I and my group shall be supporting the Conservative motion. The regulations implementing a blanket set of slurry regulations for the whole of the Welsh farming industry are totally disproportionate, both in cost and implementation. It appears yet again that the many are being punished for the actions of the few. It may also be the case that, even with the few, the majority of pollution accidents were unavoidable or simply, as in life in general, a matter of simple mistakes. Even these, as has been said before, have fallen by over 24 per cent over the last three years. The Welsh Government say they have set aside £22 million to help farmers to implement the changes needed, but even a cursory glance at the cost of the infrastructure needed shows the sum to be totally inadequate. It is estimated that the average cost of the construction of slurry storage facilities is around £80,000. Given there are 24,000 farms in Wales that might be affected by these regulations, we get a flavour of how inadequate the figure set aside is. 

It is obvious that the farmers themselves will bear the brunt of the cost of implementation. The £80,000 figure only represents the initial cost for the necessary infrastructure. The Welsh Government's own cost analysis puts a figure for upfront capital costs of £360 million and ongoing annual costs in the region of £22 million, and this does not include the estimated one-off payment of £7.5 million planning consent fees. Given the farming industry is in the middle of a huge upheaval with regard to Brexit, not to mention the disruption caused by COVID, how does the Government expect farmers to cope with this huge extra expense? It is said that the banks are unwilling to make loans for the cost because they do not positively affect farm income.

We then have to ask ourselves: what are the benefits achieved over the next 20 years? Well, Welsh Government's own figures put this at around £300 million, set against a cost of over £800 million for implementation. Again, out of the 953 water catchment areas identified across Wales, just 113, 12 per cent, were failing through farming practices. Surely a far more proportionate and cost-effective way of managing the pollution problems would be to target these failing areas.

Should these draconian measures go forward, I believe we shall see many of our already impoverished farmers fail. One farmer has told me that his dairy herd will have to be halved if these measures go forward. The Minister says that there has been extensive consultation with the farming industry, but the farming industry tells us that almost all of their suggestions and input have been ignored. Given that British farmers are some of the most hardworking, innovative farmers in Europe and whose husbandry standards are among the highest in the world, we should be doing everything to help the industry, not creating obstacles to their survival. It appears the farmers are being made scapegoats on the Welsh Government's altar of environmental goals. Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd.