While the review focuses on a range of reforms aimed at improving the environmental performance of the water sector, there are aspects of the report that relate to agriculture and that could impact on the regulation of the farming sector in the future.
Recommendations include, for example, a new National Water Strategy, with statutory underpinning, setting out a renewed, long-term vision for the water environment in Wales. The report recommends that the strategy should be cross-sectoral, setting out in one place the requirements on all sectors impacting on or interacting with the water environment.
The report states that the strategy should set out what existing levers and additional mechanisms are needed to mitigate the impact of key sectors, including agriculture. Sir Jon Cunliffe highlights that to achieve clean, plentiful and resilient water, multiple sectors must deliver their part – the long-term objectives cannot be delivered by the water industry alone.
In recent years, he identifies, the water industry has put forward significant investment plans to reduce pollution. However, achieving a future environmental target for water will depend more and more on reducing the contribution of agricultural pollution. The report states that while agriculture’s impact on the water system is regulated through the Control of Agricultural Pollution Regulations (2021), low compliance rates demonstrate that they are not achieving their intended purpose.
Engaging with all groups
The report also recommends that Welsh Government should consult on reforms to the Water Framework Directive Regulations and, as part of this, look at how water quality monitoring can be funded in the long term. This could include alternative sources to government funding, for example, expanding the existing chargeable activities from licences and permits. Regulatory oversight of sludge activity by moving the treatment, storage and use of sludge into the Environmental Permitting Regulations has also been recommended in the review.
Sir Jon Cunliffe recommends that Welsh Government should engage early with regulators and other key groups such as water industry, agriculture sector representatives, eNGOs and consumer bodies to support the creation of targets, priorities and trade-offs, and be subject to consultation.
At policy level, with Dr Susannah Bolton’s four-yearly review of the Control of Agricultural Pollution Regulations reporting earlier this year and Welsh Government accepting the recommendations in full; the Deputy First Minister continuing to convene the water quality summits and an agricultural themed event in September; and, with Natural Resources Wales consulting on River Basin Management Plans in the coming months, this is a policy area that promises to remain extremely busy for NFU Cymru in the coming months.