Plaid have a point: buried cables would be better for the landscape than pylons, but it seems that Plaid are content to see energy prices for local people go through the roof, forgetting that not everyone earns as much as the Assembly Members who get to make the decisions. In the real world, many people are having a difficult time making ends meet and we ought to be doing all we can to ensure that they can power their homes, keep warm in the winter, and cook their food using a reliable source of energy that is as cheap as possible. Even the cheapest buried-cable option is around five times the cost of an overhead equivalent and, when faults occur, they are out of service for 25 times longer than cables on pylons. [Interruption.] No.

Rural life would be massively impacted by such long repair times. Cabling is not without damage to the landscape. Construction poses more of a risk to archaeological sites, particularly as yet undiscovered ones, underground joint bays lined with concrete have to be built every 500m to 1,000m to join together individual lengths of cable, and, where a cable has to come out of the ground for geological reasons, compounds have to be built that are possibly more visually intrusive than pylons.

The disruption to local people, tourists, and the environment would be huge during construction and could harm the local tourist economy. So, burying the cables is not the panacea Plaid would have us believe. ‘Even so, it will still look a lot better’, Plaid will say, and they’re right. But they don’t have to bear the cost: every bill payer in Wales will, of whom Plaid AMs are only 11, and will possibly be even fewer by the times any cables are laid. Two hundred and ninety-one thousand Welsh households—that’s 23 per cent—are already living in fuel poverty. What do the 11 Plaid AMs, who can afford to pay higher energy bills, say to the 291,000 Welsh households that struggle to pay their current bills—’Try not to think about the cold, but enjoy the view instead’? They’ll trot out some tired old line about needing to do it to preserve tourism. Well, I don’t believe visitors coming from towns and cities to enjoy our landscape will be put off by the odd pylon or other overhead line, particularly if it means their hotel room remains competitively priced and there is still a vibrant local tourism infrastructure that has not gone bust due to energy costs.

With the huge cost and maintenance time implications it is difficult to see how this is anything but a cynical ploy to grab a few headlines by a party that knows it can quite literally promise the earth, because the people are never going to put it into a position where it has to deliver. UKIP are making a very rational and sensible approach. [Interruption.] I thought you’d like that. UKIP are taking a very rational and sensible approach to decision making in Wales, while Plaid are promising everything without working out where the money is going to come from. Well, the electorate are bright sparks who realise that this cable-burying plan will be a shocking, shocking, waste of money. Thank you.