Item 4 this afternoon is a statement by the Minister for Climate Change, independent review and Natural Resources Wales reports into flooding 2020-21. And I call on the Minister, Julie James.   

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I am pleased to announce the publication of Professor Elwen Evans KC’s independent review of local government section 19 and Natural Resources Wales reports into extreme flooding in the winter of 2020 and 2021. This review was undertaken as part of the joint co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru and is an important step in improving how flood risk management, including the response to flooding instances and their aftermath, is delivered across Wales. This review was desk based. It focused specifically on understanding the investigation process currently in place under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 and how this was applied in the context of the severe flooding instances referred to. This has identified areas of good practice, areas for improvement, successes and lessons learned. This review was not intended to address local authority or NRW responses to the flooding more widely. The terms of reference and scope were agreed through discussions between myself, the designated Member and Professor Evans. Both the designated Member and I met with Professor Evans at various stages of the review to discuss progress and her emerging thoughts. Professor Evans reviewed supporting information including testimonies, progress reports, published section 19 reports, along with other submissions that were provided by the lead local flood authorities, Natural Resources Wales and through Senedd Members. I'd really like to thank all of those who inputted into the review.

All relevant information and legislation, alongside existing policies, strategies and outputs from other reviews, were considered within the bounds of the terms of reference and complex arena of flood risk management. There are a number of other reviews into flood risk management that have taken or are taking place, and the terms of reference specifically directed Professor Evans to avoid duplication and overlap with these other reviews. This includes, amongst others, work by the flood and coastal erosion committee, Audit Wales and the National Infrastructure Commission Wales, who, through the co-operation agreement, are considering how the nationwide likelihood of flooding can be minimised by 2050.

I would like to take this opportunity to outline some of Professor Evans's main findings from her review, which highlights both strategic, policy and practical changes that could strengthen the flood investigation process whilst recognising the limitations within the current framework. Professor Evans has identified two broad areas where she feels greater clarity and improvement are needed. The legislation itself does not provide the necessary clarity for lead local flood authorities to understand the purpose of a section 19 flood investigation. It remains subjective and open to interpretation and is unclear where it fits within the wider flood risk management reporting framework. The degree to which an investigation is carried out is at the discretion of the local authority as is the need or otherwise of a formal report. In fact, there is nothing in the legislation that directs our local authorities to compile a report, only to publish the findings of any investigation that may have taken place. In the absence of this clarity, local authorities have individually developed the process they use today, where the expectation is that an investigation ends with a report, detailing events, actions and recommendations. However, this is not a consistent approach across Wales, and Professor Evans recommends the need for a strategic policy review to clearly define the purpose of a section 19 investigation and strengthen the process. An additional recommendation is that there is a need for greater consistency across the lead local flood authorities in terms of the wider reporting. For example, at what point should investigations take place, and what form should an investigation take? Should the investigation result in a report? And, if so, the development of a template would be a positive step forward. 

In October 2020, we published 'The National Strategy for Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management in Wales'. This 10-year strategy identifies five key objectives to support reducing the risk to people and communities from flooding and coastal erosion. Supporting the delivery of these objectives are 24 measures setting out how we will deliver against these five objectives, each measure being one jigsaw piece in the wider landscape of flood risk management.

Measure 21 of the national strategy already identifies section 19 as an area for improvement. As a practical action that can be taken forward immediately within the current framework and without pre-empting wider strategic and policy work under way, my officials will be working with the WLGA, the flood and coastal erosion committee, and local authorities to improve how section 19 investigations and reporting can be made simpler, easier to understand, and more accessible. Professor Evans recognises this specific piece of work is already under consideration, and officials will continue to work with our risk management authorities to include these findings as part of delivering this strategic measure.

In reviewing NRW’s progress against actions identified in their reports following the flooding in February 2020, Professor Evans has identified good progress against the 94 identified actions. However, 15 actions remain to be delivered. It is recognised that the remaining actions may be more long term and complex to deliver, but Professor Evans recommends that realistic timescales for the delivery of these actions should be provided.

