Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 12 December 2017.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:51, 12 December 2017

Technical advice note 8 does that, of course, because when TAN 8 was first developed it recognised, for example, that there were special conditions in national parks and there were particular areas where wind applications were due to come. He mentions wind turbines but nothing else. Is he saying, for example, that opencast is fine? Is he saying that other forms of energy like nuclear energy—? We support nuclear energy; we want to see a new nuclear power plant on Anglesey. But I don't think it's right to pick out windfarms and say they are particularly more of a blight on the landscape than anything else. Some people love them, some people hate them. That's what I've discovered over the years. What we do know is that we do need more sources of energy. We need our nuclear plants, that's true, but we also need to make sure that we have renewable sources of energy that create energy security—or are we saying that we need to import energy from other countries, which is something I'd be surprised if he was advocating? One way of doing that is to harness a renewable natural resource like wind, and also the tidal lagoon. We're still none the wiser as to whether the UK Government will back the tidal lagoon. We have out here in the Bristol channel one of the highest tidal reaches in the world. It is energy that will always be there as long as the moon is above us, and yet no decision yet from the UK Government. We need to make sure that we harness the renewable resources that we have, and it's about time the UK Government took a decision, supporting the tidal lagoon.