5. Member Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): Community benefits of energy projects

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:36 pm on 13 October 2021.

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Photo of Alun Davies Alun Davies Labour 3:36, 13 October 2021

I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful as well to Rhun ap Iorwerth for bringing forward this debate. When I was reading the order paper and I read the title of the debate—community benefits of energy—the word that stuck out at me was 'community', of course, and it's something that, quite often, is forgotten when we talk about having a much richer energy mix than we have at present. And I would like to put the word 'community' back into our energy policy.

I'm very pleased that both Ministers are here with us this afternoon. I think, in the past, it's probably been true that the machinery of Government has actually worked against having a Welsh energy policy rather than enabled it. Certainly, when I was in Government with responsibility for energy, I was one of three Ministers in that Cabinet who had responsibility for energy, and the inevitable consequence, of course, wasn't a single energy policy but three energy policies, and we managed to achieve virtually nothing except a publication of plans and strategies, because you had a level of confusion. The Government didn't know what its policy was, and I believe that the opportunity we have now, with the new machinery of Government, is for the Government to have a clear idea of what it seeks to achieve, but more importantly, how it seeks to achieve it.

I believe we do need to look hard at what the energy mix is going to be in the future. The recent news about—[Interruption.] Yes, if you let me finish the sentence. The recent news about the development of modular nuclear reactors is good news, I believe. It might well be good news for sir Fôn; it might well be good news for other sites as well, and good news in terms of lowering our carbon output at the same time as securing baseload supply.