That’s an important point, and I know that allowing test drilling in Scotland, where they’ve come out against fracking, means there are now legal cases pending, and you shouldn’t give people encouragement, if you like, or spend money, that they would then have a legal recourse against you. It’s better to ban completely, and I accept that point.

We, in Plaid Cymru, have made our stance against fracking absolutely clear, and consistently so. This, now, is a real opportunity for our National Assembly to send a clear message in advance of gaining the full powers next April. We don’t want fracking in Wales, we don’t need fracking in Wales, and we should not allow fracking in Wales.

As well as being hugely unpopular, there are concerns that fracking could have a detrimental impact on human health and the environment. Under such circumstances, I would argue that the precautionary principle can and should be applied in full. We now better understand the impact of air pollution on public health—stated to be a public health crisis by Public Health Wales—and we must move away from burning and using fossil fuels in order to address that.

Of the chemicals used in fracking, 75 per cent of them can affect the skin, eyes, other sensory organs, the respiratory system, the gastrointestinal system and the liver. More than half the chemicals show effects on the brain and nervous system. More than 25 per cent of the chemicals can cause cancer and mutations. No wonder that the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recently reported that while breast cancer rates in the USA have been slowly falling for many years, they are on the rise again in several counties at which natural gas extraction takes place. I give way to the Member.