Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I welcome the opportunity today to bring forward this debate on the blue economy in Wales, together with Jayne Bryant, Lee Waters, Angela Burns, Rhun ap Iorwerth and Simon Thomas. The ‘blue economy’ refers to a broad range of economic activities linked to our seas—marine renewables, maritime transport, ports, tourism and marine sports, fishing and aquaculture, marine biotechnology, engineering and manufacture amongst them. Wales is a coastal nation and the seas are already an important part of our economy. We have a growing aquaculture sector, including the largest mussel fishery in Britain. We have innovative marine renewable developments, including the Swansea bay tidal lagoon. We have significant coastal tourism, and our wonderful coastal path, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about these later in today’s debate.

The Welsh Government’s figures estimate the value of economic activity in the maritime economy of Wales at around £2.1 billion GVA, supporting 31,000 direct and 56,000 indirect jobs. It’s worth noting that the Government believes that these figures are an underestimate, and, of course, the sector, in many respects, is still in its infancy. Ocean economies of all sizes around the world are looking to their seas to bolster slowing growth in their terrestrial economies. China, which along with GDP figures also publishes GOP figures—gross ocean product—now believes that its ocean economy accounts for 10 per cent of GDP. The blue economy is an opportunity, of course, for our coastal communities, but let’s be clear: it’s also an opportunity for our inland communities all across Wales, and I would echo calls by my local authority, Neath Port Talbot, for blue economy procurement to come with social benefit clauses, with recruitment, skills, and training obligations, as well as targets for local sourcing. But the blue economy is more than simply the ocean or marine economy. The term itself, blue economy, has its origins in the broader green movement and a growing recognition of the damage to marine ecosystems from overfishing, pollution, and from climate change. So, sustainability is at the heart of the blue economy. A recent review by ‘The Economist’ journal of various countries’ blue growth plans, including those of the EU, found that the principle of sustainability ran the risk of taking second place. In the words of ‘The Economist’, it seems clear that neither the conservation or sustainability component is the primary nor even necessarily the ultimate goal.’

The blue economy is about developing the economic uses of the sea only within the long-term capacity of the sea to support it and to remain healthy. What we must avoid is blue washing conventional economic activity where the commitment to sustainability is superficial or an afterthought. So, I would urge the Welsh Government to keep the principles of sustainability at the heart of its policy on the blue economy.

But the other side of the coin to sustainability is innovation. The UK trawl-fishing fleet today has to work 17 times harder to catch the same amount of fish that it did in 1889. So, even huge leaps forward in technology are not able to keep up with the extent of overfishing. The leading-edge research role of the higher education sector in Wales is crucial to the kind of innovation integral to the future of our blue economy. Most of our universities are, of course, located near the coast, and much of our marine-based research is world-class, but Dr Ian Masters of Swansea University speculated that the Edinburgh university’s marine research group probably has more research capacity than exists in the whole of Wales. We must address this if we’re not to lose out to Scotland and to Ireland in particular. Research should, of course, be industry-led but we also need to be creating the graduates we need in this sector to develop its full potential. Also, as the SEACAMS project—involving Swansea, Aberystwyth and Bangor universities—has shown, there is a key role for partnerships between industry and higher education, where scientific research can remove risk barriers to investment. Science is the key to understanding the potential and, importantly, the limitations of the seas, be that in biotechnology or aquaculture and elsewhere.

Much of the research into our oceans is international for obvious reasons. The scale of resources required for many projects is often prohibitive for individual countries. Our departure from the EU puts access to vital research funds in jeopardy unless alternative arrangements can be agreed, and I hope that the Welsh Government will continue to press the UK Government on this important priority.

I welcome the fact that the Welsh Government earmarked €100 million of structural funds for marine energy—the largest investment of its kind in the European Union. More broadly, one of the potential obstacles for the development of the blue economy is the relative lack of private investment finance tailored specifically to the sector. So, I would urge the Welsh Government to look, as a priority, at some of the international developments in financing the sea economy. The recent world ocean summit, held in February, was dedicated to that very subject. There is innovative work under way by some of the countries of the Pacific and the Caribbean in particular—small countries with big coasts—to launch blue bonds to invest in the sustainable marine economy and tackling climate change. I would ask the Cabinet Secretary to consider directing the Development Bank for Wales in due course to look at innovative financing products with the private sector, and also, perhaps, with the European Investment Bank to create a blue investment fund for Wales.

But we also face competition for investment from other parts of the UK. Perhaps the most obvious area in which this is true is in the marine renewables sector. We are—yes—at the early stages, but the flipside of that is that people are watching us, and they’re weighing up how things proceed, and they’re comparing that with how they proceed elsewhere. As we know, investors are mobile. We make the case rightly for being a small, well-networked nation, and we need to make sure that that means agile and responsive, as well as easy to access.

Most major energy projects will require development consent and a marine licence. England has a streamlined development consent order and marine licence process, where a developer gets a deemed licence when the order is granted. In Scotland, the two processes run in parallel. In Wales, the DCO is reserved and the marine licence devolved, but Ministers should look at directing that they work in tandem, taking into account the same evidence, where that’s relevant, and working to the same timescales. We should change regulations so that Ministers can intervene and—in relation to larger projects—can be much more hands-on. We should change regulations so that there are binding statutory timelines for Natural Resources Wales to act. By the way, that isn’t a question of levelling the playing field. In fact, it would provide Wales with a competitive advantage over other UK nations, and why should we not want that?

Finally, we should move away from an overly technocratic interpretation of legislation. Yes, there is obviously a place for detailed analysis of impact, but it surely cannot always be the overriding feature. This, to be fair, requires clear policy guidance, so I’d urge the Government to bring out new policy guidance on how legislation can be interpreted. Unless we do that, the risk is that the default position is going to be caution. I hope, then, that we see in the new marine plan and new policy proposals the solution to these challenges, and I hope as well that the marine plan will support a whole-Government approach to the blue economy. By its very nature, it touches on a range of different portfolios, and what we need is a champion to co-ordinate, on a cross-portfolio basis, Government action on the blue economy and to chase delivery right across Government.

Twenty-eighteen is the Year of the Sea. That is a great opportunity for Welsh tourism. Let’s also make it the year when our seas and our blue economy start to realise their full potential. I move the motion.