Julie James: Formally.
Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. I move the motion. The majority of the provisions in the Energy Prices Bill are reserved. The provisions within devolved competence with which we are concerned today are about the powers of the Secretary of State to give support for meeting energy costs. The situation with the UK parliamentary timetable on this Bill is clearly out of our hands. This has meant that the Senedd...
Julie James: Yes, certainly.
Julie James: Yes, that’s right. The haste with which the Bill has appeared on the parliamentary timetable has meant that we had no foresight of it. As I was just going to go on to say, our Cabinet principles do however set out situations where it may be appropriate to make provision in a UK Bill to enable pragmatic solutions to be reached in a timely fashion, while simultaneously respecting the...
Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. I'm very grateful to Members who've contributed to the debate. I share the Member's concerns about the process that's led us to where we are now, and I do share—as I shared, in fact, for the single-use plastics Bill—the concern about the lack of scrutiny. And that's not something that I welcome either here or at the UK level. But we knew about this the night before. It...
Julie James: Of course.
Julie James: Yes, it is indeed true. So, this is a sticking plaster over an enormous wound, and it will cause real problems across public services, as well as for domestic customers. Nevertheless, it's important that what help there is available does get to the people and businesses of Wales, and so we are recommending consent. I am however—I just want to reiterate, because I think it's very...
Julie James: Diolch, Dirprwy Llywydd. I very much welcome the opportunity to respond to this debate today, and I very much thank the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee for their very valuable report. The crisis that the Chair identified in his foreword has clearly deepened, as he said, and the cost-of-living crisis perpetuated by the absolutely shambolic UK Government's economic...
Julie James: You're retracting it. Another u-turn by the Conservatives, right here on the floor. [Laughter.]
Julie James: So, Dirprwy Lywydd, I've very much run out of time now, although I have taken a number of interventions. In the short term available, I've briefly set out some of the key actions we've taken in line with the committee's recommendations. We published a progress report for all the recommendations of the deep-dive, as was acknowledged by the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure...
Julie James: Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. We have spent a great deal of time in this Chamber talking about the cost-of-living crisis, which is directly related to the major increase in the cost of energy. Keeping British people locked into the price of fossil fuels is bad for bill payers and disastrous for the action that we all know we need to take to tackle the climate emergency. The rising...
Julie James: Thank you, Janet. I think most of the thrust of your contribution there was around the energy efficiency service, which is obviously not what this statement is primarily about. We obviously work with the energy efficiency service to make sure that we can get energy efficiency. You quoted some of the very good stats that we've actually had by way of results there. I'm very pleased to be...
Julie James: And I for one am very grateful to them indeed, Llywydd, because I’m afraid my Welsh isn’t up to discussing renewable deep-dives at the moment, much as I wish it was. So, Delyth, I’m very grateful indeed for those remarks. You covered quite a big area in quite a small amount of time there, so I’ll just do my best to answer some of it, but I’ll start from the premise of the statement,...
Julie James: Thank you very much, Huw. So, obviously, I'm not going to comment on that particular one, but just in general, one of the reasons we want a state player owned by us, the citizens of Wales, is to put pressure on all the other developments across Wales to show what can be done in a joint venture between a state-owned developer and community engagement and the joint venture partner. We've done a...
Julie James: Thank you very much, Peter. I very much do remember that, with great pleasure as well. And one of the things we want to do is to assist councils to bring forward renewable energy schemes that do a number of other things as well—so, for example, enhance biodiversity, encourage tree planting around the edge and so on, all the things we discussed in Monmouthshire's bid, and, actually, with a...
Julie James: Yes, thank you, Jenny. Absolutely right. I completely agree with all of that. There are some really good examples, though, around Wales, that we direct people to. So, Pen y Cymoedd, I don't know if you've managed to go up there, but it's well worth a visit. The increasing biodiversity around what they call the 'spotting' of the turbines has been exponential. It's actually quite astonishing....
Julie James: Thank you very much, Jane, for that. I'm very pleased, as I say, delighted, to be announcing this, what is a really long-term investment for the people of Wales. I'm sure it won't be controversial, no matter who comes after us as the Government, because we should have done this a long time ago, but the next best time is now. So, here we are, going for it. This is complementary to community...
Julie James: Yes, absolutely, Alun. So, as I say, this is one of the strands of things that we need to do to come together to be able to deliver the kind of energy grid across Wales that we want. So, the urban initiatives are really interesting. We expect a large-scale renewables developer to have a look at whether there are large-scale opportunities in some of our urban environments, for example, the...
Julie James: Diolch, Llywydd. The cost-of-living crisis is in large part driven by energy price increases affecting the price of all consumables. Whilst this is having a detrimental effect on all our living standards, it is having a devastating effect on households who are least able to pay, driving families into fuel poverty. The Welsh Government has consistently called for a social domestic energy...
Julie James: We will continue to learn from previous and current programmes. Multiple Welsh and UK schemes have delivered real benefit for vulnerable households. However, we are dealing with the legacy of some very poorly designed and delivered schemes from a decade ago. I recently approved £4.5 million for schemes in Bridgend and Caerphilly county borough councils to fix over 150 homes let down badly by...
