Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:42 pm on 15 May 2024.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Labour
2:42,
15 May 2024
Delyth, thank you very much for that question. The global trends are incredibly worrying, and we're not immune from this. We can see this in the recent mapping that was done in Wales in terms of flood and coastal inundation, which was the latest set of mapping. It's no surprise to us now, and we need to put in place, then, the toolkit of how we respond to that. We saw it over, not just this winter, but in the trends that we've seen over the last decade and more in the farming community, and to do that, we need to put in place the toolkit. Part of that is, by the way, the sustainable farming scheme that we debated yesterday, about how we can deliver resilience into our farming as well, recognising they're going to have extreme wet weather for prolonged periods, and then drought as well within Wales. So, it's really impacting us directly. And, sometimes, we as policy makers, and as parliamentarians, need to do all we can to explain in very direct terms what this means.
So, if we do not deal with this, it will mean more expensive food on our plates. If we do not deal with this, it will be more people exposed within their homes to risk to property, but also to life and limb as well. It's that scale of it. That's why we need to do it. It's now, as well as our children and grandchildren. Because that way, we can then bring the public with us. But it isn't a question of scaring the public, or making them so pessimistic that they think we can do nothing. It's being realistic about the incredible challenges that we now face, because the projections on where we are with the climate heating, as many people refer to it, rather than global warming, are stark and clear. And that's why the sooner—as Lord Stern warned us all those years ago—the sooner we invest in the multiple ways to deal with this, across my Cabinet colleagues, in housing, in transport, in farming, et cetera, et cetera, then the sooner we start to turn the tide again. And we have to give people that optimism to bring people with us, but not run away from hard choices.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
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However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
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