Item 7 today is a statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, and I call on the Deputy Minister Lee Waters to make his statement.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for the opportunity to update Members on the measures we are taking to improve the safety of coal tips.

We have made significant progress in the last two years since the First Minister established a coal tip safety taskforce, and last week marked a significant step forward in putting measures on a long-term footing, with the publication of the Law Commission's report, 'Regulating Coal Tip Safety in Wales'. This is a landmark report. In 2020, Lesley Griffiths, the then Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, invited the Law Commission to undertake an independent assessment of coal tip legislation and to provide recommendations for a future legislative framework. The Law Commission consulted on its findings and proposals last summer, and last week it published its final report, which has been laid in the Senedd. It's a significant milestone and I'm grateful to the Law Commission for prioritising this project and for completing it quickly. It is an excellent report, which Members would find well worth reading.

It clearly sets out that the law as it stands is not fit for purpose. The Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969 was designed for a different era. It was aimed at managing the waste of operational mines, not dealing with the legacy of those mines, and it certainly was not designed to deal with the challenges of climate change. Crucially, the Act does not contain any mandatory duties on owners to ensure the safety of disused tips on their land. It provides only limited powers for intervention and includes no powers at all for oversight, monitoring and enforcement.

Among the 36 recommendations made by the Law Commission is the establishment of a new supervisory authority to oversee a new management regime for coal tip safety, and the vast majority of respondents to the consultation supported a new management regime overseen by a supervisory authority.

The Law Commission's analysis and its recommendations provide valuable evidence, which, combined with our analysis, are informing our proposals for a new statutory framework for disused tip management. We are committed to introducing legislation in this Senedd term, and in early May we will publish a White Paper setting out our plans. We'll then consult on our proposals to provide a consistent approach to tip management, monitoring and oversight.

Our priority, Dirprwy Lywydd, is to ensure that people living and working near coal tips feel safe and secure now and in the future by reducing the risks of further landslides. I am able to inform the Senedd that we have made significant progress in the last two years. Our first task was to establish the scale of the problem. The job of identifying and assessing the status of all disused coal tips has proven to be an enormously complex one. We now know there are over 2,500 disused coal tips across Wales, with 327 in the higher rated category.

The motion before the Senedd tomorrow refers to high-risk tips, but I want to be clear to Members that being placed in a higher rated category is not the same as being high risk, and the language we use is important. We have been focusing on the tips that need the greatest level of monitoring and have been working with our partners to carry out regular inspections. We’re working with partners such as the UK space industry to trial technology to improve the way tips are monitored in the future. There is much we can do to measure ground movement and water regimes and some of the technologies being tested are world firsts. We're also working closely with the research sector to have the best evidence possible on climate impacts. This is vital to understand the long-term stability of tips and to inform innovative approaches to tip reclamation. The Tylorstown tip, which caused the greatest concern, is currently estimated to cost approximately £20 million to complete all phases of remediation. Almost all of this investment will come from the Welsh Government.

I want to be clear with Members that it is the Welsh Government, not the UK Government, that is continuing to fund the Coal Authority to carry out inspections. We have so far spent £1.6 million on this task. The Coal Authority estimates it will take £30 million to bring them all up to standard, and a further £5 million a year to maintain them. Full reclamation is currently put at between £500 million and £600 million. The Welsh Government has committed £44.4 million over the next three years so that this vital work continues. But this is a legacy of Britain’s industrial past. It was Britain that reaped the benefits of our natural resources, and these tips were all in place before power was devolved to Wales in 1999. And yet the UK Government is willing only to contribute £9 million to the cost of cleaning them up. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, David T.C. Davies, told the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee that

'if the Welsh Labour Government think that those coal tips are unsafe, they must act now to put them right. They have the money to do it.'

It's not us who say it's unsafe, it's the Coal Authority, which is non-devolved, and we do not have the funding to do it. We describe the United Kingdom as a sharing union. I hope the UK Government will think again about sharing its role in clearing up their legacy of our collective industrial past.

