I thank my committee Chair—our committee Chair—for leading off this debate. The following quote from our cross-party committee report does actually rightly highlight the Welsh Labour Government failure to unleash the renewable energy potential of Wales:

'The Welsh Government’s 2012 energy strategy promised a range of actions to improve the planning and consenting process, and grid infrastructure in Wales, amongst other things. A decade later, the same promises are being made. Now is the time for the Welsh Government to deliver on its promises, and urgently.'

In 2012, Minister, your Government promised to review and improve the planning and consenting regimes associated with development. Yet 10 years later, the Welsh Government should be more—. Oh, sorry. In your deep-dive recommendations, you make the exact same promise, which you refer to in your response to recommendation 2. So, I suppose the question is: if it didn't happen then, what confidence can we have that it's going to happen and you're not just dragging your feet?

Similarly, whilst I welcomed the Welsh Government's consideration of recommendation 3 and implementing the committee report's call for more stretching targets, this should not be a distraction from the direction of travel we must take. We need to reverse the serious decline that we've all seen, and we know it's happening, over recent years. As the Institute for Wales Affairs told us, 'The Welsh Government should be more concerned with delivery and avoid tinkering with targets just for the sake of it.'

I know I stand here too often and hear blame directed at the UK Government. In your response to recommendation 1 in particular, we have to remember it was your Welsh Government that decided to scrap the vital business rate grants for small hydropower schemes, risking the decimation of a viable local industry, and this has affected a number of my farmers in Aberconwy who, in all good faith, took on these schemes, only to find then that they were penalised for doing so. This has left companied like North Wales Hydro Power with a more than 8,000 per cent increase in business rates, described by the industry as being very short-sighted of this Government. Once again, I reiterate my call for the Welsh Government to reverse this hugely damaging decision, and I would welcome, Minister, if you would respond to that particular point, whether you have considered it, and that you may actually look to support those trying to do their bit to help us with renewable energy.

Of course, one area where major change could be enacted at a much faster pace is out at sea. According to RWE Renewables UK, marine energy developments in Welsh waters

'face increased consenting risk and a competitive disadvantage' compared to those elsewhere in the UK. The Crown Estate and Joint Nature Conservation Committee referred to the need to balance accelerating and expanding offshore renewables to achieve net zero, whilst also protecting the marine environment and halting biodiversity decline, alongside the IWA calls for a clearer and more defined consenting process to ensure the timely deployment of marine renewables. I note that you have explained that the identification of marine strategic resource areas should be completed in 2023. So, as RSPB, the Marine Conservation Society and a number of others have made clear here, it is time now to create an even better platform for marine developments and nature, by creating a national marine development plan.

Another key issue—