We now move to the short debate. And the short debate this afternoon is in the name of Neil Hamilton, and I call on Neil Hamilton to speak on the topic he has chosen. Neil.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I have—[Interruption.]

Hang on a minute, Neil. If you're going out, can you go quickly and quietly, please—although you should all be sitting in, listening?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I've selected this topic for debate this afternoon because I believe that the 'National Development Framework 2020-2040', which was published recently, poses, for Mid and West Wales in particular, the environmental equivalent of Henry VIII's despoliation of churches and monasteries. In the foreword to this document, the First Minister says that, by 2040,

'We know there are significant challenges to be met, not least in tackling climate change', which he believes is the defining issue of our time. And

'Tackling the causes and mitigating...climate change is a key consideration in our plans and hopes for Wales.'

And Julie James, in her foreword to the document says that we should

'make sure we can build a society and an economy that is flexible and resilient'.

And I want to explore the conflict that I believe exists between these two propositions. The conflict, in fact, between economic growth and tackling climate change—I quote from the foreword in the name of the First Minister—and having clear visions of renewable energy. And so, what I think we need to understand is the answer to the question: does economic growth trump climate change mitigation, or having visions of more renewable energy? I believe that the overwhelming majority of the people of Wales are far more interested in economic growth and improving their standard of living than the airy-fairy notions of an undeliverable climate change target, which Governments actually have no possibility of influencing. Wales is, after all, the poorest of all the UK nations and regions of England, on the latest gross value added figures, and I believe that the Welsh Government should make economic growth its top priority. In the early stages of the document, this is never made entirely clear. Later comments, however, do let the cat out of the bag.

It appears that talking climate change, decarbonisation and creating more renewable energy sources are the key aim, regardless of economic growth supporting tourism or indeed changing landscapes. On page 36 of the document, it says that the Government aims to tackle the causes of climate change and has a key commitment to carbonisation. It also says that the Welsh Government will work with relevant stakeholders to help unlock the renewable energy potential of these areas and the economic and environmental benefits they can bring to communities. But nowhere does it say that economic development, and the consequent benefit that it brings, will be the highest priority for Welsh communities.

When we look at Wales's place in the world and its contribution to global warming, we find that its contribution is absolutely insignificant—0.06 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. I believe that the kind of economic burdens that will be imposed by our zero-carbon commitments will impose a very, very significant burden upon the people of Wales and, most particularly, those who are least able to bear such burdens, and we know that there are many pressing issues in Wales. The Programme for International Student Assessment results are going to show, yet again, that we have the worst education results in the country. The state of the health service, again, is an absolute scandal, with five of our seven health boards in special measures or targeted intervention. If we're going to spend public money at all, I believe it should be on improving health and education and the well-being of ordinary people, rather than on building more windfarms and solar panel farms despoliating the countryside.

Because whatever we do in this country, it's going to make no difference whatsoever to global warming—that's the fundamental backstop of this issue. China and India, as I never tire of pointing out, are responsible for 36 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. And China is planning to double its output of carbon dioxide in the next 15 years. India is planning to triple its emissions of carbon dioxide. China is even now building 300 coal-fired power stations, not just in China, but also around the world, as part of its geopolitical priorities of extending China's political reach. They're building them in Africa, in Turkey and in many other countries.

The United States, of course, has responded to this. President Trump thinks that it's important that the United States should not bear the burden of these climate change policies if other countries are actually going in the opposite direction. He wants to resile from the Paris accords altogether, because he said he was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh and not Paris. Well, I believe that Welsh Government should take the view that they were elected to represent the citizens of Port Talbot and not Paris. What motivates Trump is that there is a let-out clause in the Paris agreement that exempts the worst and most recalcitrant polluters, if you think that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. Article 4.7 of the Paris agreement says the extent to which a developing country will effectively implement its commitments under the convention

'will take fully into account that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties.'

