13:30 Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we talk about energy projects, we are talking about building infrastructure, helping the environment, climate change, jobs and skills. They are important and linked to the other projects he mentioned. Wales not only complements the United Kingdom, but can lead the United Kingdom and rekindle a pioneering spirit in many projects.

I am proud that we now have the Climate Change Act 2008. I was proud to vote for it and I think I am the only Member present in this Chamber who did so. It was a pioneering Act that showed that the United Kingdom was a lead nation in looking after the environment. To complement the Act, to ensure that we reduce carbon and improve the environment, we need low-carbon projects. There have been some good results.

As the Minister knows, I am pro-renewables, pro-nuclear and pro-energy efficiency, and I see no contradiction in taking all three views, if we are to achieve the targets we all want. Even ardent climate change deniers now acknowledge that the climate is changing and accept—humbly, some of them—that mankind is contributing to that. We need to dispel the idea that the climate is not changing and that we need do nothing. We have to do something for this and future generations.

I repeat that I was very proud that under the previous Labour Government, but with the support of all parties in the House, we passed the Climate Change Act. We need a rich mix of energy technologies, to ensure that we reach our targets. When I sat on the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, we produced a number of reports on energy in Wales and they were very good platforms to build on. I have also been on the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change and am now on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, and we are considering the issue. I have scrutinised Governments of both colours—of three colours if we include the coalition, which was a mix of Conservatives and Liberals—but, to be fair, in the early days there was a consensus on how to progress.

I repeat that I welcome the consensus between the two major parties that promoted and developed a low-carbon economy. In 2001 and 2003, during a review, I lobbied the Labour Government to introduce new nuclear and to push the wind agenda to offshore as well as onshore. The Conservatives adopted that policy and supported the Climate Change Act. There was a great period of continuity from when the Conservatives were in opposition and Labour in government, to when the coalition came to office and the stewardship of the then Energy Minister, Charles Hendry, to whose name we will no doubt return. That continuity gave essential certainty to investors, which is important because such projects are long term and cannot be done in a single parliamentary cycle. In many cases, we need to consider working over two or three Parliaments.

I called for the debate because I believe there is huge potential for Wales to be a huge contributor to the United Kingdom’s industrial strategy when it comes to energy and manufacturing. We have successful projects going forward, which is good for Wales, for the United Kingdom, for Welsh businesses and for the consumer. They will reduce carbon emissions into the environment and help to deal with climate change. The skills issue, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), is essential. These projects create clusters of high-skilled science parks and faculties for research and development, which link into higher and further education institutes. This is a win-win situation.

I hope that the Minister is in listening mode and that he has some answers for us. If he does not, I hope he will pass these points on to the BEIS Minister, who may have the grace to come to the next debate with “energy” in the title. Wales is part of the United Kingdom and part of the industrial strategy, and Ministers need to be aware of that. Wales is a forward-looking country when it comes to many things, including energy. We want the best for the people we come here to represent and we want a better, clean environment, clean air, and climate change to be dealt with. We want to play a leading part in that.

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14:00 Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

Thank you very much, Mr Paisley. It is a great pleasure to follow the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). As the Minister will know, within the next few weeks the Government will launch their clean growth plan. I very much hope that he will use all his energies to ensure that the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, the tidal lagoon planned for north Wales and rail electrification to Swansea will be in that plan. Without trying to be rude to him, he is a Minister in the Wales Office: my great fear is that it is a small Department with very little bite and, arguably, very little bark. We hope that he speaks up for Wales on green energy.

However, we now have uncertainty and prevarication, which is making investors, who came around the table to support this important, pioneering project in good faith, wonder will happen next. We face uncertainties owing to Brexit, but people in Swansea and in Wales need the certainty that we will make these investments. On costings, the Treasury is obviously looking around and saying, “Oh, well how does the unit price for the Swansea bay tidal lagoon compare with the spot price for oil?”, but one has to remember—as I am sure you do, Mr Paisley—that 80% of fossil fuels that have already been identified cannot be exploited if we are to avoid irreversible climate change, sustain our commitment to the Paris agreement and fulfil our obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008. In the medium term, the price of oil will go up if we are not allowed to exploit it, while the value of green energy will be much greater. We need to pioneer forward.

We want a green future for Wales and for Britain, and we want our fair share of infrastructure investment. We should be getting our fair share of HS2, for instance, which would be £2 billion that could be invested in infrastructure, whether that is rail electrification or helping to support the green energy of the future.

The question for people in Wales has always been “How green is my valley?”, and we very much hope that it will be a very green valley. We are here to ask the Minister to do everything he can to support both the Swansea bay tidal lagoon and other green energy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn said, and an integrated green future that provides productivity, prosperity and hope for all of us for the future.

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14:07 Carolyn Harris (Labour)

Since the review’s publication, the Government have made no concerted effort to proceed. The Conservative party’s manifesto for the 2017 general election merely touched on renewable energy in Wales, with a promise to

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14:11 Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour)

With the Government pursuing an ill-advised and short-sighted attack on renewables, the UK is set to miss its target. To put that into context, the EU is set to meet its target of producing 20% of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020. The UK is missing even its own unambitious targets. That has not happened in a policy vacuum: it is a direct result of the Tories scrapping subsidies for onshore wind farms, solar energy, biomass fuel conversion, and killing the flagship green homes scheme—I could go on, as they have made many more decisions as part of their sustained attack on renewable energy.

