21 February 2024 , Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
So, Janet, I completely understand the frustration of people who can see new homes going up by the same company who built the block that they're in that's got the problems, but obviously the sets of skills and the remediation difficulties of an inhabited…
21 February 2024 , Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
That's a very good point, actually, because we started off with quite a restrictive set of criteria for that because, frankly, we had absolutely no idea how many people might want to take advantage of it. And, actually, every three to six months of that…
21 February 2024 , Plenary
Questions to the Minister for Climate Change
Yes, certainly, Janet. Once again, I think you've got a little bit of a problem there with some of the statistics you're quoting. We have a route to remediation for every single building that has a fire problem in Wales—very, very different to across the…
30 January 2024 , Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: White Paper for a proposed Bill on environmental principles, environmental governance and biodiversity targets
Thank you very much, Huw. Bill titles are always an interesting conversation between the office of the legislative counsel, who have a very determined view of what the Bill title should do, and those of us who'd like something slightly more snazzy. But they…
30 January 2024 , Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: White Paper for a proposed Bill on environmental principles, environmental governance and biodiversity targets
Thank you, Jenny. I'll do that slightly the other way around. The policy intent of the Bill is that oversight of private persons exercising functions of a public nature in Wales that could relate to or impact the environment will be captured. So, the water…
30 January 2024 , Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: White Paper for a proposed Bill on environmental principles, environmental governance and biodiversity targets
I couldn't agree more with you, John. I think one of the things that we'll be very interested in doing is making sure that the governance body, in looking at the targets it sets for the various public bodies that are taken up by it, takes into account the…
30 January 2024 , Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: White Paper for a proposed Bill on environmental principles, environmental governance and biodiversity targets
Yes, diolch yn fawr, Delyth. You make a number of very good points, of course. So, it is a significant moment, I think, and it is an absolute fact that we're the last of the nations to do this. However, I do honestly think this is a chance to leapfrog the…
30 January 2024 , Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: White Paper for a proposed Bill on environmental principles, environmental governance and biodiversity targets
Thank you, Janet. I don't know if you managed to attend the technical briefings that were offered this morning. E-mails did go out with copies of the White Paper there, apologies if you didn't get one, and it's been published today, so that's why it's not in…
30 January 2024 , Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: White Paper for a proposed Bill on environmental principles, environmental governance and biodiversity targets
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Today, I've published our White Paper on establishing environmental principles, strengthening environmental governance and introducing biodiversity targets for a greener Wales. This White Paper sets out proposals to introduce a Bill…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Just to apologise, Chair, for having coughed away here and for not having been able to be there in person.
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Right, so, this is just about—. It's a very good example, Chair, of us basically slowing a programme down rather than taking it away altogether. So, I had hoped that we would be able to assist a number of additional forest owners to come into the National…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
It’s not our intention to extend it to remediation, Delyth, at the moment. The Bill is part of a wider package of measures from the Welsh Government, and our wider package already includes reclamation and remediation. So, we've made £44.4 million capital…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes, so the forthcoming bus Bill, the Infrastructure (Wales) Bill and the environmental governance and protection Bill are all on track. The money is being protected, as I said, I think, Delyth, in answer to an earlier question. We’ve also got the disused…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes, so windfarm income now comes to the Government; it used to go to NRW, but now it comes into the Government. And, again, it goes up and down, so there are vagaries with it.
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes, so, I mean this is just one of the most frustrating things, isn’t it? We’ve worked very hard from the very beginning of this portfolio being put in place. Both Lee and I met with NRW’s leadership teams and we’ve worked very hard with them indeed through…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
There's a whole programme of working with businesses to make sure that they can source segregate their waste. Many of the businesses actually want the material back, for example. So, it is about making sure that they themselves benefit from it. Other…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes, so this is a reduction in the capital budget. So, it's £46 million—the budget is now £46 million and it's still available to support the circular economy work. That work is to support local authorities to make performance improvements in recycling and…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes. So, action on the climate and nature emergencies, as we always say, Janet, is at the heart of the Government. It's why the portfolio was created, and it's all about the legally binding target of reaching net zero by 2050 to deliver on Net Zero Wales and…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes. Thanks, Janet. The majority of changes in the clean energy BEL reflect a reclassification of project development costs for Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru, so the state-owned energy company, from revenue to capital. We had had £4.5 million revenue as development…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes. We're already doing that, Jenny. The local authorities are doing energy surveys right across the piece in their areas. And we've just, as part of the Welsh housing quality standard, asked for a full-stock survey from every single social landlord in…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Yes, so that's partly what it's looking at. So, for example, we have lots of people we know who are asset rich but cash poor. So, we would be exploring things like could we pay up front for the scheme and land charge the property, so that you'd get it back on…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
We've got something called the decarbonisation implementation group, which is a subset of the Chris Jofeh group that the committee will also have heard of, and we've challenged them to create a route-map for decarbonising Welsh homes, including private sector…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
So, Jenny, I've been really clear that the Welsh Government's policy is centred on the social housing sector for this Senedd term, and that includes the new Welsh housing quality standard, which is the 10-year standard to improve the quality of Welsh social…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
So, again, we've maintained the revenue to ensure that the social landlords are protected, alongside the Welsh net-zero carbon hub, and that's where registered social landlords, local authorities and members of industry share best practice to undertake…
25 January 2024 , Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Scrutiny of the Welsh Government Draft Budget 2024-25 - part 2
Thanks, Janet. So, the new Warm Homes scheme, for which I hope—just to tell the committee—to be able to announce the outcome of the tendering process very shortly. We’re just going through the last parts of the procurement process. So, it wasn’t possible to…
