office report into the recycling of plastics—this is in England—but over 50 per cent of our plastic waste is sent abroad, now mainly to Thailand and Malaysia. It was formerly China, of course. There is no proof that packaging sent for recycling is actually recycled, incineration has increased so much that there is a risk it will overtake recycling, and there are low inspection rates and a high risk of fraud in England. I think your colleague, Jenny Rathbone, made an excellent intervention—I was not in the Chamber, but I was able to listen to it in my office—along this sort of line, and I do think that we are now moving to require that sort of qualitative assurance, so that the public remain on board with this very, very important area of public policy.

So, I would ask, as Jenny Rathbone asked for a statement earlier, whether any particular examination of the practice in Wales—and whether NRW has done anything in this area of quality control. I think it's important that we hear your plans there. I think the spread of best practice between local authorities is key and I think you're wise to use your grants to promote that, because I do think that having 22 local authorities trying to outcompete each other sometimes, in terms of the level of recycling they achieve, is really good, but they don't want to be reinventing the wheel when they're doing it. So, we need that balance. And I'm pleased to see that one of my own local authorities, indeed, the one I live in, the Vale of Glamorgan, is to receive some special grant funding in this area.

I do think it's important that we go beyond domestic waste recycling and start to look at business waste. So, I do welcome the fact that there will be regulations to require the separation of waste at business premises. I think consultation on regs is very important, but I do think there should be participation also with the business organisations very directly involved. Because as we move to a truly circular economy with zero waste, the business sector is going to have to be a bit like some of those local authorities in coming up with their own solutions and being innovative, so we need it fully on board for that. So, I would ask what type of consultation do you plan and can it go further to be genuine participation? Because that would transfer them immediately into key allies if we do that well. 

Finally, on the deposit scheme, I'm not quite sure whether the Welsh Government is now committed to a Wales-and-England approach. I think we need clarity on that. Although work has been done in terms of your own pilot study, I think we would quite welcome a combined approach if that could really be effectively given, because the infrastructure costs—we can look internationally—can be very high. We really need to be sure that this type of scheme will work. It needs to go across all materials; I was pleased to see in England they are looking—plastic is the one most commonly talked about—at other materials as well. So, I would like a bit more detail on that about how open you are, or is it now your preferred option to work closely with the UK Government and to do that, obviously, in a fully participative way as well so they learn from some of our experience? But, in general, this is an area of work where we shouldn't really have great partisan divisions for the sake of it. In driving up standards and especially ensuring quality, you will have our support.