Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:43 pm on 23 May 2018.
'Yes', is the answer. I'm going to come to that in a few moments, but, yes, I desperately do. I'll just finish off the first part.
Taking the naturally occurring and artificial radioactivity together, the levels are so low they pose no danger to human health or the environment—that's the view of EDF.
Following on from what Jane Hutt said, why is there a problem? We've been told it's all safe and that there are no problems. Why are my constituents contacting me? I'm sure Jane Hutt and others representing the area around Cardiff are getting their constituents contacting them. Why are we debating this today if it's all safe? Many members of the public are unconvinced, and not just those who have signed the petition. Lots of people have stopped me on the street and asked me about it. People talk to me when I go out about it. It's a matter of general concern that mud is being brought from opposite Hinkley point and brought back here. EDF have told us all these things about how safe it is, but people are unconvinced. The vast majority of people that I've met are unconvinced. They have concerns over the movement of the mud.
So, what I'll ask, and it's what I have asked at the Petitions Committee—. We've had all these groups together, CEFAS, Natural Resources Wales, EDF, all agreeing this. What I asked in the Petitions Committee, and I ask it here, is: can the data be made available to academics? Can we have an assessment of the mud by academics? Can samples be taken as requested by the academics? People have got a greater trust in academics, who have got nothing to gain by looking at these things, than they do in the official agencies of Welsh Government and British Government. That might be unfair to the official agencies, it might be unkind to the official agencies, but that's the view of my constituents and, I'm sure, the constituents of others: they'd like somebody outside to come to have a look at it.
If it is safe, then the above must be carried out to reassure the public. If it's not safe, it should not come here. We cannot resolve this today—we're just going to have a debate and a discussion about it—but it's a scientific question; it needs a scientific answer, it needs people to be testing it. It needs, in academic parlance, a peer review.
Can I urge the company to have an academic peer review of the data and methodology and that any additional samples that are requested by the academics are provided? I think that the only thing that's going to reassure my constituents, and, I'm sure, the constituents of others, that it's safe is if external academics who are not part of what one of the people who came to see us saw as a little group of people who all work closely together—. One of the people who came said that people move around in jobs between the three organisations. They actually want people who have not got an interest in this, who they feel they can trust. And the only way that we can do this is by having external academics, so I would really urge that EDF bring in the academics. They say there's nothing to hide—let's prove it.