It's a pleasure to follow Llyr, our Chair on this committee, and to say a few words. I'll try not to replicate what he said, but I want to touch on a few points, including in the Welsh Government's response as well, before I come to what I think is the critical issue of data and evidence, which I'm going to major on, if that's okay. 

First of all, in terms of recommendation 1, that an external analysis of the Wales national marine plan should be commissioned, we note that there's an agreement in principle there, but it is to inform the next statutory report. I think the committee would feel strongly that we'd like to see it earlier than that because of the urgency that the Chair has laid out so much. So, we would still, I think, push hard on that and I'm sure we'll return to it. 

On the stakeholder engagement in recommendation 2, just to say to the Minister that it isn't that there aren't the structures in place to do the stakeholder engagement, it's actually the quality of the stakeholder engagement. The feeling from some—and I will confess and admit that it's from some particularly in the environmental sector—is that whilst they're engaged, and they stretch themselves to engage on the various stakeholder groups, they're not clear that they're being listened to in the way that we face the nature crisis and the biodiversity crisis. The baseline that they want to start from is not the baseline, always, that Government wants to start from. They want to see a picture of the sea bed and the flora and fauna as it should be, not as it is now, and so on. So, it would simply be an encouragement, on recommendation 2, Minister, to see that recommendation in the way that the subtext behind it is that it's the quality of the engagement and the listening. You do an enormous amount of stakeholder engagement, but it's actually the engagement and the detail to follow through as well. So, take that in the spirit it's meant. And I know I'm the worst nightmare of any Minister sitting in that position—[Interruption.] I know I am; thank you for a 'yes' there. As a former fisheries and marine Minister myself, I am the worst nightmare. 

On recommendation 4, setting out the plans for the devolution of the management of the Crown Estate, I'm just wondering, Minister, if we have a contradiction, because you have accepted that, and that's wonderful, it really is wonderful, but then it talks about 

'looking at the implications of devolution.... Once this task has been completed we will be able to finalise our plans for the Crown Estate.'

You've accepted the recommendation about the devolution of the management, setting out the plans, and so on. I guess you can't go any further yet, but it would be interesting if you could get on your feet today and say, 'Well, actually, it makes sense now to just move ahead with this and move to the devolution of it.' I'm not underplaying, by the way, the role that they have and the work that they are currently doing, but it would be interesting to have some of the levers of control here. 

On recommendations 9, 10 and 11, on evidence and data—. Well, let me come back to that in a moment, because I do want to spend a couple of minutes going over it. Let me just skip ahead here. On recommendation 13, where we look at the lack of progress on the designation of marine protected areas and MCZs, and ask you to set out a timetable, you have accepted this, and you've said that this will be in the next phase of work to be launched in the coming months, which is great to hear. Subsequently, in recommendation 16, we go on to the slow progress on highly protected marine areas, and again, you accept that. You accept that

'The need, and appropriateness, for areas of higher protection should be considered as part of this process.'

We get all of that. All I would say to you—and I know you get this, Minister, I really know you get this—is that there is a real hunger out there to get on not only with the designation of those, but also, then, because that enables us to get on with the effective management of those areas as well, because that's the other thing. We've got a recommendation in here to do with trawling—that's the only other one I wanted to touch on before the issues over data and evidence. It's on dredging and bottom trawling. Again, you've accepted our recommendation, and you've said—and it's very well written—that you'll undertake

'a structured evaluation of potential fishing gear interactions with features of Welsh Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) referred to as the Assessing Welsh Fishing Activities project' and that it'll be completed in summer 2022. That's really great, but we actually know the damage that these activities do to some of the most highly sensitive areas. And I know this is tricky for people involved in the fishing industry, but, actually, this is one of the areas we're going to have to make a decision on, ultimately, for that aspiration of returning these areas to what we know they should be as opposed to what they are now, and how they're being damaged. 

I've run out of time already. I would ask you particularly, then, without referring to my notes, to look at this issue of evidence and data. There's a lot of good evidence that we took here. A lot of people said we are not at the point we need to be at with data and evidence, and unless we can actually see what is there in that great blue zone below the waves, and so on, it's going to be limited as to what we can do. I think, Minister, this has been going on for a decade and more, trying to pull together the evidence base. I know there are commercial sensitivities, and as my five minutes comes up, I would simply say, Minister, we need to go further with the marine science strategies and the work that the Welsh Government is doing to break down the barriers about sharing information between academia, commercial interests and NRW. Everybody should be pooling that, even if it's anonymised, so we can map more accurately what is actually happening out there now. Diolch yn fawr.