5. Statement by the Minister for Economy: Offshore Marine Energy

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:02 pm on 17 May 2022.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 4:02, 17 May 2022

On your final point, that's absolutely the perspective that Welsh Ministers take. We're very, very keen to see the economic benefits. We're very, very keen to see the renewable energy benefits, knowing that will positively impact upon the environment around us. But, creating any form of power generation is something where you need to think about what is the impact on the environment. And so, you see that in bottom-fixed energy, you'll see that in floating, and so that's why we're very keen in the marine planning policy statement to be clear about the balance and what we expect developers to be able to demonstrate about how they will go about deploying and then developing that power.

On your first point, I'm very keen that we see development that takes place within a context where we have agreed frameworks and agreed ways of working already. We have economic regions in Wales that are in line with the climate change Minister's former endeavours as the local government Minister, and those are agreed regions, and we've agreed with the UK Government that, in the shared prosperity fund—. For all the points of difference we have, we managed to agree that the regions of Wales will be those regions and not different ones, to plan and work together economically. That's really important. So, local government and the growth deals will have the same footprint as those regions, so we don't need to design new and alternative structures. And I expect that the policy framework we will carry on developing will be in that way, and we will carry on being constructive partners. We'll stand up for the best interests of Wales, but we've got to look to work with people as our starting point and where we want to get to.