The Welsh Government and local authorities are working diligently together to provide a consistent approach to the current inspection regime. A third round of winter inspections on the higher rated tips concluded in February, and the inspections programme is a significant one. The outcomes to date have meant that maintenance works needed to help ensure the stability of sites have been identified. As a high percentage of these tips are within private ownership, there are a number of issues to resolve in relation to the handling of information, including ensuring that robust quality assurance has been completed and data protection issues have been fully addressed. This has proven to be time consuming.

While our understanding of the overall picture has vastly improved in the last two years, more tips are still being identified. This work is very much a live project, and we can expect further adjustments to the overall number of tips as the work progresses. We remain committed to publishing the locations of the higher rated tips as soon as possible and as soon as it is responsible to do so, but we must be confident in our assessments before we do so. For higher rated tips, information has already been shared with local authorities and local resilience forums to assist in the development of emergency preparedness plans where required. But public access to the data on the locations of higher rated tips is a sensitive matter, and it's vital that the information, when published, is accurate and as complete as possible. Once this work is complete, we will inform Members of a date for publication.

Dirprwy Lywydd, our priority is to ensure that people living and working near coal tips feel safe and secure now and in the future. Our proposals for a new regime aim to achieve just that by reducing the risk of further landslides. Diolch.

Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to thank the Deputy Minister for bringing forward this statement today. It's fair to say that we recognise that, in terms of the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969, times were so different then, with operational mines. With climate change now, it's clear that we've all got to work together as regards any tips that are deemed unsafe. I for one am very pleased to see that you are bringing forward legislation; we look forward to that. How we can work with you in a positive manner is important. I also welcome the clarity that was offered in the report by the Law Commission, 'Regulating Coal Tip Safety in Wales', on 23 March this year, that coal tip safety does fall under devolved competence, and that funding coal tip safety is a devolved responsibility. 

Notwithstanding the points you've raised today, as a shared Government with the UK Government, it is hoped that greater working, perhaps, can go forward where we can actually identify—and I know there are the ones in the high-risk category—or how you categorise which of the tips, really, need the immediate action. I suppose one of my questions, really, was whether you—I have asked this before—actually have a breakdown of which are the most dangerous tips. I know we don't want to cause alarm or panic with the public, but I think, before we can determine where money is spent, there has to be this work carried out. I know, as you say, some of the figures you've spent up to now doing this.

I welcome the fact you've made an additional allocation of £4.5 million over three years, and total capital funding of £44 million to support essential coal tip maintenance. However, with over 2,500 disused coal tips, the additional money does only equate to an average of £19,500 per tip, which is way off. In addition to an explanation as to how the extra funding is going to be allocated, I would be grateful if you could clarify what options you are considering for finding the £0.5 billion that's been mentioned is required over the next 10 years in order to meet the cost of the reclamation and remediation programme, and how you are perhaps working with the UK Government in a positive manner.

Like my colleagues on the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee, I welcome the Welsh Government's commitment to introduce a Bill to improve the regulatory framework for coal tip safety. The Law Commission report has highlighted that the existing regulatory regime for tips associated with operational mines should be not be altered, and that any new legislation should not apply to a tip to which the Quarries Regulations 1999 or the Mines Regulations 2014 apply. So, some comments on that, Deputy Minister, would be good, as to whether you will act on that recommendation.

In terms of what needs to be covered by new legislation, there are problems that do need addressing, such as the loss of specialist skills over recent decades, severe strain on our local authority resources—because they believe they're having to pick up some of the tab on this—uneven distribution of tips across Wales that now places a disproportionate burden on some local authorities, and one that sets statutory powers that only come into play once a tip has become unstable. To help authorities act proactively rather than reactively in ensuring tip safety, there's a recommendation that a single supervisory body, with responsibility for the safety of tips and greater powers, be formed. This does seem to me a common-sense proposal. So, do you support that? Over 90 per cent of respondents agreed with the proposal, but they were fairly evenly split over whether the supervisory authority should be a new or indeed an existing body. I agree that perhaps a new body would put new impetus into this, as opposed to a newly created division of NRW, because we all know, as Members, the pressures that NRW are under—they face staff shortages and they face severe underfunding. So, that's a particular question I have in mind. 

