1. What action is the Welsh Government taking to protect and manage wildlife in the Vale of Glamorgan? OQ59645

A team Wales approach is taken to protect and manage wildlife. Welsh Government has recently provided over £1 million for projects in the Vale of Glamorgan, to deliver nature-based projects, enable partnership working and improve connections between nature habitats in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Diolch, Weinidog. I've raised with you before the Model Farm issue, in Rhoose, in the Vale of Glamorgan, which grows and sells wildflowers, and it's under threat due to plans to build an industrial park on its land. The Jenkins family have been tenants on the farm for nearly 100 years, and the improvements to the rights of tenant farmers contained in the Agriculture (Wales) Bill will come too late for them, if they are turfed out of their land. This is not just their place of work; it's their home, their home for generations, destroyed. And what makes this story even more tragic is that this family also lost a previous farm in the 1940s in the Epynt, when their family were forced to leave when the British army seized their land. That family in the Epynt have yet to return, and the fear now for the Jenkins family is that they will lose their livelihood and their home yet again, but this time through an international developer rather than the British state. What can the Welsh Government do to protect the farm, to protect farmers like the Jenkins family, and the wildlife it sustains?

Thank you. I'm very sorry to hear about the experience of the Jenkins family. Clearly, tenant farmers are very important to us in Wales. A significant percentage of our farmers here in Wales are tenant farmers. There is obviously protection for tenants; they should obviously take the matter up with their landlords, and I would also urge them to contact the Tenant Farmers Association, to see if there's anything they can do to help. And, if you'd like to write to me, whilst I can't obviously interfere in an individual case, I will see if there's anything that we can do to help as well.

I've raised the issue of Model Farm with various Ministers in the Senedd here. The quality of land being protected is a component of the planning system. I appreciate it's not in your portfolio, Minister, but, obviously, that assessment of the quality of the land, and the protection of the wildlife on that land, should be a critical consideration within the planning system. It clearly isn't, when an example like Model Farm, where the local authority itself is promoting a business park that isn't required—and is proven not to be required, even by the developers themselves, who say it's a speculative development—and yet, over 100 acres of quality agricultural land that is habitat to many natural species that can be found in the Vale of Glamorgan is to be lost. So, what dialogue is undertaken between your officials and the planning Minister's officials to make sure that there are robust checks and balances within the planning system, that good-quality agricultural land that is of quality natural habitat as well is not sacrificed to unwanted developments such as the Model Farm business park?

[Inaudible.]—a significant amount of work and certainly, within my own portfolio, we've looked at land classification of agricultural land, because, as you say, it's very important that, as far as possible, it's protected for sustainable food production and also for our important habitats. I'm not aware of any specific conversations between my officials and the Minister for Climate Change's officials, particularly around the Model Farm that you've just raised with me. As I said in my answer to Rhys ab Owen, if he wants to write to me about it, I'll certainly be happy to look it up.