Energy powers

Part of 4. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:39 pm on 6 December 2017.

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Photo of Mr Simon Thomas Mr Simon Thomas Plaid Cymru 3:39, 6 December 2017

I'm still uncertain as to what's happened here. Can you, Cabinet Secretary, just confirm that you did ask for these powers to be postponed, and for the implementation to be postponed? The only thing we've heard as an Assembly, officially to date, has been that all these powers come into force on 1 April next year. And last week, or it might have been the week before—apologies—I asked both the First Minister and the Counsel General about the implementation of fracking powers, which are the petroleum powers that we're talking about, and neither of them told me there was any delay to these powers coming in. Both of them accepted my question on the premise of these powers being available in April 2018.

So, is it now the case that they're not coming in, as I understand it, until October 2018, and the further powers on electricity generating stations, so the 350 MW powers—I take it those are not until April 2019. Can you just confirm that's the position, and also confirm that this is at your request, and also then confirm what you're going to do as a Government to provide the security and assurance that we need that you're capable of exercising these powers?