4. Will the Welsh Government outline what support they are providing to communities that have been affected by storm Dennis? OAQ55117

7. Will the First Minister provide an update on how the Welsh Government is supporting flooded communities in Wales? OAQ55141

Llywydd, I understand that you have given permission for questions 4 and 7 to be grouped together. Following the multi-agency emergency flood summit last week, we have been working hard to put practical and financial support in place for households, businesses and local authorities affected by the flooding from both storm Ciara and storm Dennis.

First Minister, I'd like to place on record my thanks to yourself, to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, and to all of Welsh Government for your efforts to support those whose homes and businesses have been ruined by storm Dennis. The financial support that you are putting in place is much appreciated by constituents that I have spoken with, and, alongside support from Rhondda Cynon Taf council, will help those who have lost everything. The very visible presence of yourself and the environment Minister is also appreciated. You both visited flood-stricken areas of RCT several times in the last week, including on Wednesday when the environment Minister visited Mountain Ash with myself. This stands in stark contrast, First Minister, with the UK Government where Boris Johnson has not visited a single community that has been affected by flooding, or offered financial assistance, despite written requests from myself and other RCT AMs and MPs. Do you agree with me, First Minister, that the UK Government has a duty to help, both morally and legally?

I thank Vikki Howells for that, and let me equally pay tribute to the actions that local Members across the Chamber have taken in their local constituencies to respond to the difficulties that local residents have faced. I know that Members here have been hard at work over the last fortnight in north and south Wales in making sure that local residents know that this National Assembly, this Senedd, takes very seriously the predicament that they have faced—my colleague Lesley Griffiths in Llangollen and Llanrwst, and Ken Skates as the Minister for north Wales in north Wales, as well as the visits to which Vikki Howells has referred. 

As to the UK Government, the help that I look for from them is not necessarily visits, but the harder edged help of cash—the money that we will need, the money that, as I mentioned a moment ago, was taken away from us over the last few weeks, that money needs to be restored so that we are able to make sure that whether it is our very hard-pressed local authorities, or whether it is NRW as we heard earlier, that those organisations on the ground have the money they need to be able to deal not just with the events of these weeks, but the events of months ahead for affected communities.

First of all, I'd like to add my deepest sympathies with all those who've been affected by the floods across Wales, and pay tribute to the emergency services and outstanding community efforts. The response from you, First Minister, and the environment Minister has been excellent and very welcome. However, the impact of these floods will be felt for months, even years to come, and I'm keen to see that momentum and support continues. Lessons do need to be learned and potential weak points in our defences need to be strengthened.

While Newport didn't see the levels of devastation by floods in other parts of Wales, I visited some of the worst parts in my constituency affected by flooding. The River Ebbw was at worrying levels in Dyffryn and at Bassaleg, and whilst the defences mainly held, in many places this was a matter of centimetres. Residents are grateful and they're hugely sympathetic to the worst areas across Wales, but are obviously fearful for the future. They have asked for assessments of the current defences and what support grants can be made available to better protect their homes.

Businesses have also been hit very hard. The popular Cefn Mably Farm Park has been devastated, and they're looking at months of closure as a result. This will not only affect the business and its customers, but the employees and their families. What support can we provide to ensure that businesses get back on their feet as quickly as possible? 

I thank Jayne Bryant for that, Llywydd. I'll focus, if I may, just on the final part of that supplementary question—the help that is available for businesses. We made it clear last week at the summit that councils are able to use their discretionary powers to suspend council tax and non-domestic rate obligations on properties that have been flooded, and that the Welsh Government will reimburse those costs to local authorities under the emergency financial assistance scheme. So, that's immediate and direct help, and local authorities now know that they can offer that help and that the cost won't fall on them; they will be picked up through the Welsh Government's emergency financial assistance scheme. 

Business Wales has been very active over the last week. There's a helpline that businesses can use to get through directly to a help desk that Business Wales is providing, making sure that businesses have the advice they need to deal with cash flow issues, liquidity issues. There was a surgery held in Pontypridd on Friday of last week that Business Wales was involved in, together with Mick Antoniw, the local Member. It was repeated on Monday in Coleg y Cymoedd, again making sure that businesses have that help directly provided to them. The Development Bank of Wales are targeting smaller businesses that may benefit from their £25,000 fast-track loan, again to try to make sure that where businesses need immediate help, we use that route to assist them, and my colleague Ken Skates has indicated that he is looking within budgets that he has, provided originally to assist businesses in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit, to see whether we might be able to repurpose some of those funds to assist businesses who find themselves in the circumstances set out by Jayne Bryant.

Can I identify with the sentiments that are being expressed across the Chamber in support of the help that is being given from all sides, whether it's the volunteers, the emergency services, or just communities themselves coming together for the flood victims in my own electoral region but also across Wales because this has affected the whole of Wales?