In my constituency, we have a company called Gower Power that develops renewable energy projects and specialises in putting them into community ownership. That project will provide enough energy for 300 homes and create more than half a million pounds of funds for developing other community eco-projects. The Gower Regeneration project has been supported by the Welsh Government. It would not have been supported by the Conservatives. It serves as a telling case study into the contrast between a Labour Government’s support for new, renewable forms of energy and the Conservatives’ slashing of support for them.

The Welsh Government are completely committed to renewable energy and, despite significant budget cuts passed down from Westminster, have supported projects such as the Gower solar farm through their Energy Wales plan. Energy Wales is a framework and delivery plan for how Wales will transition to becoming a low-carbon country. Only a few years after its inception, solar farms such as the one in my constituency are springing up as a result of the Welsh Government’s foresight on this issue. Gower offers the perfect environment for a wide range of renewables, including the impressive onshore wind farm in Mynydd y Gwair.

Labour’s Welsh Government and First Minister Carwyn Jones are delivering for Wales. We have Labour’s Swansea Council leader Rob Stewart delivering through the city deal. Everybody is behind it, but when the Conservatives in Westminster have a chance to deliver for renewable energy, for investment and for my constituency of Gower, they dither and delay.

Ultimately, it is not just my constituency that would feel the benefits of this project. Swansea bay tidal lagoon is a pathfinder project; we all know that. It offers a completely scalable blueprint for the programme, opening up the opportunity for a fleet of tidal lagoons across the country of varying sizes. Economies of scale apply, so the proposed follow-up larger lagoons could provide an even cheaper energy price. The Swansea bay tidal lagoon is therefore the litmus test for a renewable energy revolution across the UK.

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14:18 Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)

We now live in greener, cleaner times, but the Conservative Government’s attitude to energy, and especially renewable energy, in Wales has not changed. I was privileged to open Wales’s first offshore wind farm—in fact, according to Wikipedia, it was the UK’s first major renewable power project—which was located off the coast of my constituency, off Rhyl and Prestatyn. North Hoyle was a pilot, test-bed project for this new industry in the UK. It had the full support of the Welsh Government, the UK Labour Government, the local MP—me—and Ann Jones, the Assembly Member. Can I ask the Minister whether he supported that project—the wind farms off north Wales—when it was proposed?

It was an example of the way the Conservative party has crudely used renewable energies to change its image. As well as the wind turbine on the Prime Minister’s house, there was “Hug a Husky”, but we all know that it was superficial. As soon as the Conservatives got into power, the worm turned—the winds of change turned. The Minister will know that many in his party were climate change deniers. My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn pointed out that some of them have come around, but there is still a deep, ingrained resistance to green, renewable energies in his party.

I would like to compare and contrast the position of the Conservatives with the support that Labour gave, both in the Welsh Assembly and in Westminster. Labour supported this nascent renewable energy, wind energy, and it was a great success. We are seeing the benefits of that support today—last week, in fact—with prices per kilowatt-hour tumbling as the economies of scale take hold, research improves and manufacturing costs are reduced. It was a sound investment then, and we are looking for sound investments now and in the future in renewable energies.

All these renewable energy sources also become more viable with the advent of batteries. The lagoon will produce energy throughout the night, and if that can be stored in batteries it can benefit the rise of the battery-powered car industry in the UK. I ask the Minister to take these issues way and to consider them carefully. Hopefully, cost will not be an issue. I believe that £700 million will be saved by the cancellation of the electrification of the Cardiff to Swansea route. Can some of that money—just a fraction of it—be used to prime the Swansea economy and to support it?

Big issues need to be addressed, such as the new power station’s access to the national grid and the building of a third crossing over the Menai strait. All those ducks need to be put in a row before this project starts. Again, we are looking for engagement and consensus between the Minister, MPs and Departments in Whitehall and the Welsh Government. There are many stakeholders, including local authorities; the company itself, Horizon Nuclear Power; the North Wales Economic Ambition Board; and the national Government. There is a good mix of groups and organisations, and we need to gel them together to get this renewable energy up and running in Wales.

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14:38 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Guto Bebb)

I think that everybody who is committed to the economic regeneration of north-west Wales is aware of the potential in nuclear. The hon. Gentleman has been rightly applauded by colleagues from all parties for the work that he has done to ensure that the development of nuclear does not happen in a vacuum but is fully integrated into the further and higher education sectors. We in north Wales can only be proud of how the HE and FE sectors are investing, in advance of any decision on the nuclear station on Ynys Môn, in order to ensure that the economic opportunities that come along with it are available for local people as well. We should be proud of that integration. Similarly, he highlighted that renewable energy is a success story in Wales. One of those successes, as I mentioned in an intervention, is the way that the FE sector in north Wales has tried to ensure that work opportunities servicing wind farms off the coast are open to local people.

These are successful outcomes of an integrated Government policy that should be supported. Their success is reflected in the fall in the cost of renewable sources of energy. Opposition Members talk about failure to support developments in Wales, but it is worth pointing out that 49,662 sites in Wales are generating renewable energy—another success story that we should be proud of.

I apologise that I am running out of time, but I would like to allow the hon. Member for Ynys Môn time to conclude. He mentioned marine energy opportunities beyond tidal lagoons. I fully understand why tidal lagoons have dominated the debate—the hon. Members for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Swansea West have a real interest in the issue, as do Members throughout Wales, because we understand the potential—but there is a real opportunity for innovatively designed marine energy proposals in Wales. I know that for a fact, because I have visited potential developments off Holyhead and off the Pembrokeshire coast. This is an opportunity for new technology to be developed to put Wales at the forefront of renewable energy opportunities.

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