Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Diolch, Llywydd. May I take this step to congratulate you, Minister? I've worked with you previously and I look forward to working with you positively as we aim to get a grip on the issues facing our communities.

Now, Llywydd, this Monday marked the fourth anniversary since the tragic death of 72 people at Grenfell Tower. I'm sure that the Minister and, indeed, this Senedd will join with me in expressing our deepest sympathies to all who were affected by this disaster. Now, just after Grenfell, our late, dear colleague Carl Sargeant quite rightly informed this Senedd that we should learn these lessons and act upon them. The Welsh Government, however, has not yet, to date, delivered quickly enough on that determination. Even the cross-party Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee wrote the following earlier this year:

'At times we have been frustrated by the slow progress in responding to some of these critical and urgent issues.'

Only last week, a partner at the law firm Watkins and Gunn threatened to initiate High Court proceedings and to seek a judicial review of Welsh Government handling of financial support to assist those with fire-safety problems in high-rise flats. Legal proceedings have not yet commenced, but the possibility does highlight the desperation many residents feel across Wales.

Now, to be fair, Minister, you have made a clear commitment in the manifesto, and I quote, to

'develop a fire safety fund for existing buildings.'

You do need to ask a question now. I don't think you need to quote the Labour manifesto at the Minister.

Okay. You said the same on 15 February 2021. So, will you make a clear statement today as to the exact timeline for creating this Welsh fund and exactly how much finance you are going to make available? Diolch.

Yes, of course, Janet, and welcome to your new brief as well. But of course, Janet, my heartfelt sympathies go to the victims of the Grenfell fire and, indeed, actually, to all of the people who are living in high-rise buildings who have these issues affecting them. It is absolutely a scandal that the buildings were ever put up with so many faults. However, as I said many times in the previous Senedd, this is incredibly complicated in terms of the way that land law works, the way that property law works, the way that leaseholder law works, the way that the buildings are managed, the way that they're constructed, and so on. And unfortunately, there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to this. Each building has a set of problems that are unique to it, and it's very difficult, therefore, to put in place an overarching thing that works. 

The UK Government has had some serious difficulty in this area as well. It has put in place a number of funds, but those funds have been less efficient than I think they would have liked, to be charitable. And also they only cover some of the cladding issues, whereas we know that very large numbers of these buildings also have compartmentation issues, escape issues, alarm issues and all sorts of other things wrong with them. So, we are currently looking at a holistic approach to the remediation of buildings, which includes the compartmentation—it's very hard to say—of the buildings, fire alert systems, evacuation systems and fire-suppression systems. So far, we've only had one set of consequentials off the UK Government, despite the very large amounts of money that have been announced. I have received, via MP colleagues, assurances from the Secretary of State that a consequential will be forthcoming, but so far it is not forthcoming and we have absolutely no indication at all as to when and how much that money will be. So, I would very much like your assistance to get the Secretary of State to tell us quite how much money he is thinking will come to us in a consequential, because it's very difficult to plan without that level of detail.

Nevertheless, with the money we already have, we are working hard on putting a scheme together that is likely to be able to assist building owners—I say 'building owners' as a global term, so just to be clear, that's not the technical term, because there are a large number of complexities, but the people involved in owning the building—to understand what's wrong with their building, because that's the first problem, because none of the people who live there are experts in that and actually even just asking people, 'What is wrong with this building?' is a really difficult thing to do. So, we are working really hard to put something together that allows people to get the right result in, 'What's wrong with this building?' and then to be able to assess the right kind of finance to put it right afterwards. But it is fiendishly complicated, and we are not going slowly because we don't want to do it, we're going slowly because we want to get it right.

Thank you. I think what I'm seeking, really, is the clarity. As somebody who is shadowing you in your portfolio, I'm really concerned to examine really exactly how much you've had to date, how much you intend on receiving, or where you need my help. The UK Government has already led the way in protecting hundreds of thousands of leaseholders from the cost of replacing unsafe cladding on their homes. Last December, you wrote to me advising that the £58 million received as a consequential from the UK budget is not ring-fenced to be spent on the same purpose in Wales, so I question that. I acknowledge that you've invested £10.6 million in the social sector to fund remediation in the last financial year and that the budget had £32 million set aside for further remediation of buildings. However, to my mind, there's a missing £15.4 million. So, will you commit today to this Chamber to spending every single penny that you do receive from the UK Government for that purpose, to ensure that important remediation actions go ahead? And would you confirm today, Minister, where is that £15.4 million?

