We now move to the short debate. If Members are going out, can they go out quickly? We now move to the short debate, and I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to—[Interruption.] Just a minute. I now move to the short debate, and I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to speak to the topic she has chosen. Janet.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Making the most of rainy days in Wales—when many people think of Wales, one thing that comes to mind is its reputation as being accustomed to many rainy days. Indeed, according to the Met Office,

'Wales has an essentially maritime climate, characterised by weather that is often cloudy, wet and windy but mild'.

Snowdonia, in the north, is the wettest area, seeing an average annual rainfall exceeding 3,000 mm—far higher than coastal communities and those along the English border, which see less than 1,000 mm a year. Whilst this may seem small in comparison, we actually have very wet urban areas, too. Cardiff is the wettest city in the UK, seeing an average of 115 cm every year—more than Manchester.

Clearly, Wales as a whole, from Cardiff Bay to Capel Curig, is arguably the wettest part of the UK. Evidence of the abundance of rain here is apparent when considering the striking fact that of all nations in Europe, our United Kingdom has the fifth highest average precipitation, following Iceland, Switzerland, Albania and Norway.

In this debate, I'm going to give Suzy Davies a minute also.

The impact of rain is well known to this Chamber due to the devastation caused by flooding, such as in my constituency of Aberconwy. Rather than talk about these negatives, I want to trigger today a cascade of collaboration and conversation about what really could be our greatest natural resource: rain water.

We are not unfamiliar with the advantages of rain in Wales. Indeed, rain water is already used to produce clean, green energy, thanks to our hydro schemes. Unlike other sources of energy, hydropower offers long-term generation, and schemes have an 80-year life period, compared to those of 25 years for wind and solar, and 35 years for nuclear.

According to the Welsh Government, Wales is expected to generate 70 per cent of its electricity consumption from renewable energy by 2030. When considering that we are currently at around 50 per cent, and the longer lifespan of hydro schemes, it is logical to improve the production of renewable energy via hydro.

In fact, there is significant potential in this sector. For example, whilst there is currently an installed capacity of 1,676 MW in the UK, recent resource studies have indicated that there is a practical potential for a further 2 GW of capacity. More so, a report found that Wales has a potential viable hydropower capacity of between 26,730 kW and 63,000 kW. Clearly, this is a missed opportunity, especially with regard to developing further smaller schemes.

As Claire Perry, Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth, stated:

'From power stations to solar panels, the future is local'.

She is correct. For example, there are around 600 rivers in Wales, many of which could potentially provide a source for hydropower, such as through micro, pico, and small-scale hydro schemes. I have been to visit a small development, just in my constituency, and am aware of a few other projects producing between 30 and 100 kW an hour, and I understand that my colleague Mark Isherwood went to a hydro scheme last week.

Bethesda, yes.

Bethesda. However, as in the rest of Wales, hydro is simply not flourishing. 'Why?' is the question.

I'm aware that the Welsh Government already offers loans, grants, and technical support for the development of hydro schemes, such as through the local energy service, the rural community development fund, and sustainable production grant scheme. All sounds very positive, but the reality is somewhat different. 

Now, having spoken to my constituents, I believe that some have had no choice other than to rely on bank loans to fund 100 per cent of their developments, whilst others receive a grant through Farming Connect for a service that would ultimately have been cheaper if sought independently. As put to me, all the avenues of support outlined by the Welsh Government are not encouraging, incentivising, or supporting investment in hydro by landowners.

Concerningly, finance remains a barrier to the introduction of more schemes, the growth of this important renewable energy and the utilisation of our rain. Indeed, as one riparian owner explained, the cost of the schemes are just simply too prohibitive. Now, as you might be aware, the feed-in tariff scheme is ending in March. It has been a success because, through this scheme, energy suppliers have been able to make regular payments to householders and communities who generate their own electricity. Now, in the face of this loss, I am pleased that the Government has acknowledged the importance of helping to maintain a route to market for small-scale, low-carbon generation, and that it is now consulting on the smart export guarantee.

Whilst looking to do more to help small hydro plants, I believe the Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales—they have a part to play in this and they could do more. For example, I know that NRW have been asking for up to £1,500 for an extraction licence—contributing to the financial whirlpool that hydro currently seems to be for many. Additionally, I know too that NRW have actually made the development of some schemes almost impossible, having demanded in one instance—now, just listen to this—that metres of trench were dug by hand.

