Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 11 December 2019.
I'm very happy to take all the recommendations into consideration, of course. It wouldn't be worth having them if I wasn't going to do that. So, you're right—the forum did make a number of recommendations. The NFU came forward with a number of recommendations. I think what was disappointing with some of the recommendations I received was that they were nearly all for Government. I think it's really important that the industry recognises that the level of agricultural pollution we're seeing in Wales is unacceptable. It rose significantly last year and we don't want that to continue. And I think everybody agrees that it's embarrassing for the agricultural sector to have these levels of agricultural pollution and that we need to do something about it. So, I wanted my officials to look very carefully at all the recommendations, all the evidence. One area I promised personally to look at myself was around the proposed closed periods for fertiliser applications, and I will make a final decision once the RIA has been finalised.