4. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to address the concerns raised with the Minister by leaders of the WLGA in relation to Natural Resources Wales? OQ56769

Diolch, Heledd. I've recently met with the NRW leadership team, alongside the Deputy Minister, Lee Waters, and I am committed to working very closely with NRW and all our partners across Wales to ensure we can effectively meet the significant challenges of climate change, including responding to serious flooding incidents.

Thank you very much, Minister. I should declare here that I am a councillor in RCT too. You will be aware, I'm sure, that the Welsh Government has given funding to a number of local authorities, including RCT, to spend on temporary flood defences for homes, such as the flood gates and so on, and the project is being administered by Natural Resources Wales. Although a number of homes have benefited from that, there is inconsistency in terms of how decisions are made in terms of which homes qualify and which don't. For example, on one street in Pontypridd, 30 houses were flooded in February 2020, but only 13 have been offered gates. NRW say that the rest of the homes aren't at as great a risk of flooding. It's very difficult to explain to people why they don't qualify for these flood gates, given that they had been flooded at exactly the same time. So, can I ask you, therefore, because I've not been able to get answers to this: will the Minister intervene in this issue and ask for an update in terms of how Government funding is spent and how decisions are made in terms of which homes qualify and which homes don't? I'm sure many people would agree that every home that has suffered from flooding should be given the same offer. 

Thank you for that, Heledd. If you want to write in to me with details of the houses that have been left out, I'm more than happy to look into it for you.

Good afternoon, Ministers. Can I just start by declaring an interest, as I'm a Denbighshire councillor? Minister, my constituency, the Vale of Clwyd, was hit hard by storm Ciara last year and storm Christoph this year. While we can do little about the weather, we can take steps to mitigate its impact. Unfortunately, like many local authorities, Denbighshire has found NRW to be less than helpful at times and a barrier at others. Whether it's culverts not being cleared in a timely manner, river gauges not being repaired, or a whole litany of seemingly minor issues, they add up to my constituents being devastated by floodwaters. Even when it came to learning the lessons of last year's flooding, Denbighshire councillors and officials were met with hostility. Minister, will you now heed the warning that NRW is not up to the task and agree to Welsh Conservative proposals to create a national flood agency for Wales? Thank you.

Thank you for that, Gareth. There's nothing like keeping it apolitical when dealing with serious issues like flooding, is there? We are, as you know, already in the process of reviewing the flood management arrangements. We've already welcomed a number of section 19 reports from local authorities in terms of flood protection, and we are working with NRW, Welsh Government officials and local authorities to make sure that we have the right level of flood protection, from the right agency, in the right place at the right time. I don't want to say anything against our local authority partners, who I know worked very hard throughout the winter this time, and throughout the winter preceding, in order to protect people from flooding, and to deal with the immediate aftermath of floods. But, it has to be said that, in doing a review, a review is done of all partners, and very seldom have I seen a review where one partner has done absolutely 100 per cent excellently and the other partner is entirely at fault. So, it behoves us all, in an apolitical manner here, to understand what went wrong and to put the systems in place to make sure that we learn those lessons and that this winter we have the very best protection from flooding. That's exactly what this Government is doing.

Minister, as you know, I've made my views clear in this Chamber when discussing NRW and the flooding events of 2020. That said, I'd like to thank the Welsh Government for the support provided to all flood risk management authorities since the floods to improve flood protection and prevention across Rhondda, putting right culverts and drainage systems in Pentre, Treorchy, Ynyshir and Blaenllechau, and plans for a flood wall in Britannia. We've discussed both in the Chamber and in outside meetings about the need for a working group to learn the lessons of February 2020. What discussions has the Minister had with the flood risk management authorities regarding the working group?

Thank you very much, Buffy. We've had an extensive set of discussions around this. As I said, we are looking now to have a lessons-learnt review, and to address a series of recommendations to improve the level of flood protection provided to the community. We have put record levels of funding into flood risk management. In 2020-21, NRW's revenue funding was increased by £1.25 million to £21 million, sustained in 2021-22, alongside a further £17 million in capital funding. I would like to take this opportunity, however, to express my gratitude to the action of many staff in NRW who worked above and beyond the call of duty during the flooding. I think it's easy to forget the people on the ground who actually worked really hard in very difficult circumstances, alongside local authority officers, officers from fire and rescue authorities and others, who really did put themselves on the line to do that. I really do think that's lost in some of these conversations. We are very happy, of course, to look again at the remaining—you know I'm already doing that. NRW is asked to do an enormous number of things for the Welsh Government, and many of the staff are doing those extremely well. I do accept entirely that we haven't got the balance of responsibilities for flood protection right at the moment, and we're working very hard to put that right in the future.