So, there's an explicit commitment in the Paris accords to put economic development ahead of everything else for developing countries, which include even the economic powerhouses, as they are now becoming, of China and India. So, China and India have signed up in principle to the fundamental theories behind the climate change convention, but they're not actually going to do anything to reduce their contributions to the global emissions that we currently emit. In fact, they're going to go in the opposite direction: they're going to do even more.

Even Germany, which is fully committed to the aims of the convention, is going in the opposite direction too. In each of the last eight years, including this year, carbon dioxide emissions have risen in Germany—the great cheerleader, under Angela Merkel for more and more penal policies on global warming for the peoples of Europe.

So, last year, China had a nearly 5 per cent increase in its global emissions, and India 7 per cent. India, in 2018, increased its global emissions by 10 times Wales's total annual output of carbon dioxide. So, even if we were able to close down the entire Welsh economy and, indeed, if Wales didn't exist on the planet and suddenly was vapourised, India would make up the gain to the word in carbon dioxide reductions in a mere five weeks. So, why are we actually going to impose these massive burdens upon the people of Wales? And they're not just economic burdens, of course, they are environmental burdens as well.

I believe that the conscious, deliberate policy of imposing such burdens upon the people least able to bear them is actually grossly immoral, as well as absurd, because they won't achieve their object.

Wales needs economic development, and it needs poverty eradication. Because even on the latest report of the Welsh Government, fuel poverty in Wales stands at 12 per cent. That is an eighth of our population that has to spend more than 10 per cent of its income on keeping warm in the winter.

Large-scale renewable energy schemes, of course, are financed by ordinary people, and the money is transferred to major development companies and it's the largest transfer of wealth that's occurred in my lifetime from the poor to the rich. It's rather surprising that a Labour Government is countenancing such a policy and indeed pursuing it so enthusiastically.

Of course, the Welsh economy is changing. The old-fashioned industrial base of Wales has gone or is going. We're developing more and more rapidly into a service economy. In 2010 there were 39,500 financial and business services. That's gone up to 53,500 in 2018, and there were, in 2010, 52,000 retail and tourist businesses. That's now gone up to 60,000. These are the kind of businesses that mid Wales is going to see as its future, and therefore the extent to which these climate change policies are going to make it more difficult for tourism and related industries to make a profit is going to have a significant impact upon the economic well-being of my region.

There is a presumption in this document in favour of development for windfarms and similar schemes that are going to desecrate the landscape. I drove from Glasgow down to Carlisle a few weeks ago. I hadn't been there for a great many years, and I was amazed that every single hilltop along that stretch of road seemed to be covered with windmills—absolutely appalling. It completely ruined the view for anybody who was interested in visiting that part of the country in order to enjoy the countryside. I don't want to see that happen to mid and west Wales, because I believe that, not only is that wrong aesthetically, but I believe it'll also have a massively adverse economic impact upon our region.

Ogden Nash, the American comic and comic writer, wrote in the 1930s, when billboards were popping up along major road routes through America—he wrote and said:

'I think that I shall never see / A billboard lovely as a tree. / Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, / I’ll never see a tree at all.'

Well, I feel that the windmill or wind turbine is today the equivalent of 1930s billboards. We introduced advertising controls directly as a result of the development of advertising boards along the arterial roads leading out of London in the 1930s. Yet, now we have a Government that is deliberately and quite consciously going to wreck our countryside, all in the name of some mythical target, which we can never actually reach.

So, this is massively unpopular, of course, with the people who are going to live with these things. The Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales—I declare an interest as a member of it—has said that widespread industrialisation and irrational destruction of our landscapes is what is in prospect here. Acceptance of landscape change can't be assumed, it must be democratically mandated.

In England, onshore windfarms require majority local approval, and Welsh communities should have no lesser rights. I fully support that objective. The Plaid Cymru leader of Gwynedd Council has described this framework as 'comedy gold' and said that this document isn't fit for purpose in tackling the needs of rural Wales and the market towns that feed the wider economy. I don't agree with Plaid Cymru on much, but I do agree with him on that.

