Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 1 February 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Adam Price Adam Price Plaid Cymru 1:52, 1 February 2022

(Translated)

Thank you, Llywydd. First Minister, on Thursday evening last week I attended a public meeting in my constituency called in light of the purchase of the local Frongoch farm by the Foresight investment fund in order to plant trees and gain carbon credits. There was a young family there who had made a proposal to purchase the farm and to farm the land, until Foresight offered a substantially higher sum for the land. And I'm sorry to have to say this, First Minister, but it's not a pantomime when a whole community is gazumped; it is a tragedy. There was passion in this meeting and the famous words of Gwenallt about a nearby village echoed the meeting, 

And now there is nothing there but trees... / Trees where there was community, / A forest where there were farms.

The Farmers Union of Wales and the NFU have this morning provided us with information that does suggest that this is happening at a substantial scale, particularly in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Powys. Is the Government willing to review this information as a matter of urgency in order to find the real scale of the problem?