Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:20 pm on 18 January 2023.
I'd like to thank Janet Finch-Saunders for bringing this important debate to the Senedd. The hydrogen sector is hugely important to my constituency, as Janet has mentioned. A few years ago, a company called Riversimple moved to Llandrindod Wells to build a prototype hydrogen car there on the site, aptly called the Rasa. Even His Majesty the King took a spin in a hydrogen car, and he was very, very impressed. Developing the hydrogen sector in Wales is crucial to becoming greener; we need more hydrogen infrastructure right across Wales. I know my colleague Peter Fox, in Monmouthshire Council, used Riversimple to deploy some vehicles there, but it's the only place we have the hydrogen infrastructure in Wales, and, if we are to develop this further, we need to make sure there's more investment into that, so we can expand hydrogen right across Wales. Because batteries are not the future—hydrogen technology is. It's greener and cleaner and a lot more ethical than lithium mining in other parts of the world.