9. Will the Minister make a statement on whether Welsh Government will bring forward measures to support local authorities and local communities to take a greater stake in energy projects? OAQ54460

We already support communities and local authorities to develop renewable energy projects and encourage collaboration to increase the benefits from involvement in energy production. I have established a working group to develop guidance on shared ownership of energy developments, which will help us understand what further action may be needed.

I thank the Minister for that response, and I recognise the work that is going on, particularly as a Labour and Co-operative Member, around that community ownership. But back in 2017, the UK Energy Research Centre had a look across local authorities throughout the UK, Wales included, and they found that their engagement in energy management was limited, and they had limited capacity, in fact, to get involved in strategic energy management. This is despite great individual projects, including the one in Caerau in my constituency, the geothermal mine water project. But the report went on to make 10 quite radical far-reaching recommendations, including the idea of a local authority statutory duty to develop and implement area-wide, low-carbon plans, mandatory local planning for low-carbon heat and a central energy efficiency fund dedicated to investment in localised energy provision and services. There were 10 quite radical proposals, and we can’t do them all overnight, but I’m really interested in whether she’s had time to look at those and other proposals to see how we can use the power of local authorities and their expertise and might, with some devolution of funding as well to go with it—because that was one of the recommendations—to transform local energy and put power literally in the hands of local people, through co-operative measures, but also through local authorities stepping up to the mark.

Firstly, I’m very pleased that you support the Caerau project—it did come about after some very hard work, I think, by Bridgend County Borough Council, but also the support from our Smart Living programme, which secured a role for Bridgend as a demonstrator in the Catapult energy planning pilot. And, obviously, we supported them, as a Government, to get to that stage. As you say, the report made several recommendations. They absolutely called for the direction that we’ve set out in ‘Prosperity for All: A Low Carbon Wales’. I think the role of local authorities in energy, which was lost after privatisation—I think it’s going to be absolutely key to the future of our energy system. So, we have done a great deal to support local authorities. We’ve brought forward new energy efficiency and generation projects. We’ve also highlighted the very important role that they have to play in low-carbon areas. In relation to the recommendations, we’ve brought forward a variety of actions to support the recommendations. So, for instance, one of them was the introduction of the statutory duty, as you mentioned, to develop and implement area-wide, low-carbon plans over a set timetable. It wasn’t in the final report, but we looked at that and we’ve started carrying out energy planning, for instance, and modelling to ensure specific opportunities and constraints are considered within the context of an ever-evolving energy system.

You mentioned earlier the Celtic sea alliance collaboration that you went and signed, which is very welcome. My question, very simply is: this commitment, which will hopefully develop more sustainable energy projects within the Celtic sea—and I understand specifically floating windfarms—what provisions are there within this collaboration to ensure that local communities and local authorities are also involved in the development of this, as well as at a national, country level?

As you mentioned, I signed the Celtic sea alliance and I met with colleagues from that alliance last week in Dublin. It was, obviously, a preliminary meeting. Officials will now work very closely with them to ensure we get every benefit we can from that alliance. But clearly, local authorities have a huge role to play here—specific local authorities—and we will work very closely with them as we mature that alliance.