Green GB Week and Clean Growth

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend, in his capacity as Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, knows very well that what is referred to as the “co-benefit” of cutting emissions also means better air quality, better human health and better child outcomes, in terms of reduced asthma levels. We did not think about that before, but now we are, and luckily we can understand those things and work out the costs and benefits, taking into account some of these new measures.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Minister has made decisions now around scrapping the tidal lagoon project and rejecting her own commissioned report. We need to move on from that. What is her plan now for introducing tidal energy across the UK and making sure that south Wales is given the investment it was promised by the Conservative Government?

[Claire Perry]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have spent tens of millions of pounds looking at wave energy—we have Wave Hub off the coast of Cornwall and we have invested substantially in many of the trial sites. As we debated at the time, the problem with the Swansea lagoon was not the source of power per se, but the fact that it was the most expensive power station proposal we had ever had in the UK, and it is right that we care about taxpayers’ money. That said, we are always interested in looking at tidal: several other proposals have been brought forward, and the door is always open. I, like him, know the power of the Bristol channel, having grown up on the other side; the problem is delivering it in the most cost-effective way.