Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 11 December 2019.
So, if I can start with your first comment, I certainly have spoken with the agricultural sector to see what the difficulties are of farming by calendar, because I'm on their side. That's what I'm saying; I understand that.
However, I'm also the Minister for environment, and there has been an unacceptable number of agricultural pollutions. I've just had one this weekend. When I put my computer on at the weekend, invariably, I'm getting e-mails about agricultural pollution incidents. It's too many and it's embarrassing and I think everybody wants to see less pollution. I'm not saying it's just the agricultural sector, of course not, but my regulations are obviously to do with the agricultural sector.
We have been undertaking visits to dairy farms with Natural Resources Wales dairy inspectors. I think we've now—. I think it's about 250 that have now been visited and over 50 per cent of those farms are non-compliant at the moment in relation to agricultural regulations. That is unacceptable. I have always said that we will help support, with funding, the additional requirements. However, I will not give funding to bring people up to the legal position as it stands now. If they're not compliant, I'm not going to pay for them to become compliant, but we'll certainly look to provide funding, if that is what is required later on.