Unsurprisingly, my research has left me deeply disappointed at what seems to be an approach to hydro that just isn’t inspiring investment by our riparian landowners. They could be harnessing a great, free resource: rain water. This can be changed, by enabling hydro to flourish, through: introducing a hydropower development programme that provides a 50 per cent grant towards the total build cost of future hydropower schemes and a 75 per cent grant towards the cost of the consenting of future schemes; providing incentives to invest in infrastructure, such as loans for equipment to be paid off over longer timescales, in line with the lifetime of the asset. Also, they could be inviting landowners to register an interest in developing a scheme, and in return, where reasonable, receive a free feasibility study long before investment takes place, or them having to put money into pursuing design, planning, or licences.

Now, with regard to the latter point, you will be aware that planning authorities are expected to assess the opportunities for renewable and low-carbon energy in their area, and use the evidence to establish special policies in their development plan that identify the most appropriate locations for development. I have had a closer look at how they are expected to do this and have found that there is a particular emphasis on previous studies. Whilst this is reasonable, I believe that more could be achieved by inviting our landowners to work with Government to co-operate. Surely, this would be a positive step that would significantly help Wales to see and use the greater utilisation of rain.

What I am asking for requires quite a simple vision, one that I think we can all unite on: the need to create a greener and more resilient Wales. This is true down to each of our homes, where, I'm sad to say, most of us do not make the most of our rain.

This brings me to the final step that I think we ought to be considering to ensure that we are making the most of rain water. This is something that we have right here in this building: a rain-harvesting scheme, seeing water collected from the main roofs, stored in two 50,000-litre tanks for use in this building. For example, it has seen rain water utilised for flushing WCs, irrigation, and maintenance, resulting in the demand for water being cut to a minimum. Some of the other advantages of harvesting rain include the possibility of using this water for feeding animals, watering plants, heating systems, combating flooding and, most of all, tackling the increasing cost of utility bills, which, including the rise in the average water and sewage bill in Wales, is now around £439 in the last financial year.

When considering that harvesting systems can work off the roofs of almost all our homes, I think it a shame that there are only a few quotable examples. The reason for this might be the fact that there does not seem to be any support for rain water harvesting schemes in Wales. Indeed, the closest source of help offered by the Welsh Government is for land managers and farm businesses to acquire and install their own new rain water goods, be they guttering or downpipes. In my opinion, this situation is ludicrous, as what we are seeing is the Welsh Government simply paying for rain to go down the drain. Do you not agree that it would make sense to help fund those harvesting schemes too?

I want to close my contribution, which I hope has consisted of an important vision for Wales, and one that is achievable, if there is the ambition, if there is the aspiration, and if there is the drive. And I do like to surprise, so I'm going to say a Welsh quote from the most famous Welsh song:

'Old land of the mountains, the Eden of bards, / Each gorge and each valley a loveliness guards; / Through love of my country, charmed voices will be / Its streams, and its rivers, to me.' 

Do you not agree, Minister, that the landscape so famously described in those beautiful lyrics has the potential of offering more to Wales, and indeed, that the sound of the streams and the rivers would be even sweeter when the water they guide has had the best opportunity possible to create green energy, to be used in our homes, and to help to reduce our energy bills?

Diolch yn fawr iawn.  

Thank you for the perfect segue there, Janet, because I was just about to say that even though we hear that tourists grumble about the rain in Wales, actually, it’s rain that’s our secret weapon. It helps, along with the good work of farmers and other environmentalists, to create the landscapes that make this such an attractive country, with its green fields, and its peat bogs, and its rivers, and its lakes.

The hydro schemes that Janet was talking about as well, well, of course, they’re an attraction in and of themselves. Obviously, Dinorwig is the big star of the show on this one, but, as Dai will know, we have a small hydro scheme in the Penllergare woods in our region, and that is itself part of the attraction of that valley.

The Year of Adventure, the Year of the Sea, I think Visit Wales—well, they’ve obviously spotted that water's important to what we sell here in Wales, and I’m hoping that the statistics of our visitor numbers in the next couple of years will show that visitors really love the waters of Wales.

I now call the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs to reply to the debate—Lesley Griffiths.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you, Janet, for bringing forward this short debate today.

We certainly do see a lot of rainfall in Wales. However, I'm sure it won't be a surprise to Members to know that it doesn't always fall in the right place or at the right time for us to make the most of it, and managing its uses and its impacts can certainly be challenging. So, I think it's helpful to set the scene. The nature of Wales's geography and geology means very little rainwater is able to be retained, with about 3 per cent being captured by water companies' infrastructure. Around 95 per cent of the water captured for use in Wales comes from surface water abstraction, as our groundwater reserves hold less than 5 per cent of the water needed for public supplies.

