Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 6 October 2021.
Well, Janet, you make a very good point, which is that there are a number of reasons why we need to look at water pollution incidents across Wales, and, of course, they're not all attributed to a single source. So, we all need to work together in Team Wales to make sure that we reduce any kind of pollution incidents that affect our water tables, our river waters, our inland waters or, indeed, our coastal waters, and we need to do that together. So, all sectors need to work hard to do that. Our agriculture and farming sectors need to work just as hard as, obviously, the water companies, sewage companies, industrial polluters along the river banks, and a large number of other people who both rely on the water courses and, of course, require the water courses to be clean and in good conservation order.
There are a number of things to say about that. First of all, we're working very hard with the water companies at the moment to make sure that the pricing mechanisms that are put in place allow them to make the right kinds of investments for the future, so that we can invest in the network and make sure that it is efficient, effective and works very hard.
We're also doing a review of a number of regulatory areas to make sure that the current breakdown of who does what in regulation terms, and the Welsh Government, companies like Welsh Water, utilities companies and so on, NRW, local authorities—who all have skin in the game, as the expression goes, on this—have the right level of regulatory and delivery mechanisms inside their particular bits, and, more importantly, that they fit seamlessly together as a whole and people can understand who's responsible for delivering what and for regulating what. So, that's part of it as well.
And, then, you'll know as well as I do, that we all have some responsibility personally for this as well, because a lot of the sewage spills in particular are as a result of people putting completely inappropriate things into the sewer. So, I had a conversation only this week about what we can do at UK level particularly, actually, and you can help with this—I know you feel the same as I do—to make sure that the labelling on products is actually accurate, so that we don't have things like wet wipes and cotton buds and things like that, that say 'biodegradable' when they really aren't, or say 'flushable'—even worse—when they really aren't, and we can make sure that people are not causing blockages in the system that then cause incidents. So, we all have a responsibility to do this, but I can assure you that we're very happy to work with you and a range of other people right across Wales, in a team approach, to make sure that we have the right kinds of responses to these sorts of incidents.