So, unfortunately, Janet, that's just not how consequentials work. So, the consequentials come as part of a funding package to the Welsh Government, which have negative consequentials in them as well as positive ones. I always say to people who ask me to give them the positive ones, 'Be careful what you wish for, because you might also get the negative ones that come with it, and find that you end up with less money than you started with.' So, actually, the more important thing is to put the fund in place that actually does the job that we want.

I would very much like to know what the consequential from the billions announced by Robert Jenrick might look like for Wales, but in previous iterations of this, I'm afraid we've discovered that when the positive consequential comes, it also comes with a cut to departmental spending that balances off the consequential and we get less money. So, I'm afraid it's not quite as straightforward as you would like it to be. I wish it were that straightforward, but it is not.

When we first got that consequential funding, we were right at the beginning of the pandemic, and we rightly put all consequential money into combating the pandemic, because that was the immediate problem in front of us, so we put all the money into that, but then slowly, as we understood what the pandemic looked like and so on, we were able to release funding to do some of the things you've just said, so we've already done the remediation for social buildings and we've put £32 million into the budget for the initial fund for looking at this building safety thing. It's very difficult to plan for the rest of it until we know what we're looking at, not just in terms of positive consequentials, but in funding overall in terms of the department. I'm more than happy to do a briefing for Members on how some of the complexities of this work and, Llywydd, I'm very happy to offer that to Members across the Senedd, because this is a very important thing that we need to get right for Wales.

Thank you. I've started so I'll finish, but it may well be that we need those conversations to happen, but I'll carry on with this.

So, my focus on available resources is essential as they are key to securing progress on creating safer buildings in Wales. The ELGC response to the 'Safer Buildings in Wales' White Paper noted that one of the common themes heard from all the respondents was the impact of the proposed new regime on resources, including the fire and rescue services, who have warned that they may have to scale back on traditional community safety activities, and that a whole host of resource implications arising from the proposals in the White Paper are not captured. The CICAIR stated that there will be a need for a significant increase in appropriately qualified surveyors to join this sector, and then of course there is the impact on leaseholders with the calls being made for complete clarity on who will be responsible for paying for each element of those proposals.

So, will you clarify, please, today, what steps you are already taking to address the resource crisis that we need to overcome to have an effective new regime in Wales? I would like to take you up on your offer to learn more exactly where these figures are, and then we can make sure that words that were spoken four years ago are certainly not ignored. Thank you. 

Thank you, Janet. There's a huge consensus across the Chamber that we need to implement a new building safety regime in Wales, and we worked very closely together in the last Senedd on putting together the proposals, and so on. We were very anxious before the election, and we all worked across the Chamber, to make sure that the industry out there realised that all the big parties in the Senedd were committed to this agenda, and I'm very grateful for your work alongside me in doing that. We will be putting the formal consultation responses in front of the Senedd from the White Paper in due course, when we're ready to do so, and I'm very happy to have a briefing session once more on what is a fiendishly complicated set of proposals. You'll remember the massive graphs—I think, Llywydd, we were able to put it up on a screen at one point, to show the complexity of it, and our former colleague David Melding was asking me a range of questions. So, I'll offer again a briefing session on where we are with the White Paper and what the new regime for new building—as I say, that will not correct the problems of the past—looks like, so that before Members have it in front of them on the Senedd floor, Llywydd, they have the best information available on which to base their judgments.

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, I will be asking my first two questions in Welsh. May I welcome you to your new role? I look forward to being able to work with you on this vital topic.

It is clear that Wales is facing a climate emergency, and a climate emergency was declared during the fifth Senedd. But the crisis that we are facing is not just about the climate. There is also a nature and biodiversity emergency as well. Indeed, it was disappointing that there were no statutory targets on biodiversity loss in the programme for government that the First Minister published, because the situation is an emergency. Last week, 50 of the world's leading scientists said that we must solve these two emergencies together—nature and the climate—or we will not succeed in solving either of them. Surely now the Welsh Government must give the same level of attention to the nature emergency as is being given to the climate emergency.

Therefore, could I ask first whether you agree that there is a need to declare a nature emergency? And can you make a statement on the possibility of developing and introducing nature recovery targets that will reverse the deterioration in nature by 2030?

