I’m sure the Member is correct, and we are faced with this challenge of leaving the European Union and keeping our high environmental standards, and I think that’s a challenge of a country that has its Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 as a centrepiece of its legislation.

In terms of protecting the environment, fracking will not help us either combat climate change or end our dependency on fossil fuels. Shale gas is terrible news for our climate. Fracking will create more climate-changing gases, it’s not compatible with our climate change targets, and shale gas will keep us hooked on fossil fuels and distract us from the real solutions of the future: energy efficiency and renewable energy. Allowing fracking in Wales, I also suggest, would make a nonsense of the Government’s own recently announced target of 70 per cent of our electricity to come from renewable resources.

There’s also a risk that fracking could contaminate water. The UK’s Environment Agency found that flowback liquid from the Lancashire shale contained, and I quote, notably high levels of sodium, chloride, bromide and iron, as well as higher values of lead’.

The impact on our landscape would be enormous. For fracking to be fully developed, we could see 10,000 to 20,000 wells scattered around the countryside in clumps of six to seven on so-called drilling pads. I do note, with a deep irony, that those who are the strongest backers of fracking tend to be those who oppose windfarms in the strongest possible terms as well.

It may also be the case that the UK’s geology would not support fracking. In August 2017, Professor John Underhill, Heriot-Watt University’s chief scientist, stated this:

The inherent complexity of the sedimentary basins has not been fully appreciated or articulated and, as a result, the opportunity has been overhyped.’

He warned against relying on shale gas to, quote, ride to the rescue of the UK’s gas needs only to discover that we’re 55 million years too late.’

Plaid Cymru wants to end our dependence on fossil fuels, and this does include a complete ban on fracking. We acknowledge that climate change is the biggest threat facing humanity, and we need to decarbonise our energy sector. It remains our aspiration to produce as much electricity as is consumed in Wales from renewables by 2035. Fracking is diverting the attention of the energy sector and, possibly, public funding as well, from sustainable and renewable sources of energy. Instead of investing in fossil fuels, the UK Government should be investing in clean renewable technology. Swansea bay tidal lagoon has a huge potential for the Welsh economy and could create more jobs without the risks to public health and the wider environment.

I hope today the Welsh Government will support this proposal as a commitment to use the powers when they come into force next April to ban fracking in Wales. Instead, we should look to amend the land-use planning legislation to fast-track community-owned and farmer-owned energy schemes, with a presumption in favour of development. We would then transform our energy policy to place the interests of Welsh communities at the heart of everything we do.