Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:36 pm on 25 October 2022.
I'm grateful, Presiding Officer. Like others, Minister, I very much welcome the statement you've made this afternoon. I very much welcome the initiative that you're taking. I'd like to follow on from other Members in the approach this afternoon, and perhaps take a different view to you. The statement you've made has outlined that this state-owned entity will be focusing on larger scale initiatives, and I welcome that—it's an important part of the overall mix. But, my real interest is on a somewhat different scale. The public estate is huge across Wales, and owns a variety of different facilities, buildings and land, and my interest is in how do we, in an urban environment, deliver renewable energy generation. We've seen examples in Germany and France, for example, where the state has intervened to ensure that there's a mixed economy of delivery of different generation opportunities. Do you see this wholly owned company delivering in a more agile way, if you like—delivering for an urban environment as well as for a larger scale, more rural environment?
And how do you see the energy company, Ynni Cymru, delivering the finance required for small-scale community development, the expertise that will be required to provide the advice to people on how they do it, and then the investment that you've already described in the grid? Because it seems to me that those are the blockages, and if we are to overcome the blockages and deliver the sort of distributed energy generation that I think we would all agree on, then we need to be able to unblock those issues. I think the announcement you're making this afternoon is very much designed to, and I think it will, deliver the sort of approach to energy policy that I think all of us would want to see.