Welsh Government does believe that Wales would benefit from inward investment and economic growth as a result of these renewable energy schemes. I don't believe that there's any evidence that that is possible. Just look at some of the projects that have been proposed and have completed so far— let's take the three schemes at Hendy, Bryn Blaen and Rhoscrowther. These windfarms all have their own companies, but they all have the same registered office at 7a Howick Place, London SW1P 1DZ, and they all list a Steven John Radford as director. A company based in Shrewsbury called Viento Environmental Ltd, run by a Fran Iribar, has also been involved and this is all being directed by another London company called U and I Group plc—there's no Welsh involvement whatsoever in this development. As I said earlier, I believe that it's the largest transfer of money from the poor to the rich in my lifetime. Labour pose as the Robin Hood of society, but in fact they are the allies of the Welsh equivalent of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

In the case of the Hendy windfarm, as is well known, it was rejected by Montgomeryshire county council, it was then further rejected by the planning inspector appointed by the Minister herself, and then she overrode the planning inspector's report. She had the legal power to do it. I don't believe she had the moral power to do it, because it's as though it was never worth having the inquiry in the first place, because the Labour Government's policy priority of decarbonisation and renewable energy overrode all the objections that the planning inspector raised in the course of his report.

The Bryn Blaen scheme at Llangurig apparently has never actually even generated a volt or watt of electricity, and I see from the latest accounts of the company that is developing it that they have projected targeted gains for their company of £6 million to £8 million—they will get £6 million to £8 million out of this without generating the slightest electricity at all, and, in the process, of course, have erected eyesores in the landscape. I mean, this is utterly, utterly irrational.

Jac o' the North, a famous blogger, who has been mentioned in the Chamber only recently by the ex-leader of Plaid Cymru, has said, to explain what has happened here, that U and I—or Development Securities is the company developing it—planned three windfarms of a size so that, even if the local planning committees voted against them, their bacon could be saved by the Planning Inspectorate, or, as a last resort, the Welsh Government:

'No doubt, the developers had hoped to get planning permission for all three developments, netting them as much as £20 million. Being more realistic, they were probably prepared to settle for two out of three. But the High Court going against them on Rhoscrowther in September meant they were left with just Bryn Blaen, and so they were only going to make a small profit.'

But £6 million to £8 million is a lot of money to you and me, I hope you'll agree, Deputy Presiding Officer, and therefore I believe that this policy is wholly misconceived, grossly wrong and immoral. And I believe that it is opposed by the overwhelming majority of people in mid and west Wales because it poses a tremendous threat, I believe, to the economic future of our region by undermining the very basis of the local service economy.

Thank you. Can I call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to reply to that debate? Julie James.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The production of a national development framework is part of a concerted effort by this Government to show leadership in addressing and combating the climate change emergency we face. Only last week, more than 11,000 scientists across the world warned that we face untold suffering due to climate crisis. Their stark assessment requires us to change our lifestyles and take immediate action. The crisis is existential, immediate and undeniable and is accelerating faster than most experts expected.

As a Government, we cannot ignore the biggest threat to our planet; it is our responsibility to combat this threat and plan for our national energy needs. Our energy policy is driven by our decarbonisation commitments. Welsh Government has accepted the Committee on Climate Change's recommendation for a 95 per cent reduction in Wales and intends to legislate to this effect in 2020. This represents Wales's fair contribution to the UK's commitment under the Paris agreement. However, we have also declared our ambition to reach net zero by 2050 and we will work with the UK Committee on Climate Change and other stakeholders to understand how this can be achieved. By aiming to reach net zero, we will be the only Government considering going beyond the CCC's recommendations.

The Welsh Government has a target to generate 70 per cent of our electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2030. 'Energy Wales: A Low-Carbon Transition' and 'Prosperity for All: A Low Carbon Wales' include policies and proposals that seek to limit fossil fuel production, increase renewable and low-carbon energy generation and encourage innovation in the energy sector in Wales. We will take the opportunities this transition offers to increase prosperity in Wales.

