The sustainable management scheme is delivering whole-landscape nature restoration in every part of Wales. This includes connecting and restoring dune habitats, trialling natural flood management to improve our climate resilience whilst creating woodland and wetland habitats, restoring hundreds of hectares of peatlands, and connecting thousands of people to the landscapes in their areas by creating new volunteering and recreational opportunities. The Welsh Government has some of the most sophisticated environmental monitoring capability of any European nation. Their work provides indications of some positive progress made through our agri-environment schemes, including halting the decline in the populations of upland farmland birds and an increase in woodland bird species, a positive recovery in soil acidity, consistent improvements in the condition of blanket bogs, and a growth in the overall land-use carbon sink, which in the decade prior to devolution was, in fact, a source of emissions.

Last year, I was able to repurpose the LEADER scheme to support rural communities in responding to the devastating effects of the pandemic. Those local action groups truly rose to the challenge, from the Conwy farm assistance scheme, a cohort of volunteers practically supporting farmers affected by COVID, through to Menter Môn's Neges project, which I was privileged to see in the summer—a food delivery service to ensure that vulnerable people and front-line workers were fed during the pandemic. It delivered 10,000 meals to NHS staff and 4,000 food parcels to vulnerable people. These efforts are a perfect example of how the rural development plan has helped to build resilience into rural communities. The local knowledge and agility of LEADER groups meant that they were there when their communities needed them. These are just a very small number of examples of the achievements supported by the RDP, and further evaluation will be completed as the present scheme draws to a close.

Today, I am laying agricultural support regulations that make provision to amend retained EU law in Wales to put in place a domestic framework to fund new rural development schemes. This would begin the multiyear transition, ahead of the introduction of the agriculture Bill in the next term of Government.

Before I move on to talk about the priorities for the future of rural development in Wales, I would like to place on record my deep frustration and disappointment shared by many in Wales's rural communities with the way in which UK Government has decided to renege on their commitment to replace the rural development funding that we are losing as a result of our exit from the European Union. Rather than replace the funding in full, they have taken the decision to subtract from replacement funds the amount we are still receiving from the European Union, as well as a proportion of those funds used to deliver the RDP. This has created a £137 million loss to the rural economy of Wales in next financial year alone.

Some have argued that rather than seek to recover these funds from the UK Government through a reversal of this decision, we should instead take funding away from other areas, including our COVID-19 response, in order to fill the gap left by the UK Government's decision. Besides being a perverse suggestion—to restore the losses to the rural economy by creating losses elsewhere—this is a matter where I believe the public would expect the Senedd to speak with one voice in calling on the UK Government to respect the importance of the rural economy to Wales and the UK, and to reverse this damaging decision.

The first in a series of consultations on the delivery of a new rural development programme is planned for summer 2021, to be brought forward by the new Government in the new Senedd, with the aim of launching a new rural development programme in 2024. As we begin that period of engagement, I believe there is a clear set of priorities emerging that reflects the desire amongst the public for a future very different from the past as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the growing severity of the climate and nature emergency. The future of rural development will need to support social justice in the transition to a net-zero economy. The future RDP will need to support skills and employment that enable the greening of rural industries whilst promoting inclusion, fair work and use of the Welsh language.

The future rural economy of Wales also needs to be nature positive, achieving the sustainable management of natural resources. A future RDP will need to support innovation that can deliver greater direct benefits for the resilience of ecosystems and our wider well-being, sharing the benefits of our natural environment more fairly. We need to keep Welsh farmers on the land by further strengthening their reputation for high animal welfare and environmental standards, supporting the whole supply chain to increase the value of the goods they produce and capturing more domestic and international demand for truly sustainable produce. We need to strengthen the vibrancy of our rural towns and villages, including by supporting a circular economy that retains more value locally whilst avoiding waste and pollution, and by taking advantage of the opportunities for remote working to draw more economic activity into rural areas.

We need to see a major growth in our national capacity for land management beyond farming, including fostering a larger domestic timber industry that can supply low-carbon building materials, and supporting the development of our Welsh nature conservation sector with secure and diverse means of generating income. The progress we have seen under the RDP will provide a solid basis for developing a new rural development programme that is focused on supporting a socially just transition to a zero-carbon and zero-waste economy, achieving the sustainable management of natural resources and sharing the benefits of our rich natural heritage more fairly. Diolch.