Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 11:31 am on 24 June 2020.
Well, Llywydd, we are not cutting back on tree planting; we are quadrupling our investment in tree planting. And while NRW has inevitably had to bear its share of a decade of austerity—so, it isn't NRW's budget that is being cut year on year; it is the Welsh Government's budget that has been cut year on year since 2010, and I'm afraid no part of the public service can be regarded as wholly immune from that. There will be inquiries. There are legal responsibilities that fall on the local authority and NRW when flooding takes place. And I know that those local players are working very hard already to make sure that we understand why flooding took place again in those parts of the Rhondda very recently, to add that to what our understanding has been of the flooding back in February, and then, when we've had those local investigations concluded, we will use the outcome to make sure that we put further mitigation measures in place.