Thank you for that, Delyth, and it's nice to be working with you again as well.

We see it as another part of the climate emergency. The nature emergency is being driven by changes in the climate, the reduction of habitat, and all the rest of it that goes alongside the climate emergency. So, I don't think there's any disagreement with us that we're in that kind of emergency. We have shocking species loss and loss of habitat across the planet, and indeed in Wales, and we clearly need to not only protect what we have left, but also to enhance what we have left, and try to assist it to recover. That will be very much part of what we're trying to do as part of the new portfolio, and my colleague Lee Waters is going to be doing a statement later on today setting out some of the first things that we're going to do. Llywydd, we're very much trying to do it between us, because this is an enormous piece of work, and the two of us will be sharing a lot of it, so you may find us covering bits of it, both of us, and so on, because, Delyth, of the extreme nature of what you've just set out.

So, at the moment we're waiting on some advice that will come from the world organisations on this, so we're hoping that they will report back to us in October with global targets. We're going to take part in COP26 to get some learning from that, and then I'm very happy to bring to the Senedd a range of proposals to put in place, so that you can, if you like, hold our feet to the fire to make sure that we do it, but actually more importantly, to tell the story to the people of Wales as to what each one of us will have to contribute to, both personally and in our communities, to make sure that we follow the science. So, we've got used to that during COVID, haven't we? We've got used to a set of scientists coming together and setting out for us a set of parameters that allow policy makers to make some choices. So, we're very much seeing that in climate change and the nature emergency alongside it. We will be bringing a set of choices to you that allow us to come together as a Senedd, because I think this is a shared agenda, very much, across Wales. 

But, Llywydd, I'm now stealing the thunder of my colleague Minister, so I'll stop there. 

Thank you, Minister. Collaboration will be very important in this area, I'm sure, across the Government but also across the parties. I sincerely hope that there will be things that we can collaborate on. Certainly, there will be areas where I will be pushing you to go further, I'm sure. I was very pleased that you talked about the stories and how we give the narrative on climate change, and how we convey that. As you know from what we've discussed about eco-anxiety, that's something that I'm very eager to work on with you. Thank you for that. 

Moving on to the next topic, of course, if we are to tackle climate change, we will need to persuade more people to use public transport, and that brings us to a problem. People travelling across Wales have complained about feeling unsafe on public transport since the COVID travel restrictions were further relaxed. Many have complained about safety concerns on Transport for Wales services, citing dangerous overcrowding and situations that force people to sit side by side, failing to comply with social distancing measures—

I need a question by now please, Delyth Jewell. 

Could I ask you therefore, Minister, what will your Government be doing to respond to these concerns about overcrowding on public transport? 

My colleague Lee Waters will be primarily responsible for transport, but I'll just set out very briefly that we will bring forward a range of things that we want to say about public transport, both its structure and purpose, and some of the issues you've raised around the way that the current operations exist alongside the COVID regulations, which are very difficult problems to solve. All of the so-called solutions lead to different sets of problems. But we will bring forward very soon for the Senedd's consideration a range of proposals, both to sort out some of the anomalies in the current set-up, but actually to set out a much better future for public transport across Wales in line with our new transport for policy for Wales, which we announced just before the election term.

Again, Llywydd, I fear I'm stealing the thunder of my colleague Minister if I give a fuller answer, but, Delyth, we'd be very happy to work with you on a range of really difficult issues around not only the very specific issue you mentioned there, but actually a range of issues around access to better forms of transport for people right across Welsh communities. 

Thank you, Minister. Finally, I'd like to ask about the Welsh Government's membership—or, rather, absence, apparently—of the UK Energy Research Centre's steering committee. That committee is undertaking a review of energy models being used across the UK by public bodies, universities and the energy industry. The Welsh Government's absence from that committee is notable, because it would be the only UK Government body not to be represented. I'd be glad to be proven wrong on this, but given the importance of the issue, I'd like to ask: has the Welsh Government been invited to be a member of the steering group? Did the Welsh Government decide not to join and, if so, why? And finally, what institutional experience and, indeed, access to information would you calculate has been lost as a consequence of that decision to not participate in the advisory process?  

I have to respond to that, Delyth, by saying, 'Oh, you've got me there'. I don't know the answer to that. I'll have to write to you.FootnoteLink 

Information further to Plenary

Question 3, to be answered by the Deputy Minister. Question 3, Sam Rowlands.