Currently, we meet half our power needs from renewable energy. However, we must identify further resources to meet the growing need for low-carbon heat and transport. The planning system is key to delivering our targets. The policies outlined in the draft national development framework further illustrate our commitment to decarbonising Wales. Based on independent research, the draft NDF has identified priority areas where new large-scale wind and solar developments can be accommodated. We are providing the national lead that is required for the step change we need to take in Wales to tackle climate change. No other country in the UK has provided such a strategic policy lead for onshore wind and solar.

I recognise the potential impact renewable energy developments could have. Policies in the NDF seek to limit the extent of this impact. I am very mindful of the possible cumulative impact of proposals and the impact this can have in making a community or settlement feel surrounded by development. The NDF is very clear in identifying this as a key issue that will need addressing in development proposals.

The national development framework will provide a basis to determine major infrastructure projects classed as developments of national significance. Whilst we accept the principle of landscape change, we do not expect all of the priority areas identified in the draft NDF to be completely covered with windfarms, as some of the more alarmist reactions have suggested, and as we have heard today from Neil Hamilton.

All applications for major windfarms must be accompanied by an environmental impact assessment, and this must be taken into account when determining applications. Approximately 25 per cent of Wales is either a national park or an area of outstanding natural beauty. These areas are statutorily protected and were excluded from consideration as priority areas. The policy in the draft NDF states that large-scale wind and solar is not appropriate in these areas.

The draft national development framework, and its sister document 'Planning Policy Wales', strongly support a strengthened regional and local approach to planning. Local development plans in Wales are playing a key role in delivering renewable energy, and this will continue as the remainder are adopted and others are reviewed. We expect all renewable energy projects in Wales to include at least an element of local ownership, to retain wealth and provide real benefit to communities in Wales. We want to ensure that rural Wales is not left behind. Indeed, we could see rural Wales leading the way in maximising the value of these developments to the local economy, meeting Wales's energy needs and keeping the benefits within that local economy. We expect renewable energy developments, particularly those owned in Wales, will provide Wales with a fair and proportionate share of benefit in return for hosting them.

I recognise that mid Wales is already generating a considerable amount of renewable energy. For example, in the recent energy generation report, Ceredigion has been generating more renewable electricity than it consumes. However, we need much more clean energy if we are to decarbonise heat and transport and not be dependent on fossil fuels. We also need to ensure those communities that are dependent on oil in mid Wales are supported to ensure they are able to benefit from locally generated renewable energy. We are working with the grid operators to evolve grid solutions to meet Wales's needs that are appropriate to the landscape and to improve resilience. The grid operators are working to ensure the grid in place is flexible, efficient and smart. However, we do not expect all of the renewable electricity generated to be transmitted via the grid. The NDF is a plan for the next 20 years, and, inevitably, there will be technological advances in transmission, distribution and storage over this time. It is also important to note that, although onshore wind and solar are the most affordable technologies, there are a range of other technologies that will also help to meet our need for energy. 

The first national marine plan is soon to be adopted. This will provide the policies to support sustainable development of marine renewable energy. We are working hard to ensure we have the mix of renewable energy in Wales to provide secure, dependable energy both on and offshore.

The consultation period on the draft NDF runs until the end of this week. After this, I will be considering the representations we have received and will also decide if there is a need to amend any of the policies in the light of that consultation.

Deputy Presiding Officer, without bold and decisive action now, the risk to our planet is enormous. We have a legal and moral duty to do all that we can to stop the causes of climate change. The draft NDF seeks to put in place a rational, evidence-based policy response to ensure the delivery of renewable energy across the whole of Wales, not just mid Wales. We owe it to our future generations to show decisive action and leadership on this issue. Eleven thousand scientists say we are right, and only Royston Jones appears to say we are wrong. Thank you.

Thank you very much. 

The next item on the agenda is Stage 3. Before we enter Stage 3, I intend to take a break now, and I would encourage Members to return to the Chamber promptly. The bell will be rung five minutes before we reconvene, and we will reconvene at 4.05 p.m. So, the bell will be rung at 4 o'clock. Thank you. We stand adjourned now until 4.05 p.m.

Plenary was suspended at 15:55.

The Assembly reconvened at 16:05, with the Deputy Presiding Officer in the Chair.