Mark Williams
Main Page: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)Swansea Tidal Lagoon
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Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I will be very quick. I congratulate the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) on securing the debate. He alluded to the consensus, and I feel like a bit of an interloper in the debate, following the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who has done so much in her constituency to champion the cause. I speak as a Welsh Member, to reiterate the point made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire about the consensus on the issue between all the political parties. The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) got a few of us to sign an important letter to the South Wales Argus last year, to reiterate the case, and on 2 December our colleagues in the National Assembly unanimously voted to urge the UK Government to take action.
I suppose if I were to characterise the debate as encompassing the caution of the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Swansea East I would on this occasion side with Swansea East. Although the review has been acknowledged by Members all around the Chamber—with some more enthusiastic about it than others—the key point is that if it is happening, to quote the chief executive of the lagoon project, it is not “a substitute for action”. The debate is about timing.
Mr Williams
If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me I will not take an intervention, because we want to hear the winding-up speeches.
There is a question of timing. We have a consensus, and the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire talked about the need not to prevaricate. If concern is felt in some quarters that the project is being put into some kind of grass—long or otherwise—I hope that the Minister will dispel that.
We have heard all the evidence. The Swansea bay tidal lagoon project is critical for Swansea and the adjacent areas. It is critical for Wales and the UK, not just as a means of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, but also to increase the important renewables sector and for the Welsh economy. The technology is not new. Some of us have been on the Welsh Affairs Committee for quite a long time. The right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) is nodding. I remember a trip in a rubber dinghy in the Bristol channel with the predecessor of the hon. Member for Swansea East and the present shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). It was an intriguing experience bobbing around in the Bristol channel with my colleagues; but we were there because, even 10 years ago, we were looking at the potential for such approaches. I cannot go back quite as far as the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) did in his speech, but we were talking about it 10 years ago.
Although it is not new technology, we need to look at other precedents around the world in France, Canada, Korea and elsewhere. We have the opportunity to be at the forefront of the technology. The lagoon could be the first of many such projects around the UK and elsewhere, if it is shown to be a success, bringing down the price of technology substantially and allowing us in Wales to export that technology around the world. I will repeat the figures: the Centre for Economics and Business Research has estimated that a UK tidal lagoon industry could increase our exports by £3.7 billion a year—for Swansea and the south-west of Wales. There would probably not be many jobs in Ceredigion; maybe a few. Setting the industry up would provide about 2,000 jobs, and much-needed high-skilled work in areas where that has sometimes been lacking. There would be several hundred ongoing jobs when the project was completed. We have heard about the tourist potential. In the years since I used to go there on holiday as a child, a huge amount of regeneration has happened in Swansea. We could build on that massively if this project moved ahead speedily.
If we are to meet our climate targets, it is vital that we invest up front for these kinds of projects and do not allow short-term thinking to scupper the long-term ambitions for our environment and economy. We need to ensure that we are at the forefront of encouraging the development of green technologies at a time when, if I am allowed briefly to be slightly party political in the last 30 seconds, there have been concerns about the direction of travel of the Department of Energy and Climate Change since the general election—but I say that only in passing.
The message of this debate is that politicians from all political parties—from direct engagement in Aberavon, the Gower and the city of Swansea, and from those of us from further afield—are urging the Government to get on with it. Have the review, but at the end of it, have some outcomes from which this project can grow and the communities we have heard about can prosper.