I'm aware that you've been working to identify 2,456 tips, of which 327 are classed as higher risk. The Law Commission wants to see us build on that work by creating a central tip register—that echoes my point earlier—so that we know exactly what we're dealing with. Over 90 per cent of respondents agreed with having this tip register, so will you please just advise us, as Members here today, whether you're going to actually provide that important data, that important information, so that we can all work across political parties, and work across Governments, hopefully, so that the fears of people living or working near these tips can be diminished sooner rather than later? Diolch.

Thank you for those comments and the constructive tone. I think that there is much that we can agree on and work together on. We will, of course, be responding in full to all the recommendations in the commission's report, as well as publishing our own White Paper after the local government elections. I'm not going to respond in detail to the proposals today, because we want to do that in a more considered way.

One of the interesting points that Janet Finch-Saunders made was around the skills shortage and the capacity of local authorities, and that is a well-made point. On skills, of course, there's an opportunity here. If we're going to be spending this much public money on putting this right, we need to make sure that we leverage the benefits for Wales from it. There are economic opportunities from this if we do this right, certainly for upskilling people and providing economic opportunities from the work that is generated to put this right, as well as the landscape opportunities for our communities. I think we need to be as creative as we can be to see how we can use this necessary process to unleash the potential of these areas some more.

I do think, though, that we need to confront this issue of cost and responsibility. Janet Finch-Saunders said again that this is a fully devolved responsibility and the UK Government has no responsibility. I just don't think that that's right. If we are looking at a £600 million cost of reclamation, I don't see how anybody can defend a £9 million contribution from the UK Government as fair and reasonable on the grounds that this is devolved, given that, as I said, this predates devolution. I hope they will think again about their response to this. I would say this with some humility on our part. If you look at the historical record and the way that the Labour Government responded to the Aberfan disaster, it was a stain on our record, and I think it's something that we put right, certainly, when Labour came to power in 1997 and we restored that money. But the callous way that the Government at that time responded to the demands of that community was shameful, and I do hope that the UK Government reflect on that and don't make the same mistake again and make sure that they play their role in working alongside us in putting this right.

On the issue of publishing the information, I can assure the Member that the highest risk tips are already undergoing enhanced monitoring and inspections and the local authorities involved in working closely with us. The Tylorstown tip we've mentioned has had £20 million identified to spend on it and significant progress has been made. It has lessened its risk as a result. So, that is a positive example. When we take proactive action, we can reduce the risk, working with the local authority—in this case, Rhondda Cynon Taf—who've been superb.

On the detail of publishing all the information, we do have to be very careful, because we wouldn't want to alarm people by publishing information in a cack-handed way. To give an example, a lot of these tips are non-coal tips, they're spoil tips, and it could well be that a small amount is on someone's garden, and if we just publish crudely a list that includes that, it's going to cause a great deal of alarm and distress. So, we need to get this right. And also, because many of these are privately owned, under the data protection legislation and GDPR, we have to issue privacy notices and we have to make sure that that information is handled properly, and that is a large undertaking. So, it is taking longer than all of us would've liked, but I hope I can assure the Senedd this afternoon we are doing this for good reasons, in a considered way, and we will be publishing it as soon as we can get that information accurate.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and thank you for your statement, Minister. You'll appreciate that coal tips' safety is an issue that is of great interest to me because of the area that I represent, as it is to my party too. I welcome the Law Commission's report, of course. It is timely, bearing in mind that Plaid Cymru will be holding a debate on this issue in the Senedd tomorrow. The Law Commission's report focuses on the importance of maintaining expertise in making coal tips safe and also removing them, as you've been discussing already. And a number of witnesses to the inquiry have recommended that an oversight authority should be established. You've said already a little bit about this, so I'd like to put on the record that we are very supportive of this idea, that there should be an authority with the powers to supervise the safety of every remaining tip.

