Reform UK chair of Welsh environment committee may ‘undermine scrutiny’, says thinktank

The former Tory politician James Evans, right, was announced as a Reform MS by the party’s leader Nigel Farage in February. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

The appointment of a Reform UK member of the Senedd Cymru as the chair of a key Welsh environmental committee could “undermine the hard graft of ministerial scrutiny”, a green thinktank has warned.

James Evans, a former Conservative party MS who defected to Reform UK in January last year, has been appointed chair of the Welsh climate change, environment, sustainability and rural affairs committee.