Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 23 November 2022.
He's right, and we're interested in all opportunities to improve renewables capacity. One of the things we're also keen on is to make sure we have a supply chain and a benefit to the local economy, both through ownership and through manufacture. I've never found it fathomable why we are having German pension funds invested in wind farms off north Wales when we're not benefiting directly from the profit ourselves. That's one of the reasons why we've announced the creation of an energy company for Wales, to exploit the opportunities on the Natural Resources Wales estate. We are also—along with Plaid Cymru—working on a proposal for community energy. So, there is much work going on to exploit this. What we need to work closely with the UK Government on is an industrial strategy to go alongside the renewable plans. I raised this with Greg Hands when he was energy Minister, and this is something the industry themselves are keen on, because there is significant both energy potential but also employment potential if we get this right.