I also understand that local authorities have spoken, when speaking to the commission, about the challenges that they face in implementing the current legislation, particularly considering financial constraints. A lack of funding streams has led to a loss of vital technical expertise in local authorities. So, I would ask, Minister, what steps the Government will be taking to harness the current expertise in managing tips, as well as to increase the level of expertise in local authorities? And on the topic of funding, how will this be funded, bearing in mind the financial constraints that we are currently seeing. And we agree, of course, that it is Westminster that should be paying this bill. Coal tips and other tips are a legacy of the United Kingdom's industrial past—they predate devolution. And Wales's fiscal situation, at least at a macro level, is again the result of decisions made by the UK Government. So, could you give us an update, please, Minister, on any discussions that the Welsh Government has had with the UK Government to decide who will be paying for removing these coal tips, restoring the land and for reviving these areas? What are the next steps in those discussions, please?

And finally, the commission's report considers the tips' value in terms of biodiversity. Buglife, I believe, and Clare Dinham drew attention to the need to include biodiversity as a consideration in managing these tips. They say that it is vital that local authority ecologists and conservation charities are part of the process of drawing up plans to manage these tips and the surrounding areas. So, an ecological stakeholder taskforce could be a useful way of ensuring that the importance of biodiversity is given due attention. What is your stance on this, please, and are there any plans to establish such a taskforce?

Well, thank you very much for that.

So, I think there are a number of very helpful and constructive points there. On the first on the availability of technical expertise, then Delyth Jewell is quite right, that is a challenge, and that's one of the reasons why we are supportive in principle of the idea of an independent body, because we do need to have the heft and capacity to do the task ahead of us, and working out a way to design that alongside local authorities, just as we are in so many other things, to get that balance right between local-control knowledge, accountability, as well as the capacity and capability, is something we'll be reflecting on as we consult on our White Paper and as we come up with a set of proposals in the legislation. So, that is very much, I think, on point. I'm not able to give a definitive answer to that now, because that is something, she's right, we need to work through. But she's correctly identified, I think, the challenge there, as she has on the funding. She asks how we are going to fund it. We don't know how we're going to fund the full bill because it is enormous. We've identified, over the next three years, how we're going to spend £44.4 million of capital funding, and we've already spent, as I set out in the statement, several million in dealing with stabilising the situation in the worst cases. But this is going to be a long-term programme of reclamation, and we do need to work with the UK Government. She asked what the state of the conversations were. Well, I think it's fair to say they've been pretty dismissive to date of their role, and we heard it again this afternoon that the party line is that this is a devolved responsibility and nothing to do with them. But I hope we can get beyond that, because I don't think that is a sustainable or defensible line of argument. So, we'll continue to have those conversations.

Her point on biodiversity, I thought, was very well made, because, obviously, we know that climate change is going to make the stability of these tips more difficult. We are going to have wilder, wetter winters, we are going to have more rainfall—all of this will adversely affect the integrity of the tips. So, the climate emergency impact is very clear, but the nature emergency reference as well is very well made. And I think her suggestion of an ecological stakeholder taskforce is a very interesting one, and if she is content, I will reflect on that and discuss it further with my colleague Julie James as we think about our next steps on this. Diolch. 

Thank you, Deputy Minister, for your statement today. The first point I want to make is a simple one: the 2,500 disused coal tips across Wales are a legacy of our industrial past and the systematic extraction of the mineral wealth from communities such as mine in Cynon Valley and your own over a sustained period of coal mined, wealth leached, lives sacrificed. It is staggering, but not surprising, that the UK Government refuses to meet with its obligations for this. So, do you agree with me that addressing this historic hangover could be the perfect starting point for their levelling-up agenda, with its supposed, and I quote, 'moral, social and economic' commitment unless the policy is, of course, simply empty words and spin?

I have two further specific questions for you. Firstly, I look forward to the Welsh Government's White Paper setting out how it will take its proposals forward. I'd be really keen that any consultation or engagement really captures the views and experiences of people living near coal tips. So, Deputy Minister, what consideration have you given as to how this might be achieved?

