Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:21 pm on 16 June 2021.
Long may it last is all I can say. So, absolutely, just to start with the question at the end: I'm very happy to meet with NRW to discuss it. I'd also like to suggest that I arrange a briefing for yourself, alongside the RCT leader, to just discuss some of the issues upfront, before we get the section 19 report, so that we can understand where we're coming from. We've been working very closely with both NRW and the council in the production of the section 19 report. It's a very important report, as I said to Heledd earlier, that we will want to learn the lessons from. So, it's very important to get it right, and we understand the lessons learnt coming out of it. As I said, we have provided additional funding to local authorities to support their section 19 investigations into the 2020 flooding, and RCT is, right now, in the process of finalising its report into the devastating flooding at Pentre last year. I can't obviously comment on the content of the report, as I have not yet seen it; that would be inappropriate anyway. But we absolutely want to fully assess the findings of the report and learn the lessons that I'm sure it will set out for us.
I absolutely recognise the strength of feeling from Pentre residents, and, indeed, from residents around Wales, who experienced very, very significant levels of flooding. Absolutely, if there are ways to reduce the risk of a repeat of such events, then we expect our risk management authorities to work together to implement them. We conducted, right at the end of the last Senedd, an exercise— a civil contingencies exercise—to look at how our response to flooding works. We will be doing a leadership version of that across the Welsh Government, NRW and local authorities, to make sure that each leader plays their role, if we do experience such an event, and that we have the maximum amount of speed, and we all know what we're doing, if something of that sort does happen again. But, actually, I very much hope that the lessons we learn will help us to assist in making sure that it does not happen again, including a review, for example, that we're doing across all coal tips, a better data management system, and you'll know, Llywydd, that the Government has also got, in its manifesto, a commitment to improving coal tip safety across Wales, which will be very much a part of that work.