Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:25 pm on 17 July 2024.
Thank you for the question. I watched the Y Byd ar Bedwar programme and saw the testimonies of people who'd worked within NRW and the honest reflection on what they saw as the constraints on NRW to carry out their statutory and regulatory duties. The first thing I would say is, I would encourage anybody who works in any organisation or any agency to actually raise those concerns and not be fearful of doing it; we need to support the ability, not simply of whistleblowers, as we know them technically, but actually, to raise legitimate concerns. That's the first point to make and I think it's important.
The second thing is we have high expectations of NRW, of all of its staff, from the senior management all the way down, to actually carry out their statutory and regulatory duties. In recent years—and in fact, I featured on that programme, so let me reiterate the points that I very clearly made. NRW, in fact, when I was on the committee under Llyr's stewardship, when we interrogated NRW regularly, we were keen to see them carry out a baseline review of their functions and their remit, which they did. On the back end of that, we invested an additional £18.5 million into NRW, but they've also undertaken a full cost-recovery regime, so that they can make sure that they're not subsidising activities, that they can actually gain the commensurate income on a cost-recovery basis. So, all of those things are in place, but we do expect—our expectation is from Government that NRW carry out their statutory and regulatory functions. They're an arm's-length organisation, but they are our environmental organisation.
And my final point—my apologies, Llywydd, for exercising your patience here—is just to thank the NRW staff throughout the organisation for what they do. Because very often, NRW comes in for criticism after criticism and yet they are passionate, as we saw in that programme, curiously, they are passionate, dedicated individuals who want to improve the country that we live in and the environmental conditions. So, yes, it was a difficult watch. I'm sure NRW are taking those concerns seriously, and when I next meet with NRW themselves, I'll be raising those concerns as well, clearly.