Questions now from party spokespeople. The Welsh Conservative spokesperson, Samuel Kurtz. 

Diolch, Llywydd, and I warmly welcome the new Cabinet Secretary to his position and wish him well. And I'm grateful, too, for the time that he gave me yesterday to discuss a range of issues. I'm pleased to see as well that the Cabinet Secretary has already been out on farms, some of which were in my own Constituency, sadly without me being notified as is standard protocol, alas. But only a few short weeks ago, the largest protest of its kind took place on the steps of the Senedd, as Welsh farmers stood in unity against the Welsh Government's proposals on the sustainable farming scheme, bovine TB eradication and nitrate vulnerable zone regulations. Now, I don't envy the new Cabinet Secretary and the broken relationship between the Welsh Government and rural Wales that he has inherited with this portfolio. Your predecessor met with the organisers of the Welshpool and Carmarthen mart meetings, and can I urge you, please, to do the same? But on the sustainable farming scheme specifically, can the Cabinet Secretary outline what changes he intends to make to incentivise farmers to sign up to the scheme, having been told in no uncertain terms by the farming unions that tinkering won't be sufficient?

Thank you, Sam, and thanks for the welcome to the office. Listen, genuinely, my apologies for not giving you notice last week. There were circumstances around it, which I'm happy to discuss, but we'll make sure it doesn't happen again, and, even with unusual circumstances around it, we will inform you and other Members here as well. So, my apologies. 

Look, Sam, I'm not yet deliberately—and I say this quite genuinely—or we're not yet in a position to actually make specific policy decisions and announce the next steps on where we go with the sustainability of farming. By the way, when I say sustainability of farming, I mean that in its broadest terms. It is to do with, as I've said in interviews this week, the sustainability and the vitality of the farm businesses, as well as the sustainability in terms of the climate change and the nature emergencies we face. It's food production and all of that alongside the other imperatives we have to do. That means, on the back of the thousands of responses that we've already had, on the back of the dialogue we've had over seven years, it's time to pause and reflect and then to engage, but not to delay for too long, because the worst thing we can do for farmers, as well as everybody else, is to say, 'Let's inject more uncertainty, more delay'. We need to crack on.

One of the welcome things that we did within the first couple of days coming into office, my colleague the First Minister and I—. I think the first, in fact, formal meeting that the First Minister had in Cathays Park was with the heads of the farming unions. It was a productive meeting, but we stressed to them we are genuinely listening. We are looking at what the responses to those consultations are before we move. When we do move, we will do it together. That is key, and that comes to the heart of the question that you've put. We do not do this without having a wide sign-up right across Wales, right across society, right across all the groups that were interested in this, but especially with the farming community. Because whether it is upland or lowland farms, whether it is intensive or extensive, whatever types of diversified farming, we need them coming with us on this journey because they will deliver that multiplicity of benefits for us. Now, I am confident, quitely, that we can do that, but we need to rebuild that goodwill, trust, faith, collaboration—the Welsh way of doing things—on all sides, which is 'we do this together'. And then, Sam, we can provide the best example of leadership in this in Wales and we can do this. But, yes, pause, reflect, look at the evidence, look at the responses to the consultation, of which there have been many, many thousands, which is going to take us a little bit of time, and then we'll set out how we proceed.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I'm pleased to hear you mention the need and the recognition of having to rebuild that relationship, and, again, the stressing of sustainability having a wider definition than that just of climate and nature. 

Now, moving on to bovine TB, the long-awaited membership of the technical advisory group was announced earlier this week, having first been announced back in July 2022—a full 21 months later, but better late than ever. But it doesn't exactly paint a picture of a Government who are committed to TB eradication. But concerns have been raised that there is no farmer voice on this group, no voice of someone who has been through the horrors of bovine TB on their farm. A missed opportunity, I would say, not to have that specific experience alongside the experience of academia and the veterinarian profession as well, because behind every TB breakdown is a farmer and a family. The human impact and cost can't be ignored.

Now, you mentioned earlier the interviews that you've done, and on Radio 4's Farming Today programme yesterday you boldly claimed that England, where they are at a 15-year low in bovine TB incidence, could learn something from here in Wales, and now this has caused further frustration in the sector, who look across the border and see a genuine and positive reduction in bovine TB. Now, will you follow the science, follow this lead, and deliver the targeted removal of infected wildlife so the industry doesn't continue to attempt to eradicate bovine TB with one hand tied behind its back?