This review is one area of flood risk management and the reporting framework, but an important one in helping everyone to have a better understanding of flooding and the structures that underpin flood risk management. Understanding the causes of flooding instances and their aftermath provides important information for risk management authorities and communities that can support understanding of what happened, how it happened and how the risk might be mitigated in the future. And whilst we all continue to learn lessons from recent events, we are also looking to the longer term. The information contained within many of these reports can provide the evidence base for future flood mitigation schemes.

According to UK climate predictions, Wales will see milder, wetter winters, more intense rainfall events, more coastal flooding, and hotter, drier summers. The recent reports by the International Panel on Climate Change and the UK Climate Change Committee have reiterated the need for continued investment in mitigation, adaptation and resilience, to respond to global warming challenges. Our continued investment in flood risk management is therefore vital for our communities.

To support how we plan for future flooding, and again as part of our co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru, we have asked the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales to assess how we minimise flooding to homes, businesses and infrastructure by 2050. The commission will consider our skills capacity and resource needs, the challenges around adaptation, the need to work on a catchment scale and to have greater partnership thinking, not just across risk management authorities, but also across wider Government departments. We expect to see the completion of this work next summer.

Furthermore, Wales's independent flood and coastal erosion committee, chaired by Mr Martin Buckle, has taken forward two separate reviews, prescribed by our national strategy. Consistent with some of the questions posed by Professor Evans, these also consider whether there is a need for wider legislative and policy change within flood risk management, while the second considers the resource and skills position within the field to deliver flood risk across Wales. Professor Evans acknowledges that she sees her review as just one important piece in the wider flood risk management landscape, which are already being addressed in other audits, reviews and assessments, including some of those already stated.

Additionally, she goes on to recognise that flood risk is a complex picture with progress having been made already in some areas, lessons learnt being actively worked on now, but also the need for continued improvement across the wider area of flood risk management. I will be continuing to work with the designated Member on this work in light of the commitment to act on the recommendations made in Professor Evans's review, and in light of the wider work that's ongoing. Diolch.

I'd like to thank the Minister for what is, though, a very delayed report on the reviews of the 2021 flooding section 19 reports—2020-21. Also, we mustn't forget that, prior to this—. I've raised, several times in this Chamber here, concerns, because, of course, in Aberconwy we saw flooding in 2016 and 2018, and we have even questioned the merits of section 19 reports.

During the tragic flooding events of the years mentioned, there were 3,130 homes flooded across Wales. That's 3,130 families' lives disrupted. It was an unprecedented winter—or so we thought—for storms and flooding events, and has resulted in a dire need for serious immediate action. Calls were made from these benches at the time, during 2021, for a serious review of flood management and section 19 reports, and the need for immediate reform. So, of course we welcome the review of the section 19 reports, given it is so overdue, and we've asked and asked and asked for it. We were awaiting this report with great anticipation, with hopes that it would provide a way forward for extreme flooding events. Since 2020, we have been highlighting evidence to the Senedd that section 19 reports were taking far too long to both produce and publish, and frankly, in some local authorities, I would actually say that I don't think there's been a large appetite for them doing them.

Almost three years ago to the day—three years ago to the day—on 16 September 2020, I highlighted that section 19 reports were taking an unacceptably long period to be delivered, using the example of a report from Betws-y-Coed and Dolwyddelan taking over six months. I thought that was bad. The publishing of this particular report now confirms that 43 section 19 reports are completed, but are not intended to be published. Eight reports are still awaiting approval. And more concerningly, 34 reports are still ongoing. We are now in September 2023; this was an agreement in the previous administration. So, Minister, I think a lot of questions need to be answered here.

So, this data now is from April 2023, two years on from the flooding events that are being investigated. These are reports into those floods that devastated homes, livelihoods and lives, and that over 50 per cent are either unpublished, unfinished or awaiting approval is frankly disgraceful. And this is all down to the weakness of the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru's responses to the report. We now know that all this, the section 19 reports, the actual review of the section 19 reports, is proving to be a costly waste of taxpayers' money and time, when we have an immediate flooding crisis in Wales.

