, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Absolutely. This is real poacher turned gamekeeper. I won't need to remind the committee of the extensive work that's already gone on, particularly within the area that we have real responsibility for within the social housing sector. The optimised refit…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Yes, I do, and it is this: in all of these aspects, whether it's the 20 mph, the roads review or the sustainable farming scheme, what we can't do is step back from the focus of this discussion today, which is that we have mountains to climb. There are two…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
We can't step back from the previous ambition; that is absolutely right. The question, to come back to the conversation just before this, is how we do this with people. I think that is a genuine thing. For people like me, and I suspect every member of this…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Some of it is resources, Carolyn, some of it is actually showing to those who haven't quite got to the target—. Claire was saying that, overall, we've got ones now who are achieving that 70 per cent target and more, so it's actually using the local authority…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Happy to, yes.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Recycling targets for 2030 and beyond, when will we—? I'm looking to my colleagues.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
What a great question, but let me start by answering on the journey we have come on in Wales already in recent years—with predecessors in this role, going back before Julie James and so on. The mood in Wales has changed significantly. I do remember being that…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Thank you, Carolyn. The decision—. The announcement that we've made to go into a preparatory phase, to get this absolutely right, so that, when we move ahead, we move ahead together, all in lockstep on this, is an important one. It is a slight delay, but it's…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I'm very happy to write to you on that, and I'm not sure if I'm still allowed to keep my cap on as the Atlantic salmon champion when I'm a Minister; I don't know. I hope that I am, because one of the things that has been brought home to me is that there is a…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Yes, it's the, 'Where's the money? Where's the money?' We need to get away from test-prove, and then test-prove, and test-prove, and test-prove it, ad infinitum. If we can test and prove that something works, then it's a question for all of us. Coming back to…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Ah. [Laughter.] Oof—I recoil. [Laughter.]
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Yes, and that's to do with those sector-specific policies and interventions that actually drive it forward, as opposed to an overarching strategy. There is a longer term discussion, I think, that the committee might want to come back to in future. At the…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
But I know what you mean.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Please don't ask me to develop another strategy. Please don’t.
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
Yes, but it's a caveated 'no' for good reasons, because I think, as our colleagues in Scotland have also seen, it's not only the interpretation of an individual data set from an MRV on an annual basis. I have to say as well it's also the resource implications…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
I've had a good discussion with my officials coming into this role anew there. We're very keen to get as much transparency as we can into this, but to come back to the earlier point that was made, to get the transparency that is good for not just…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
It's interesting the way you phrase your question, because what I would say straight back to you is, because there was an increase in emissions as we came out of the COVID pandemic, that's not the same as to say that we're not on track. So, the 2021 data…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
So, when we had, for example, the UK Government's unilateral decision on 20 September, I think it was, the announcements on stepping back from areas of climate change commitments—which was highly criticised externally, including by the Climate Change…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
It's all four. All four sitting down together. And with that ability that it's not—. They way it should work is that it's not lead by the UK Minister and the agenda set, but that it's genuinely, 'Let's all share what we can bring to the game here.' But, but…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
You actually need that machinery to work. So, one of the things that we have that we could use is the climate change inter-ministerial group. That has an immense amount of potential. I'm looking forward, I think we're meeting on 4 June, it's in the diary. I'm…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
And they stick to—yes, that is an important point. I'm so glad you raised that. The reason that's so important is there are really good examples of official-level engagement on a range of things. One of those, for example, is the ETS. There's really good work…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
—but in a way that says, when Ministers sit down, they have real, thorough, deep, meaningful engagement, where the—
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
—that we have good inter-governmental and inter-official working as well. And there are good examples, but there are also failures. I would also say this as a former Minister at a UK level as well, that the UK is at its very best when it is open and engaging…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
'Yes', is the answer to that last question, very directly. You'd expect this from me, as somebody who spent 15 years as a Member of Parliament—and we've got another person here who spent a long number of years as a Member of the UK Parliament—recognising in…
, Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee
Climate Change scrutiny with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs
It's very hard to look too far ahead, but what we still are wedded to is the idea that we will deliver—as we did with our first carbon budget, we will deliver that second carbon budget and our net-zero pathway policies to deliver that. Now, at the moment, we…