Water is indeed one of our greatest natural assets and an integral part of our culture, our heritage and our national identity, shaping our natural environment and our landscapes. Our rainwater falls into over 120 catchments that are subject to a variety of land use types and management practices, all of which impact on water quality. Much of Wales is mountainous with comparatively low populations, adding to the challenges in terms of the infrastructure needed to supply customers in some areas. Due to our topography, as rainfall progresses speedily towards the coast during heavy rainfall events, it picks up pollutants as it drains into our rivers and can also overwhelm our mainly Victorian sewerage systems, creating flood risks. So, the challenges we face are likely to become increasingly difficult, for example with the UK climate projections predicting drier summers and wetter winters in Wales.

I think it's really useful to remember, but it's slightly ironic in the context of today's debate, the exceptionally dry summer we experienced last year, with even less rainfall in Wales than in 1976—for those of us old enough in the Chamber to remember 1976. This brought its own challenges for the water companies in terms of resilience.

So, with all of this to take into consideration, we are committed to a more integrated approach to the management of our water, in line with our natural resources management policy and the Environment (Wales) Act 2016. And in 2015 we published our water strategy for Wales, setting out our long-term policy direction.

So, when I saw the title of Janet Finch-Saunders's short debate today, I wasn't quite sure where we were going, but, obviously, Janet referred to hydropower, which is a very important part of our energy mix, and I too have been fortunate to visit several small hydropower schemes. Janet seemed to question Welsh Government's commitment to them, but just today, I announced the continuation of 100 per cent business rate support for community hydropower projects for 2019-20. And the scheme has already supported almost 50 hydropower projects in the year, including seven community-owned projects. So, the continuation of the grant scheme will enable eligible projects to retain the maximum possible benefit for their local area, enabling them to reinvest into the local community.

I think Janet mentioned that Mark Isherwood had visited Ynni Ogwen, as I did back in November. It was very interesting to see that the founder director of that project said:

'The Welsh Government’s support for community hydro schemes towards the cost of business rates has been a great help to us, saving us £14,000 over our first two years and ensuring the hard work of our volunteers in setting up the scheme has borne fruit. I am really pleased this support will continue after 1st April. This will give us great confidence as we consider whether we can proceed with our second scheme next year.'

And Janet referred to the feed-in tariff ending, and I really do think you're pushing at an open door with me and Welsh Government—it's the door in the UK Government where you have your Tory Ministers who are ending the feed-in tariffs—. And I have to say, I also visited a hydropower scheme not far out of Machynlleth, on a farm, and the farmer said to me that with all the expertise that he's gained from putting the scheme on his farm, he would very much like to do another one in the next valley, along with another farmer. But because of the reduction in the feed-in tariff, it simply wasn't worth it. So, I think it's not just Welsh Government that needs to bring forward initiatives to support hydropower—it's also the UK Conservative Government. But I do think well-designed hydropower schemes are a great example of how we can really harness our natural resources that are available to us for the benefit of local communities, while making sure that we protect the river environment.

I just wanted to say, at the other end of the scale, we've obviously got the groundbreaking sustainable drainage systems regulations that just came into force a couple of weeks ago on 7 January. Again, it will see innovative ways of reducing surface water run-off and enhancing wildlife and biodiversity in urban environments. And it also contributes to the protection of 163,000 properties in Wales, which are currently at risk from surface water flooding. The SuDS approach will also provide additional benefits from utilising rainwater, such as rainwater harvesting systems, which do have the potential to reduce the demand for treated water in homes and businesses.

Janet also mentioned farmers, and we provide grant funding to farmers for water harvesting and filtering equipment, and our sustainable production grant focuses on nutrients management and storage in order to reduce pollution incidents in our watercourses and the impacts on the associated flora and fauna.

Another initiative—back in December, I published a revised version of 'Planning Policy Wales', 'Planning Policy Wales: Edition 10'. It emphasises the need to embrace integrated approaches for the planning and management of water resources in both urban and rural areas and highlights good practice for utilising our water resources in Wales.

As a Government, we also work very closely with the water companies in Wales, and our main water company, Dŵr Cymru, is proposing to spend a record £74 million on research and innovation from 2020 to 2024. I think what that investment will do is see further collaboration between Welsh Water and our land managers to protect water quality and improve the land's ability to retain water, whilst also improving our ecosystem resilience and biodiversity within one of our most treasured areas of outstanding natural beauty.

So, we continue to plan for longer term water resilience. We need to take steps to support our environment, communities and businesses, and the water companies are currently preparing their water resource management plans for the next 25-year period from 2020. These plans will show how the demand for water is going to be managed and met up to 2045, and the plans are required to take into account climate change projections, population growth and new developments.

Water policy is a key topic here in Wales, and we will need collectively to exhibit strong leadership to continue to secure the maximum benefits for the people of Wales. Diolch.

Thank you very much. And that brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 17:51.