I very much welcome the opportunity to speak in support of this motion today. Tidal lagoons offer us the opportunity to develop a clean, modern, long-term energy policy that is safe and sustainable, with projected life spans of at least 120 years. That’s 120 years of clean and green energy generation, with the calculation that a network of tidal lagoons around the coast could produce enough electricity to meet a projected 8 per cent of the UK’s energy needs. Importantly, the development of tidal lagoons allows us to develop a new industry here in the UK, which will bring with it the prospect for wider economic regeneration, and here in Wales we can take a real global lead.

I know that the Industrial Communities Alliance have endorsed the plans from this perspective, and it is clear to see why when the potential scale of the benefits is considered. If the plans are to be fully realised, we could be looking at a network of six tidal lagoons, estimated to involve a £40 billion investment, creating nearly 6,500 long-term jobs and annually generating nearly £3 billion of GVA. But the economic benefits would not end there. Additional work and economic opportunities would be created during the construction of the tidal lagoons, with the supply chain, as other speakers have alluded to today, across the four proposed lagoons in Wales being estimated to involve many thousands of jobs, including tens of thousands in construction and manufacturing.

And this is where constituencies such as my own, in the former south Wales Valleys, can really stand to benefit. Plans for tidal lagoons in Swansea and eventually in Cardiff and Newport could create new work opportunities within easy commuting distance, but within the supply chain there are also opportunities for new and existing businesses in areas such as Cynon Valley. I would hope that sharing out these wider economic benefits is a key consideration within any future plan, and also that they form part of a new, refreshed strategy for sustaining and creating good quality employment opportunities in the manufacturing sector.

Again, there are specific opportunities for Wales here: 11.6 per cent of Welsh people are employed in manufacturing, the joint second highest level in the UK. As evidence from 2015 that was given to the cross-party group on industrial communities shows, these jobs are largely located in the Valleys, with my constituency having two and a half times the UK average of jobs in manufacturing. As the motion states, we should look to extract the maximum economic benefit from the proposed Swansea bay tidal lagoon and its associated technologies, but I would hope this benefit is equitably shared across Wales and is used as a lever to improve economic performance in areas such as mine.

For my final point, though, I will sound a note of caution. Three months ago here in this Chamber we discussed the most recent ‘State of Nature’ report from the RSPB. The report told us that 34 per cent of marine vertebrate and 38 per cent of marine plant species have declined according to long-term data trends. For marine invertebrates, the long-term decline was even more worrying, with three out of four species affected. This evidence highlights the fragility of our marine ecosystems, and means that we must be sensitive in how we approach this issue.

I welcome the Welsh Government’s approach, wanting to marry all aspects of its marine policy in a national marine plan that balances the economic potential of Welsh waters with our duty to safeguard and protect them, and I look forward to seeing the detail of this when it’s published in due course.

The proposal from the Hendry review, with its call for the development of the Swansea bay tidal lagoon as a pathfinder project, will allow us to evaluate the technology and cost-effectiveness of the project. Importantly, such an approach would also allow us to study the impact of a tidal lagoon on its natural habitat and on the species living within it, going some way to meet the valid concerns of environmental groups.

The tidal lagoon project has the opportunity to change the way we generate energy. It has the opportunity to transform, energise and re-balance our economy, and with the opportunity presented by using the Swansea bay tidal lagoon as a pathfinder, we have the chance to get this right. I hope the Welsh consensus behind this debate today provides the catalyst so that the UK Government can now move the project forward. Thank you.