Baglan Energy Park

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

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

We've worked really hard over nearly a year now to try to regularise the supply since the official receiver was appointed and since there was a real threat to the power supply. There's a reason why the Deputy Presiding Officer can't ask this question even though it's in his constituency, and I've been able to update him on a range of matters outside of the Chamber. The power supply affects businesses on the park; it also affects the power supply to pumping stations operated by Neath Port Talbot Council and Dŵr Cymru. Part of our challenge is that if those pumping stations fail and there's a storm event, as we're all used to seeing on a more regular basis, there are potentially significant consequences for businesses, residents, and what it would mean for the nearby estuary environment if there was a foul water escape. That environmental and human harm is avoidable. That's why we're taking the judicial review action—because it's our contention that the Secretary of State in the UK Government does have the power to direct the official receiver. It's worth noting that, in open court, the legal representatives for the official receiver appeared to concede that that was their view too. The challenge is whether the Secretary of State will exercise the power that we say he has or whether, actually, we will end up spending lots of public money on going through another course of legal action rather than acting on what I would see as the most proportionate and least costly way of avoiding the significant harm that really could be done to jobs, public health and the environment.