I welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s statement on energy. I know that burning carbon creates carbon dioxide. I also know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Thus, we need to reduce our use of carbon-based fuels and reduce our carbon dioxide production, unless we want to be wading in here up to our knees in water.

So, I welcome the proposed target for Wales to be generating 70 per cent of its electrical consumption from renewable energy by 2030. Two questions on this. Firstly, are intermediate targets going to be set so that progress can be checked against them and action be taken if they fall behind, or they can be increased if we’re doing better than expected? The second question is: what progress is being made on battery technology to store electricity created by wind energy at peak production time?

On the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, I welcome the Minister’s commitment to continue to press the UK Government for clarity on support and a response to the Hendry review, which was unequivocal in its support for a tidal lagoon. Some of us had doubts when it was set up that it was being kicked into the long grass. What we had was the most positive report I’ve ever seen, where I think he used words such as, ‘This is a no-regrets policy; if you do it and it doesn’t work, there’s still no regrets’.

The benefits it gives in design skills and the creation of supply chains—which will happen if Swansea is the first—if we wait until other countries create them, we will lose these opportunities. The first gains unique opportunities—Aarhus in Denmark with wind power. Those that follow inevitably import from the innovators. So, can I ask the Cabinet Secretary to put even further pressure on the Government at Westminster that we do need a tidal lagoon in Swansea? Tidal lagoons are the way forward for renewable energy.