Wales' Rural Affairs Minister has been accused of 'not being on top of her brief' after she made a 'litany of errors' in a session on NVZ regulations.
Lesley Griffiths appeared recently before a Senedd Committee for an evidence session on the all-Wales' Nitrate Vulnerable Zone rules.
The controversial rules were rolled out last year, creating new restrictions on slurry and fertiliser applications across the entire country.
Previously, only 2.4 percent of the land area of Wales was designated as NVZs.
NVZs are areas that contain surface water or groundwater susceptible to nitrate pollution from agricultural activities.
But farming unions in the country have frequently slammed the 'heavy and disproportionate' rules, which in turn would 'punish' the whole industry.
They have also highlighted the steep costs involved in upgrading on-farm infrastructure to meet the regulations.
According to the Welsh government, agricultural pollution incidents in Wales remain 'very high', averaging over three per week in the last three years.
However, after six years in her role as Rural Affairs Minister, the Welsh Conservatives said Ms Griffiths was "yet to understand the details and facts of her own policy."
In the Senedd evidence session, Shadow Minister for Rural Affairs, Samuel Kurtz, said he recorded twenty-one instances of errors in her speech.
According to Mr Kurtz, the mistakes included the Minister saying the 170kg per hectare derogation limit was established to tackle phosphorous pollution in Wales.
However, he said this this limit was unrelated to phosphorous, as it’s actually in place to control the derogation of nitrate levels.
In the session, Ms Griffiths referenced the required slurry storage post-introduction of the NVZ regulations without mentioning that Welsh government guidance states that storage calculations are not comparable based on rainwater determination.
And when questioned about stakeholder engagement and the submission of alternative water regulatory measures, she stated that the deadline for such is 1 September this year.
But Mr Kurtz pointed out that the deadline for submissions was in fact a month later than the date the Minister and her officials gave on multiple occasions.
"These regulations have been in the pipeline throughout this period, yet you cannot get these basic facts right," he said at the session.
“For over five years, the NVZ regulations have – rightly or wrongly – been a flagship agricultural policy of this Labour government, yet the Minister who has overseen this policy has yet to understand the details and facts of her own policy.
“These regulations will not improve water quality in the way they intend to. The Minister will know that if she’s listened to the host of evidence from the agricultural community and examples elsewhere.
"The Welsh government should be offering our farmers certainty and confidence, but today’s display just goes to show how out of touch the Minster’s become."
