Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 2:05 pm on 14 July 2021.
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.