I would like to go back to the point that the leader of the opposition raised with you about the flood risk management strategy. Two years ago, the environment committee took evidence on this in its pre-budget scrutiny and was told that this was a document in preparation and would be available shortly. In response to that question today, First Minister, you said it will be with us in a few months' time. Really, First Minister, some two years on, the title says it all. It is the flood risk management strategy that would direct the rulebook that you highlighted that NRW work to at the moment and many other facets that are put in place to try and help alleviate some of this flooding that goes on with the climate change we are seeing at the moment. I appreciate you wouldn't be able to stop all flooding, but if you have a strategy that is dedicated to alleviating the risks of flooding, surely that document should be live and in circulation rather than, again this afternoon, hearing from you that it will still be a couple more months before that document is available. Can you indicate more precisely when that document will be available, and importantly, will that document have the budgetary considerations that will be needed to put the measures in place?

Well, Llywydd, let me just say again that the draft national strategy is available. Anybody who responded to the consultation will have seen it, and there was a good response to the consultation, and that didn't close until the autumn. So, there has been work to do to make sure that the comments that people contributed as part of the consultation are considered seriously and make a difference to the final strategy, which we intend to publish later this spring. So, we're not delaying it unduly. It will be an important document. I agree with what Andrew R.T. Davies and Paul Davies said about the importance of that strategy because it will show how the £350 million investment that this Government is making in flood and coastal erosion risks are being deployed in the best possible way.

And to return to a theme of earlier this afternoon once more, Llywydd, in terms of lessons learnt, one of the things that we will pick up in that strategy will be the need to try and shift some of the expenditure on flood management away from concrete-based solutions towards more natural-based flood defences, where we can use natural disbursement, for example, as a way of mitigating flood risk further downstream. So, the strategy is important, it will help us to pick up the lessons not just of the last couple of weeks but of this whole Assembly term, and it will underpin the very significant amount of expenditure that is already committed in this area.

The high rainfall levels have caused utter misery for hundreds of people in the Rhondda, and seeing is believing when it comes to the mess that's been left behind in people's homes, gardens and in the streets. We're all thankful for one thing, however, and that is that no-one lost their life in the Rhondda.

I've called for an urgent review of the stability of all coal tips left behind as a result of our industrial past. The disturbing landslide in Tylorstown is one that many people will have seen, but there have also been landslides in Clydach and Pontygwaith, and we all know how devastating and frightening a moving coal tip can be. I wrote to you last week about these coal tips, and it's good to see that there has been some action on this since then. But I wonder if you can tell me what the timescale is for inspecting all of the coal tips in the Rhondda. Does the First Minister agree with me that we need to recalibrate what we thought was once safe, due to the adverse weather that is becoming increasingly common due to the climate emergency? Will he also accept that this new normal cannot be acceptable? We should have known that this was coming; we do know that it will happen again.

And finally for now, will the First Minister consider the reintroduction of a land reclamation scheme for brownfield sites that was cut just a few years ago, as this would go some way to ensuring the former coal tips are not just brought back into economic use but are also made safe?

I thank the Member for those questions and agree with her entirely that to visit and to see and to speak to people whose homes have been devastated by the floods is a deeply sobering experience. And the level of human misery that has been caused in those households is palpable when you go there. And as people said to me when I was visiting them, in the end you can buy a new sofa, but what you can't do is replace the things that you have built up, having brought up a family, having lived in a property for not just years but decades, where all your memories are invested in it, and those things can never be recovered in that way. They made the same point to me as Leanne Wood has made this afternoon, that nevertheless, no lives were lost and that memories can be recovered and sofas can be rebought, but people can't be brought back. And there was a real sense of the effort that the emergency services had made to prevent the very worst from happening.

In relation to coal tips, what yesterday's meeting established was that NRW, the coal authority and the local authority have a shared approach, which is to identify on a scale those coal tips that give them the greatest cause for concern. And we received assurances yesterday that all those coal tips that are at the top of that list will have been investigated by the end of this week. Most of them have been investigated already, and assurances have been received from engineers that they don't pose a risk to life and property.

But there was a very important discussion that connects to Leanne Wood's point about the new normal, that those assessments are being made against the standards that have been used over the last decades, and those standards may not be satisfactory for years ahead. So, we will definitely return to that discussion with those authorities and with the experts that they deploy on the ground. Interesting ideas were being explored yesterday about better monitoring possibilities for those tips—new technologies that weren't available in the 1980s that we may be able to deploy today. And that effort will go on. The group that met yesterday will meet again to receive further reports, to look ahead and to make sure that the reassurances that people have every right to expect can be made, and that if further action is necessary, it will be taken, and that the standards against which the different public authorities carry out their responsibilities to provide those assurances are fit for the future.