The Minister's statement just this year, on 31 August 2023, highlighted positive investment by the Welsh Government, but completely misses the point. It states that the context of other ongoing reviews or reports is needed, therefore, almost nothing immediate is going to happen. Whilst I welcome the work on measure 21, the reality is that it was already under way and has not been triggered by this particular report. The report asks for three outcomes: a review of wider flood risk legislation in Wales; a pan-Wales approach to section 19 reports; a Wales-wide co-ordination between risk management authorities, and for a lead to be established, to review progress and share common issues. We were asking for this in 2021.

On 20 September 2021, we, as a group, proposed the flooding (Wales) Bill. In this, I outlined a legal basis for the establishment of a national flood agency, a single body dedicated to tackling flooding and to impose statutory time limits on the publication of section 19 reports. Therefore, Minister, will you establish a national flood agency for Wales, so that there's a lead the report asks for? Will you set out in law statutory time limits and structures for section 19 reports? And will you bring forward a flooding (Wales) Bill, so that this Senedd can start the process of strengthening legislation for Wales?

It is not good enough to stand by and just wait for winter to come and see all the floods that come with that. We're even seeing floods now in summertime. We have got a crisis on our hands, Minister. It affects us in Aberconwy, my colleague in Clwyd West, and many of the Members serving here, their constituencies will have been impacted by flooding. It is not fair to these home owners, and I would ask that we actually take, now, a far more proactive approach to flooding than I've seen since I've been here. Thank you.

Thank you, Janet. I'm not absolutely certain quite what you're asking me there. I'm not going to set up a national agency for flooding. I'm absolutely convinced that the people who have suffered flooding over the last few years—and, indeed, before that—would be not at all comforted by the idea that yet another agency would be set up in response to that. Instead, we've done a number of very practical things in the short time since that flooding, and I absolutely love the idea that you think the report is delayed when it's been two years in the making. How on earth you think this kind of very detailed work can be done faster than that is beyond me, and if you'd like me to give you a list of things that your own Government has taken a lot longer—[Interruption.] Do you want to hear what I'm saying to you or not? 

Let the Minister respond to the question, please. 

Probably nothing new. 

Well, in that case, Darren, I won't bother to answer it. Shall we go to the next person? Apparently, I'll say nothing new. 

Minister, I'd like to take the opportunity to welcome the report, and I'd like to thank Professor Elwen Evans KC for leading the work. This review is obviously a vital part of the co-operation agreement. I'm sure I've no need to remind the Senedd or the Minister that Plaid Cymru was keen to see an independent inquiry into the floods, given the serious nature of them, and I think there are questions unanswered. And some of the communities I represent, and other Members here, will still be asking where are those answers, and how do we ensure that the recommendations that came out in the Natural Resources Wales report as well, in terms of having that national conversation—where has that got to?

I understand from your statement, Minister, that a number of things are happening. But for those communities who are seeing the BBC headlines again today saying, 'Heavy rain weather warning as heatwave ends could cause flooding', you know the psychological distress; we've spoken many a time about the distress that it causes every time it rains heavily. They'll be asking, 'What has changed since I was last flooded?' And they won't have received the answers that they were seeking here, and I think that's a challenge for all of us then, about how do we ensure that communities who will be flooded again, because, unfortunately, we won't be able to save every home and business—that's just the reality. 

You've outlined as well in terms of the climate emergency that we face that that's going to be the reality for a number of our communities, and though the work is under way to ensure that more homes and businesses can be saved in the future, others will have to live with this situation. And, as we know, in many communities, people can't move out of those communities—there are no alternative homes, they can't afford to live elsewhere, and so on. So, I think what's missing here, at the end of the day, is that link with those communities. We can have all the strategies in the world, but we don't have flood action groups in every community and there is no Welsh flood forum, for example. Although some of these come out in the report and the evidence presented, I'm not sure we're any clearer about how we're actually going to support those communities while these plans are going to be put in place.  

