Welsh Government to raise capacity issues with NRW after whistleblowers’ claims

The Welsh Government’s Cabinet secretary for climate change and rural affairs Huw Irranca-Davies told the Senedd last week that he planned to raise capacity and capability issues with Natural Resources Wales (NRW), following recent whistleblowing and media reports.

He was responding to a question from Liberal Democrat member Jane Dodds. She said: “We know that whistleblowers earlier this week came forward with alarming testimonies, describing NRW as paralysed by bureaucracy and inaction, and then there were internal documents showing that 80% of discharge permits were not being monitored. And then, additionally, research by [Welsh language current affairs programme] Y Byd Ar Bedwar also showed that NRW failed to attend more than half of reported pollution incidents between January 2023 and January 2024.”

Dodds said there was “real concern around the capacity and the capabilities of NRW… So, could I ask you specifically what response you have to those testimonies, and also what you're doing in order to increase the staffing levels and capacity within NRW?”

Irranca-Davies first encouraged whistleblowers to come forward and thanked NRW staff for all their work, and then responded: “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.” He said following a baseline review of NRW’s functions and remit, the Welsh Government invested an additional £18.5m into NRW – plus the regulator operates 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.”

Elsewhere in the discussion, Irranca-Davies said the Welsh Government’s next river pollution summit is due to take place next week, at The Royal Welsh Show, and the focus would be on the role of agriculture. He said the aims included achieving a commitment to advance work to improve Wales’ waterways – especially its Special Areas of Conservation – over the next two years. Since 2022, the Welsh Government’s river pollution summits have brought together key stakeholders such as regulators, water companies, developers, local government, farming unions, academia and the environment sectors to tackle water quality issues collaboratively.

Irranca-Davies added that he had already had discussions with new UK environment secretary, Steve Reed, and that cross border working would also feature prominently in river health plans.