Sam, I think there are two or three key areas within agriculture and farming that are going to be with us for the foreseeable future and that we have to resolve. The future of sustainable farming is one, bovine TB is another. What we do on river water quality is the other big one, if you like, of that triumvirate. We have to do them together. But on the membership of the advisory group, which I attended today, by the way—and thank you for taking the time to meet with me yesterday as well and go through some of these issues—let us say there's probably been some misunderstanding of what that group does and what it's relation is to the board. The board is a much wider stakeholder group including farmer representation on it as ex-officio members. So, we have the farming unions on that board. That's the board that actually sets the steer and so on. But, the advisory group that I met with this morning, when we went around the table and we looked at that—and I'd looked previously at the curricula vitae of these people; these are people not only with direct experience, on-farm experience, by the way, with one of them going back to my early boyhood on the Gower, where he lived and breathed and worked on farms as the on-farm vet, and others around that table as well bringing that same depth of experience—these are not people isolated from rural Wales and the farming community. They bring a wide breadth of very, very expert advice that can then feed upwards to the programme board. I've seen a couple of the headlines on this. I'm happy to meet with whoever's saying this is a waste of time. It isn't. This actually now underpins what we can do in looking at the evidence, looking at the science and going forward.

You mentioned, though, why I referred in the interviews I've done to some of the lessons in Wales. I was out last week on a series of farm visits, and one of them was with somebody you know very well, with Roger and the Pembrokeshire pathways, which I know you've previously had involvement directly with. Some of that is showing us the way forward in some of the things we've done. Over a decade ago, when I was the DEFRA Minister, we saw the evidence, the data, which Lesley will know as well, data showing not only how you could drill down to individual farms or down to herds within a farm, but actually to individual cattle and identify early on. But then, the different thing about the Pembrokeshire pathway project is it brings together, with a degree of autonomy to the farmer, the on-site vet as well as the veterinary service from Wales, alongside the advice from the TB centre of excellence in Aberystwyth, et cetera, et cetera. It's a proper partnership. It's no longer saying to the farmer, 'You are at the whim of somebody coming onto your farm and doing to you whatever they do to you'. It's proper autonomy, and there was real enthusiasm about it.

The other thing is the number of new incidents across Wales has decreased from 754 in 2018 to 630 for the 12 months to December 2023. It's a 16.4 per cent decrease. Over the same period, there's been a decrease of 8.4 per cent in the number of animals slaughtered as well. We're doing good things in parts of Wales. The question is, to come back to the initial part of it, where does that advisory group now suggest that we need to go afterwards?

By the way, Llywydd, one of the things of interest to Members of the Senedd from this morning is that the advisory group is actually looking first at on-farm slaughter, which has been a very emotive issue. You are right—the emotional impact of this on farmers, who are very often hardy individuals, the emotional impact is telling. One of those aspects is on-farm slaughter, and that's why they are looking at that as their first item of business.

I'm grateful for that, Cabinet Secretary. Yes, the advisory group does have that experience in terms of practical delivery, but I don't think it should be understated how important it is to understand the farmer's voice in the delivery of TB eradication on farms. Yes, it's a technical advisory group, but it is those farmers themselves who deliver much of this on their farms. So, I think that's where there's a specific point in terms of the farm voice being lost on the technical advisory group.

Yes, you mentioned three topics, and I'll move on to the third, being water quality. It'll be no shock to this Chamber that the recent wet weather has caused real issues for farmers across Wales. Crops haven't been sown, silage is running short and livestock has been turned out onto fields that are already saturated. I'm pleased that, following my letter to you asking what support is available to those farmers most severely affected, you have convened a wet weather summit tomorrow. But, what this also goes to show is the unpredictability of the weather here in Wales and why the NVZ's farming-by-calendar approach is an absolute nonsense, I'm afraid. Do you recognise this and will you scrap this outdated policy, which could make water pollution incidence worse? And will you work with the sector and the exciting technology that's developing to bring forward genuine change that improves the quality of our waterways while giving our farmers hope that there is a future for this industry in Wales, because, Cabinet Secretary, what farmers need at the moment, on all three of these topics, is hope?

Thank you, Sam. We've done the big three issues, and I think we'll be coming back to them. But, just to say, my thanks to my predecessor in this role, Lesley Griffiths, because one of the things that she made clear is that not only have we adjusted currently the nitrate regulations—and we will look to see how those are working or whether there's improvement that needs to be made—we cannot walk away from the fact that so many of our rivers, affected by different types of pollution, but many of them by diffuse agricultural pollution, are under ecological status, and nobody wants that. The public doesn't want it, the farmers don't want it, and so on. So, we will look at how we take that forward. But also, we have the first four-year review of the Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) Regulations 2021 imminently; the team have begun having discussions with stakeholders, including the Wales land management forum sub-group on agricultural pollution, bringing together a wide range of groups on this. So, we do need to look at it, and I'm not going to pre-empt it. Standing here as a Minister, what I am not is the font of all knowledge. That's why we establish these groups to actually go away and tell us what is now the way forward. But on river quality, again, it is working with the farmers and with other stakeholders on a catchment basis to find out how we actually turn those rivers that we have—all of them—back to pristine status. Again, we have to do it together. Diolch yn fawr.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Can I congratulate the Cabinet Secretary, as well, on his appointment? I know from his previous capacity as a member of the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee that he'll undertake his work diligently, conscientiously and, we're all hoping, effectively. And before he gets ahead of himself, those words describe my intentions in terms of scrutinising him, as well. [Laughter.] But I certainly look forward to working with you where that's possible, but also to shadowing you, of course, in your rural affairs brief.

