Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 26 September 2017.
Well, I very much agree with what the Member has said. Some may have noticed that I gave a speech on the weekend when I called on the UK Government to deliver the tidal lagoon. The response from the UK Government was that I should focus on public services in Wales and not mention the lagoon. Now, that causes me a great deal of trepidation because normally the response is, ‘We are still considering it.’ That suggests to me that they’re going to axe the lagoon, and that is something that is a great concern to me and, I’m sure, Members of this Chamber, indeed, outside of my own party.
This is a project that will deliver clean, green energy, not just for Wales but into the National Grid. It would deliver 1,000 jobs in manufacturing and maintenance, particularly in the area of Port Talbot, and we’ve had prevarication after prevarication after prevarication. Even an independent review, which I suspect was set up to say, ‘Don’t go ahead with it’ and then came up with the suggestion that we should go ahead with it, has reported that this project should happen. A billion pounds was put on the table for Northern Ireland—£1 billion for Northern Ireland; a coach and horses driven through the Barnett formula. We’ve heard that that’s sacrosanct; that was ignored, as far as Northern Ireland was concerned. Where is the tidal lagoon? The people of Wales deserve an answer, they deserve those jobs and they deserve the consideration of the UK Government.