I am pleased to see, to come out, something that many of us knew. As Janet Finch-Saunders was mentioning, many of us know that the section 19 process does not work, and I think one of the things that's really helpful from this review is the fact that it's very clear that it needs to be redesigned. We also need to look at accountability, because one of the things that doesn't work at present is the fact that perhaps you can have one river flood, and that's a matter of looking at each section 19 report—[Interruption.] There are no interventions in a statement, sorry. They're all individual section 19 reports. It's the same as it crosses local authority boundaries: you could have different section 19 reports.

One of the things I would be keen to see taken forward from the review, because it outlines this, is how we are actually going to put in place a system that allows us to learn lessons, because, frankly, you've talked about templates being put in place, but what we need from section 19 reports, or any report, is an understanding of what's happened and could anything have been done differently. I think what's not coming through at all at the moment is the response of local authorities or Natural Resources Wales at a time of flooding. All these reports look at is why did a flood occur and any mitigating steps taken afterwards, but we don't get that deep understanding of whether things like drains haven't been maintained, if there's anything like culverts that haven't been maintained, and so on, or whether there has perhaps been human error or lack of resources when it comes to local authorities. That's something that we do think, looking at the amount of investment the Welsh Government has had to make since the devastating flooding that we’ve seen, that perhaps maintenance is something that was as a result of austerity.

We also see that one of the challenges across Wales is the lack of expertise—that some local authorities fail to attract staff that have that expertise. So, have you given consideration, following Elwen Evans’s very useful report, to those section 19 processes, as in who should be responsible for investigating floods? Is there an element of being able to work across Wales to ensure that we do learn those genuine lessons?

I think one of the things you’ve mentioned as well is the fact that a lot of work is undertaken, and Elwen Evans says that further comments can be sent in relation to her report to those who are looking at this. But what would be your advice to those communities now that have suffered flooding, and continue to be at risk, in terms of how they can find any comfort from what’s been found, and what will change, and also perhaps the commitment from the Welsh Government on how we can work with them and take forward the Natural Resources Wales report, in particular the mention of not enough staff, and not being able to cope? And if we’re going to see these frequent events, how can we work more in partnership and ensure a voice for our communities in all of this, not just different taskforces?

Diolch, Heledd. You made a number of very important points there. I think Professor Evans has been very clear that what she’s looked at is a part of a jigsaw, and that the jigsaw is complex, and that we need to get all parts of the jigsaw right so that we can—sorry for the analogy—see the whole picture emerge. We’ve got a number of other reviews ongoing, and one of them is very much part of our co-operation agreement, and that’s the overarching review that the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales will look at, which is the overall how can we prevent our communities from suffering what the communities you’re referencing have suffered in the past, and how can we be more resilient. They will be able to look at all of the various pieces of the reviews that we’ve been doing.

There’s no single agency that’s going to be able to do that. It’s hugely complex, and as a result of us coming out of the European Union we’ve inherited a number of things at the Welsh Government level that are probably not best situated here. There absolutely needs to be some regional working by the local authorities, because as you rightly say, there are cross-border issues and so on. There is definitely a skills and resilience issue in this area, we know, because the Welsh Government is fishing in the same pool for flood engineers and flood resilience officers. So, making the best of that across Wales rather than us all competing with each other for well-qualified but hard-to-get-hold-of staff is obviously not a good way forward, either. We’ll definitely be having all of those discussions.

We have done a number of other things, not least in response to some of the things you’ve raised in the Chamber, actually, around making sure that NRW works better with community groups. We’ve very many more community groups, I’m pleased to say, since we last discussed this in the Chamber, being set up as part of the package. We have 27 communities now in the south Wales Valleys with community flood groups in them—that’s more than we had before. I have to find the page—it's 37 in south Wales, 13 in mid Wales and 24 in north Wales now set up. There are many more communities who could set them up, and we have put the resources in place to help them do that. We have a number of community engagement pieces running, not just about flooding but about community energy and about community forests, all kinds of things. And one of the things I was talking about to some of the rural housing enabler people that we employ very recently is getting them together to get a kind of resilient communities forum, which would include flooding, of course, in it. Well, climate change adaptation, actually—because it’s not just flooding, it’s drought as well. Because the communities that tend to be flooded in the winter then tend to have drought in the summer. So, it’s about trying to see, again, that complete picture.

