UK Energy Infrastructure (Wales)

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies]

Yes, I certainly agree. My understanding is that Wales produces about 27,300 GWh of energy, but that nets down to about 22,000 GWh because of inefficiencies in transmission. The issue of energy loss is very important. We need to run a sophisticated and effective network, which pays due regard to environmental impacts and therefore to the economic impacts on tourism. I am not putting to one side the important subjective impacts on people’s everyday quality of life, but there are also quantifiable economic impacts.

Coming back to the Swansea Lagoon, the Minister might want to comment on whether an evaluation of the impacts on tourism has been done. The construction phase would create discontinuity for retail and tourism. If the sea bed was dug up—which it would be—to provide some of the material for the wall, would that generate a lot of contamination from industrial waste brought up with it? Is the visual impact shown on the promotional literature accurate or slightly misleading?

Is the Minister comfortable with the fact that there is an opportunity now for local investors to put down a £800 stake and get £3,800 back if planning permission is granted? That means that local opinion makers, such as me, are under a lot of pressure from people who have put the £800 down. All the risks are taken by local people. There are fears that when the tide went down there would be an unsightly view which would block the iconic view from the town centre, Town Hill and the Uplands. In addition, given that in future years we want to pursue the idea of a Dylan Thomas festival on a scale more akin to that of Hay, there is a question as to whether the perimeter of the construction—its footprint is nearly as big as Cardiff—would impede future cruise-borne tourism in Swansea bay.

There are therefore several questions—I do not know whether the Minister has any preliminary answers—about the environmental and economic impact, and the trajectory of the short-term problems and of where we will end up if we want a more strategic development of the bay front and then have a lagoon. It may work out well, but those are important questions.

I also want to touch on the Atlantic Array, which, as hon. Members may know, is a bold and imaginative opportunity to have wind turbines offshore. They would be about 12 km offshore, but the National Trust has told me that the Germans normally want them 35 km offshore, so that is an issue. This may sound strange, but, importantly, the biggest harbour porpoise population in Britain is in that vicinity; one of a similar size is in Cardigan bay. Apart from not wanting to disturb that habitat, there is a question mark in relation to future environmental tourism over whether that habitat might be so disturbed by the erection of pylons that those breeding grounds move for ever. I want to make it clear that, in principle, I am in favour of such developments offshore.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I apologise for missing the start of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. What consideration has he given to other marine turbine technologies? I spent a very happy morning with the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) in a boat on the Severn estuary off the north Devon coast, and there is an imaginative scheme for marine turbines in the Severn estuary that would alleviate some—not all—of the concerns that he has voiced, particularly the environmental ones.

[Geraint Davies]

I am sorry that I could not be in that very boat. We should of course look imaginatively at all opportunities. I think that the hon. Gentleman was talking about underwater marine turbines, which are certainly enormously important. In the Severn estuary, which is virtually the biggest of its sort in the world—the bore is enormous—the whole idea of a barrage is predicated on such turbines, rather than on ones driven by the tide coming in and out, which is the case in the lagoon. We should certainly look at that in the future.

Solar energy has been mentioned. If the technology was there, I would like public sector buildings across the country to be tiled with solar panels to provide a solar footprint for the future, although the numbers must add up, because people can get such things wrong. The Chinese invested a lot in solar, but suddenly found that their technology had become obsolete.

There are therefore many opportunities, and I think that it would be best to give the Minister time to respond to some of the ideas and possibly to take some interventions as well.