4. Will the Minister make a statement on the Welsh Government's priorities for the environment in Torfaen for the remainder of this Senedd term? OQ56057

Thank you. The Welsh Government sets the priorities for the whole of Wales through the natural resources policy. The south-east Wales area statement, published by Natural Resources Wales, outlines the key challenges and opportunities to sustainably manage natural resources in the area, and that includes Torfaen.

Thank you, Minister. SL Recycling Ltd has been operating a waste plant on the former Shanks incinerator site in a residential area of New Inn, in my constituency. They were granted a permit by NRW many months ago, despite the fact that the company is only now applying for planning permission from the local authority. Since they've begun operating, I've received a huge volume of complaints from local residents who are affected by noise nuisance and other matters such as odour. Those issues have had to be picked up by my hard-pressed local authority, because NRW are not able to be sufficiently responsive. Do you share my concern, Minister, about the obvious disconnect between the operation of NRW and my local authority? Will you raise this with NRW, with a view to ensuring that this disconnect does not continue in future? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm very concerned to hear this, and I certainly do share your concerns, because obviously planning and environmental permitting are complementary regimes. The planning permission determines if the development is an acceptable use of land, for instance, and it's absolutely right that the complaints went to the local authority in the first place, but I'll be certainly very happy to raise this with Natural Resources Wales at my regular monthly meetings, and then I will write to the Member to fully fulfil what your concerns are. Obviously, the issue of an environmental permit from NRW doesn't remove the requirement for a site to have the appropriate planning consent. So, I will ask NRW again to consult with the local authority and make sure that everything is absolutely in place.

Nearly 10 years ago, the Welsh Government set a target for planting 5,000 hectares of new woodland every year until 2030. However, in the last five years, the average figure for new woodland planted is only 300 hectares. Does the Minister agree that the Welsh Government's failure to meet its own target is hampering its ability to achieve its climate change aims? And what action will she take to encourage more trees to be planted in Torfaen and throughout Wales?

You will have heard me say many times that we have certainly not planted enough trees and that's why we've brought forward several initiatives in the last 12 months, particularly the main one being the national forest, and that will create areas of new woodland to help us restore and maintain some of our irreplaceable ancient woodlands and also to ensure that we are planting more trees to help us mitigate climate change. Again, you will have heard my earlier answers around the agriculture White Paper, published today, and in there you will see the plan to plant more trees. But I absolutely have always said we need to work with our farmers, with our land managers, with NRW to ensure that we significantly increase the number of trees we are planting.