Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:03 pm on 27 September 2022.
Thank you. Well, the Welsh Government's made it very clear that fracking will not take place in Wales, and any fracking that takes places in England, if it crosses over the Welsh border, that would require a Welsh petroleum licence, planning and also environmental permits. And, obviously, we wouldn’t grant any licences that enabled this.
Water quality in Wales is continuously monitored, and, it if becomes evident that that fracking has any impact on this, we would expect the UK Government to act in accordance with regulations that were signed—I think it was probably about five years ago now—between the Welsh Government and the UK Government. We have an inter-governmental protocol. Because that was there—. That was put there to make sure there was no serious, adverse impact on our water resources, water supply or our water quality in England arising from any action or inaction.