As we know, he takes up the role at a time when the relationship between the Government and our rural communities is at an all-time low: failure to tackle bovine TB, of course; the continued consternation around the water quality regulations; the highly charged and problematic, for many, proposals in the sustainable farming scheme. There's a lot in your in-tray and a lot of work to be done to rebuild the relationship between the Government and the agriculture sector. So, can you elaborate a little bit about how you intend to build those bridges? You mentioned earlier that you will be working together with the sector on the sustainable farming scheme. Of course, that's what your predecessor said. How will your approach differ to that of your predecessors? Will it be different, or are we going to see more of the same?

When the First Minister and I met with the heads of the farming unions, and in subsequent discussions that we've had, we've stressed that we're not going to replicate what we've done already; what we want to do is set up a fairly timely process where we can seek to agree where we agree and identify the knotty issues that require some unravelling and understanding. Maybe some of those knotty issues actually require a bit more evidence base behind them, as well. Thank you for your acknowledgement that I tend to approach my work in a form of diligence and scrutiny—I do, and that's the way I'll apply it, as did my predecessor in this post, as well.

What we've proposed so far—I'll reveal a little bit of leg, okay, but I can't reveal a lot at the moment—is a framework of a scheme structure, based on the work that's been carried out to date. The initial conversation that we've had is that this is broadly acceptable, but what we want to bring forward imminently to those stakeholders, including the farming unions, but also, I have to say, to the wider range of stakeholders, is actually a structure that says, 'Here are some ideas about how we could do the process'. I will be taking a clear ministerial engagement within it, not necessarily at every meeting, but the problematic areas can be lifted up to me, so we can then seek to resolve them. Then, we will move forward.

But I think the first point—and we saw it, curiously, in the climate change sessions that we held in the minutes before I had a call saying, 'Hey, you'd better get up to Cathays Park'—is that there was good agreement over a broad area of things, but then there were those two or three knotty areas. So, we're not looking, as I've said in media interviews this week, to kick it into the long grass, start again, cause all that uncertainty for everybody; we're looking to progress where we can progress and then deal with the knotty areas. But I give the undertaking to all the Members in this Chamber, yourself included and the committee, that we will engage with everybody on this as we bring forward those proposals.

Thank you for that, because I was going to ask about where we go next in terms of process. Maybe timescales are what they are and you might want to elaborate a little bit about that. But the reality is, of course, you repeated again today that taking longer is the worst thing we can do, or that pausing of the roll-out. Well, you just listed to me quite fundamental things that need to happen now in order for you to be in a position to implement the scheme as intended next year. Surely it's impractical, because your predecessor regularly reminded—. You know, I was trying to get some sort of recognition that the clock had run its course, really, on this, and she would at least acknowledge that it was going to be highly, highly challenging. If we're looking at changes to the sustainable farming scheme, as I presume we are, given what you've said, there will be a potential redesign of elements. That will necessitate co-design of some elements, and maybe even further consultation on aspects. Maybe you can enlighten us on whether you intend to consult, depending on the extent of changes. That is going to take time, and time is something that we don't have. So, while you say that the worst thing that we can do is pause the roll-out, surely the worst thing that you can do is to rush it and get it wrong.

I do agree with that, in respect of where we have got some knotty elements. We have to take the time now to properly look at those and see how we resolve them, but also the timescale in which we resolve them as well, and how we do that together, and how we bring all farmers with us on that as well. Some of that may well be to do with things such as proving that a suggestion is the right one, or looking at alternative ideas, but we don't have to take years for that.

Some of that could be done through demonstration as well, and exploring them a bit more. I'm keen to have a look at some of the work that has already been done on alternative options as well, including by our university sector, which is heavily engaged in this. So, what I can guarantee to you is that it won't be long until we reveal much more leg, but I want to make sure that everybody is on board with that.

To come back to the theme that Sam raised as well, everybody has got to be content with the process, and where those knotty issues are, and also where we are in agreement. And I would say, genuinely, without breaking confidences, that the discussions that we have had so far with farming unions have said that the broad framework is the right framework. The high-line objectives are the right ones. Many of the options within it are the right ones. 

We have a fixed amount of funding at the moment, which is going to cause continuing discussion as well. We have the funding that we have. But if we can get agreement on that, then I hope that, within weeks, we are able to say, 'This is the course of action and the timescales that we will need to move ahead'. But not everything has to stop, Llyr. There are things that we have agreement on. So, that's why I say that we don't stop and kick everything into the long grass. Let's agree where we can agree and start showing that we have a direction of travel that we are all going in.