Baglan Energy Park

Part of Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 2:25 pm on 23 March 2022.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 2:25, 23 March 2022

I think the tone of your closing remark undoes some of the more positive points that you were making earlier. The Welsh Government has absolutely not abandoned workers. I've agreed to spend several million pounds—I've outlined this in previous written statements the Member will have had the opportunity to read—to actually regularise the supply. It's not a statutory responsibility of the Welsh Government to do that, but my choice to do that was because of the direct impact on significant numbers of jobs on that park. But also, as I pointed out in response to Mike Hedges and in the regular conversations that the constituency Member has had with me, if the pumping stations fail, there is the real potential for really significant harms to residents and businesses and the wider environment. That's why we are paying for a new connection to be put in place. Our challenge is that, whilst the connection to those pumping stations is due to be maintained until 18 April, we don't have certainty that Western Power will have regularised a supply to those places by then. Who on earth would want to be in a position where a week after Easter there's a storm event, there's a power supply that is intermittent, and those pumping stations were not to work effectively? We have taken the action we have done up to this point. It's why we think it is the right thing for the Secretary of State for BEIS to exercise the power that we say he has to direct the official receiver to a different course of action, taking proper account of the direct and unavoidable impact of ceasing the power supply at that point. As I say, once I've taken further advice from my officials, I'd be happy to update Members further when I do have more to say.