I think this is a complex area to look at. The legislation is not fit for purpose. We’ve known that for quite a long time. The section 19 reports, as Professor Evans rightly says in her piece, have grown up as a kind of custom and practice, really, because the legislation underpinning it is so inadequate. But rather than a knee-jerk reaction to changing that legislation and fixing that little one piece, what we’ve asked for is a series of reports around—. Start with a blank bit of paper, actually. How would you set this up in Wales? What should it look like? Who should be responsible for what? Who would you expect to do the resilience work? It isn’t just about the riparian—you know, the riverbeds, or the culverts. It is about the drainage and the highways and the sustainable drainage systems and the new build. Actually, it’s even tied up with the phosphate issues that we have, and the run-off. So, it's quite a complicated set of things. We have a number of things ongoing, looking at the individual pieces of that, and then I expect the national infrastructure commission, as part of our joint commissioning of them, to pull that together as a single set of recommendations to us, and that we then would have a coherent programme to go ahead and look at.

It's up to them entirely, but I would expect that to include what I've just set out: more regional working, better pooling of skills, a better and much more straightforward understanding of what each local authority should do, what NRW should do and what the Welsh Government should be doing, and whether or not the new body that we hope to set up through the coal tip safety process should have some kind of supervision over it, or whether the environmental governance people that we're going to set up should. You know, there is a complicated set of things that we're doing here, and rather than just add more and more agencies into it, we're trying to make the best use of the agencies we have in place, so that, actually, in the end, the Mr and Mrs Joneses in our communities have an understandable process by which they can feed in, which is where I'd like to get to and I know it's where you'd like to get to too. In the meantime, if they want to write to Martin Buckle at the committee, then, obviously, they're the ones who are taking forward the current review. So, there is a place to send anything that you think has not been covered in this.

Thank you, Minister, for your statement here today and for the work done by Professor Elwen Evans KC on this crucially important policy area.

I welcome the recommendation of regularising the approach to flood investigation reports across our local authorities. I think this should lead to greater consistency in the evidence base that the Welsh Government collates to assist with its own work to alleviate the impact of flooding, as well as greater transparency for residents in Wales who find themselves residing in areas at risk of flooding or affected by flooding, which, as I know you'll understand, is a frankly terrifying situation for those people to live in.

Minister, I've got one question for you today and this is particularly on behalf of my constituents in Cae Felin Parc in Hirwaun and Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl. As you and your officials digest the recommendations put forward by Elwen Evans alongside those other reviews that you've also mentioned and seek to implement all of those recommendations, how will you balance the need for experts to have the time to provide a thorough evidence base for any interventions, any flood alleviation measures that are carried out in these at-risk areas, alongside the need for swift, practical action to protect lives, homes and livelihoods in the face of increased extreme weather events caused by rampant climate change?

Thank you, Vikki. It's a very good question and it was really good to have the meeting with you about the specific issues that were raised in your constituency. And that's a really interesting one, isn't it, because that kind of flash-flood-type worry that we have there is a really difficult one to get to grips with. 

There is a balance to be brought to bear on the work needed to understand what scheme might work and how long that takes—and it is a frustrating amount of time, I know, that that takes—and any instant mitigation measures that might be possible. And then, there's this whole sort of value for money against people's—. You know, if you've got seven houses but the scheme is very expensive. But this is somebody's life and community that they're trying to protect. So, trying to get the difficult balance right between what will work and what will give resilience and adaptation and what will, frankly, give peace of mind to communities and what we can do going forward to understand whether there's an ongoing risk or whether that risk can be moved is very much part of the work that we're doing. As you know, sometimes it's not just the infrastructure around it, it's just the nature of the valley that you're living in and the kind of flooding that we're looking at.

