The Food and Drink Industry in North Wales

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 4 March 2020.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 1:31, 4 March 2020

Thank you. I was very pleased to visit Wrexham Lager with you in your capacity as the chair of the cross-party group on beer and pubs. And I think Wrexham Lager probably is a classic example of making the most of the opportunities, and I know when the Rugby World Cup was on in Japan, I think they had to send out extra resources on about three occasions because it was so popular out there. I can reassure you that my department works closely with other governmental departments. We work right across Government. You mentioned the deposit-return scheme. Work is developing on that. That's being taken forward as a joint project with both the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Northern Ireland Government.

Back in July we published the responses to an initial consultation on the proposals for a scheme covering Wales, Northern Ireland and England, and, again, it was overwhelmingly positive, the response that we received to that consultation. I'm also putting funding into the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in your own constituency in relation to decarbonisation in relation to the food and drink sector as a whole, and, obviously, reduced packaging is one area that we're particularly looking at.