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, 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: 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: 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: You're retracting it. Another u-turn by the Conservatives, right here on the floor. [Laughter.]
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: 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, 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: 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: Yes, certainly.
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: Thank you, Rhianon. The answer to this energy crisis is not to expand new extraction of fossil fuels. We do not support the UK Government's plans to expand new oil and gas licences in the North sea and open new fracking in England. Our policies will continue to oppose new extraction in Wales. Years—years—of regressive energy policy at UK level have left us really exposed to global price...
Julie James: Diolch, Rhianon. Our policies of supporting households, businesses and the public sector to reduce energy demand together with positive action to scale up the production of domestically produced renewable energy will enhance energy security in all areas of Wales.
Julie James: Well, you know, Mark, what I would say is, again, the Conservatives' ability to quote statistics outside of the macroeconomic situation just beggars belief. So, this Government has set record levels of social housing grant funding through the budget, so that's £300 million, and indicative draft budget allocations of £330 million for next year and £325 million for the year after that,...
Julie James: We are supporting the housing sector to continue to supply new homes in the context of current challenges. Our new local housing market assessment approach assists local authorities to plan a sustainable housing supply that will meet local need.
Julie James: Yes, certainly, Tom. One of the issues there is, actually, the interaction of the planning system with the recycling system, as it happens. So, we are looking to see what we can do to ensure that that doesn't happen. We're also, as you know, about to go to a target of 70 per cent across Wales, and just in the Swansea area, we have three very high-performing councils, but Bridgend County...
Julie James: With the greatest of pleasure. Our municipal recycling rate was a record 65.4 per cent in 2020-21, exceeding the 64 per cent target. This achievement, despite all the challenges that the pandemic brought, is testament to the hard work of our local authorities and particularly their front-line staff, who ensured that the people of Wales could continue to recycle, as they have become very...
Julie James: It's very difficult to give you an update on each developer's timescale, for obvious reasons, Rhys, but we are working with them to understand what the schedule is for their buildings. Some buildings are in remediation now, I'm very pleased to say, and I'm hoping to visit a number of them over the next few weeks. We're delighted that buildings have gone into the remediation phase as the...
