Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 6 December 2016.
Yes, the Scots have an advantage over us, which will no longer be there in 2018, where they control the consenting process of major energy projects, which we didn’t, and that was a major difficulty for us. Nothing over 50 MW on land, and nothing over 1 MW in the sea. In the North sea, of course, the Scots have been successful in terms of developing offshore wind in a way that we had no control over. So, we were not able to develop—even though we have places like Gwynt y Môr—renewable energy in the way that we would want to. But with 2018, and the new powers that will come to this place, that will then give us the opportunity to catch up with Scotland. Scotland, indeed, were further ahead than us because of the powers that they inherited back in 1999, including the powers they actually had over the grid, which is not something that we had, but will have in the future.