9. 8. Debate: Tidal Lagoons

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:41 pm on 14 February 2017.

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Photo of David Melding David Melding Conservative 5:41, 14 February 2017

I’m delighted to speak in favour of this motion, which has been laid in the name of Paul Davies and others. I’m very pleased to see cross-party support. Can I commend the self-discipline of the Cabinet Secretary, who obviously has to protect the role that she will play in a statutory function when dealing with certain aspects of the regulations that are likely to be generated under this matter? But I think the rest of us are not so encumbered, and we can speak with great enthusiasm.

Certainly, the Welsh Conservative Party fully supports its £1.3 billion potential project. We submitted evidence to the Hendry review, we also took part in the meeting that Charles Hendry had here in the Assembly when politicians from across the Assembly were here, and I think we made a very powerful impression on him, just because of the strength of the consensus and the enthusiasm we have for this transformative project. It really does offer Wales the opportunity to be a world leader in energy again, and I think that sort of opportunity does not occur very, very often.

I’ll just turn to the Hendry review, which, like Simon—. Occasionally in life, you await a review, you know it’s important, and then it sort of reads as if you or your mother wrote it—it just has everything in it that you wish to hear—and that was pretty much how it turned out. I think the evidence was really quite overwhelming, and the message to the UK Government was very, very clear and not hedged at all, but it saw the ambition and described it. In terms of what the report emphasises, that here, the UK, with Wales in the lead, could be a world leader in this technology—we’ll be there like the Danes and the Germans were for wind technology in the 1960s—it could deliver a security of supply as obviously the tides, as long as the moon remains, are going to be there; deliver on our decarbonisation commitments in a very helpful way; and have substantial opportunities for the local supply chains. So, I think all those are really important factors—. I’ll give way to Darren Millar.