And my final question: in your statement, you referred to the motion tomorrow, and I note the amendment in the name of the Trefnydd, which talks about involving local people in the process and using reclamation as the starting point for jobs and economic growth. So, Deputy Minister, could you provide any further details on the Welsh Government's thinking around achieving these goals, which I know would be so welcome to people living in my constituency and many other former coalfield communities? 

Well, I'd like to echo Vikki's comments about the responsibilities of the UK Government, and this is not a party point. This has been a long-running legacy over generations where the UK as a whole benefited from the wealth of the communities across Wales, and we're now dealing with the legacy of that, literally the spoil waste of it.

Vikki talked about the levelling-up agenda, and, of course, we want to level down, don't we? We not only want to get rid of these tips, we want to raze them and restore them. She is right that the rhetoric we're hearing from the UK Government about giving to communities who feel left behind—this would be a perfect case in point, and I think we do need to be creative.

She asks about ideas for jobs and growth and using the reclamation as a starting point, and I know the excellent work she's been doing as the chair of the cross-party group on industrial communities. I think there's a role for their ideas in feeding into this, because I think there is an opportunity when we have to spend so much money on this task. We need to make sure we maximise public benefit from it, and I think this is a conversation we need to have. I'm not going to stand here today and pluck ideas out of the air. I think this needs to be a considered conversation, but I am clear that we do need to do that in a way that benefits the communities who have suffered and have lived under the shadows of these coal tips for generations.

I think her point before that about consultation with the communities is absolutely well made as well. There does need to be a sense of doing this with communities, not to communities, and I'd welcome working along with her in her area in particular to start having those conversations.

Finally, Buffy Williams.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd, and I'd like to thank the Minister for today's statement. The dramatic scenes we saw at Tylorstown and Wattstown back in 2020 have had a dramatic effect on some members of our communities in Rhondda. The Minister is right, our priority has to be that people living and working near coal tips feel safe, not just now but in the future. We need to know that everything that can be done to put right our coal tips is being done. The work carried out in Tylorstown to date has been exceptional. The same can be said about the landslide in Wattstown, and I'm glad to hear that further funding is being made available for the coal board to continue their inspections. I know that this will go a long way in providing peace of mind for members in those communities. In Rhondda, this has only been possible through partnership working between the Welsh Government, the Coal Authority and Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council. As the Minister has pointed out, the only party not pulling their weight is the Tory Westminster Government, who are clearly happy to sit on the profits made through the hard work of our forefathers to now decide that these coal tips aren't their responsibility. Mind you, shirking responsibility won't come as a surprise given the abysmal support made available by the same Government to support families through the cost-of-living crisis. I'd like to thank the Minister again for today's statement, and I'm sure he agrees with me, hoping that the Tories in Westminster eventually start to pull their weight on this issue. 

Thank you to Buffy Williams, and I recognise that the leadership role she's played in her own community in responding both to the floods and to the worry about the moving tip has been extraordinarily helpful. I hope her constituents are now reassured that the Tylorstown tip is having weekly inspections. So, this is being kept under very close eye, and the signs are very encouraging that the risk has lessened. As she said, significant work has gone in—some £20 million of investment—and tremendous partnership working, particularly with RCT council, where Councillor Andrew Morgan, again, really has once again stepped up to the plate and showed leadership and exceptional galvanising skills in bringing together the different agencies to focus on the task at hand. Also, the Coal Authority, as she mentioned, and the very helpful work the Law Commission has done in doing this report, and it's done it speedily and come up with a very practical set of recommendations—.

So, I think the story we have to tell two years on is a good one, and this is something the First Minister in particular feels very strongly and personally associated with. He has shown a great deal of personal leadership in this as well, and he is very clear that it is the obligation of this Senedd and this Government to make sure that the legacy of our industrial past is dealt with properly and that the opportunities are seized. But I think all of us in this party, and the message from all sides today has been that the UK Government must play its role, and I do hope that Members of the Senedd here from the Conservative Party will reflect that message back to their own colleagues. This needn't be a party political issue; this is something we should all unite behind and then see if we can collaborate on not seeing this as a negative legacy but as an opportunity to make these communities flourish again.

I thank the Deputy Minister.