So, the answer to your question is that we hope that we will be able to get an understandable system in place that has transparency at its heart so that people understand which agency does what in relation to the flooding, what it's possible to do, what it isn't possible to do, and therefore what the prognosis for that community is. Unfortunately, I cannot promise to protect every single house in Wales from flooding—that's just not possible—but we will make sure that we have as much adaptation in there as possible and as much assistance for people who do live in those areas to make sure that they can live healthy and productive lives without the fear of flooding, which I absolutely do understand. I've met a large number of people, especially children, who have a real fear of flooding once they've experienced it.

I just want to use this opportunity as well to highlight that there is a national flood insurance project as well, to just make sure that people have tried to access that, because one of the other issues is recovery after flood and what we can do to help that. I see that the English Government has put a small scheme in place that mirrors our own, because sometimes the big capital schemes don't work at the individual community level, and I'm glad that you highlighted that to me in the last meeting that we had.

Finally, Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Minister, I welcome the statement today and the work of Professor Evans in this area. We didn't suffer the widespread devastation that some communities did a few years back, but what we did have was localised flooding that was because of those traumatic weather incidents. In those classic Valleys communities you've described, we had rapid run-off, partly to do with street design, partly to do with blocked drainage and co-ordination, exactly as you've described. But I urge you, first of all, let us legislate, but only where absolutely needed. Let's run the rule across the powers that we currently actually have if we used and implemented those powers properly. Secondly, let's have no more additional bodies, although I am a fan of voluntary flood forums that come together to help people on the ground locally. But let's not have some super new national bodies to hide behind this stuff; let's get on. And that's my primary point, Minister: what can we get on with right now, acting right now at a local authority level with local partners within these localised areas of flash flooding? What can we do right now? Because that's what my constituents in Llangeinor, Heol-y-cyw, Garth and elsewhere who have suffered devastating flooding in localised areas want to know: can we do stuff for them right now?

Diolch, Huw. We fund Natural Resources Wales and the local authorities to engage in this sort of activity, as I was saying to Heledd, throughout the year. There is on the NRW website something called 'What to do before, during or after a flood'—pretty straightforward, it's available on the website. NRW run volunteer network support events across Wales and advise community groups on the completion and testing of community flood plans. We have volunteer events that include representatives from NRW, local authorities, local resilience fora—so, that's the wider civil resilience fora—the voluntary sector, including the British Red Cross, who I was delighted to meet with very recently about their report into flooding, and the National Flood Forum.

This year, we've given NRW £24.5 million in revenue funding, which is an increase of £2 million from last year, to maintain the network of assets throughout Wales and support the work in community engagement. There is advice and support about how to join a community flood group and a list of organisations that provide support for flood groups, and that's also on the website. As I was just saying in response to Heledd, there are 74 community flood plans across Wales at the moment, so we can help you, if there isn't one in your area, to set one up. As I say, if you haven't met with the British Red Cross as well, it's worth doing that.

We also have a small-scale scheme in place in Wales that has now been copied by England. It's only available in England where 10 or more properties have been flooded twice or more in the last 10 years, so ours is a little more generous than that. The small-scale scheme in Wales can protect as few as two properties and there's no requirement for properties to have suffered flooding on multiple occasions, so it's a bit more generous than that.

We employ what's called a scaled approach to scheme appraisal, as I was saying to Vikki. I had a very interesting conversation with Vikki about an area of her constituency where there's a very specific problem and it's about trying to find a bespoke solution. But we had good engagement from NRW, the local authority and myself, trying to find that. It's one of the benefits in Wales, isn't it—we're small enough to be able to bring a focus to a small community that's got a very specific problem. So, I'm very happy to do that if you have a specific community in mind, Huw, as always, and then, as I say, help you access some of the support necessary to put one of those community groups together.

Thank you, Minister.