4. How does the Minister use evidence to inform the Welsh Government's policy decisions relating to the environment? OQ56392

The Welsh Government is committed to evidence-based policy. To enable this, I have commissioned a range of evidence programmes, including the environment and rural affairs monitoring and modelling programme, and my officials engage with research partners across the UK, including actively influencing our shared research and development budget with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Thank you. Minister, I'm truly surprised to hear that answer, and I refer in particular—apart from the fact that I'm repeating so many other people—here to your mystifying decision on NVZs. I had meetings, as many others did, with the farmers unions a few weeks ago, and they reported that evidence and recommendations were provided in a report to you by the NRW Wales land management sub-group in April 2018, and a weighty 102 pages of evidence was presented to you in late 2019. It's not often that I agree with NRW, as they have made some bad decisions in the past, since they were formed, but, on this occasion, their report should have been listened to. So, if, as you say, your decisions are based on evidence, what was the evidence that you found so compelling, and why was the NRW evidence effectively thrown in the bin? Thank you.

Well, certainly, the evidence wasn't thrown in the bin, as you state. Any evidence that we take, we look at, and that forms part of the decision. The report that you referred to, I think, if I remember rightly, it had about 45 recommendations. And, again, if I'm remembering it correctly, every single recommendation was for the Welsh Government; none of them were for the agricultural sector. So, I think you can see why we needed the agricultural sector on board and why I went to great lengths to try and work with them, when they said that voluntary methods would help. And, unfortunately, we did not see a decrease in the number of incidents.

So, where did I get my evidence from? Well, as I say, we did obviously use the evidence there, but it's also the Climate Change Committee, which, I think, again, every Member in this Senedd—or maybe one or two sceptics perhaps not—would appreciate that the independent advice we get from them is something that we take very seriously and helps us with our policy.

Minister, can I widen out this question as to the way in which you use evidence in policy decision making? You'll know that the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales has called on the Welsh Government to be more transparent in showing the carbon impact of all Government policies and spending decisions. How have you responded to that? Do you keep accurate figures in terms of the carbon footprinting of policy decisions and of budgeting, for instance? And do you think there's a way that you could be even more transparent in making those public and allowing the public to see exactly what that carbon footprint of the Welsh Government is?

Well, obviously, we work very closely with the future generations commissioner's office, and I've certainly attended meetings with her and her staff, and with the First Minister—I can think of one specific one—particularly around aligning our carbon budget with our fiscal budget, because I think it's very important that we are able to demonstrate it. I personally think we are very transparent, but anything we can do to improve that transparency I'm sure will be taken on board.