7. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change: Coal Tip Safety

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:33 pm on 29 March 2022.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 4:33, 29 March 2022

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.