Virginia Crosbie
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Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) and the Backbench Business Committee for enabling this debate.
I am speaking in this important debate to give a voice to many of my Ynys Môn constituents, such as Jonathan Dean, who are concerned about the impact of pylons on Ynys Môn and the Welsh countryside. They are also concerned about the impact on two of our most important sectors: agriculture and food security, and tourism. It is important that the planning process takes into account the impact of infrastructure on the environment and the unique characteristics and vistas of Wales. It is important we have a plan, that we have joined-up thinking, and that we have transparency.
It will come as no surprise that I rise to speak to the challenge of our future energy supply. After all, Ynys Môn, Môn Mam Cymru—the mother of Wales—is an energy island ready and waiting to be powered back to life. We have wind, wave, tidal, solar, hydrogen and nuclear projects. We have £4.8m from the UK Government for the Holyhead hydrogen hub. Morlais, the wave project, has benefited from the UK Government ringfencing marine energy in the contract for differences allocation round. Ynys Môn’s potential to supply cheap, clean power to cut household bills and strengthen our energy security is being held up by slow upgrades to the national grid.
There are enough low-carbon energy projects planned, such as the Wylfa nuclear site, to meet peak electricity demand nine times over. However, the grid is not being built and reinforced fast enough for developers to connect to it. Some projects are having to wait until 2038 to connect to the system, despite being ready to go.
Wera Hobhouse
Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that, really, this means that developers will go away from the UK and invest in other countries? That is a big concern for investment in renewables in the UK.
Virginia Crosbie
I absolutely welcome that debate and how important it is to have developers investing in this sector. I also welcome the action that the Government are taking. Last year’s connections action plan will cut the time that it takes for low-carbon projects to connect to the electricity grid. The Chancellor also announced plans for a strategic spatial energy plan in the autumn statement to set out what energy infrastructure needs to be built, where and when.
Closer to home, I am proud that this Conservative Government grasped the nettle and committed £160 million, through Great British Nuclear, to secure the Wylfa site on Ynys Môn. If successful, that project could create 9,000 construction jobs and 900 long-term jobs, and provide a source of clean, reliable energy for decades to come.
I urge the Minister to finalise the new national policy statement for nuclear to speed up the approval process and announce the outcome of the small modular reactor competition as soon as possible. SMRs have the potential to cut the costs of nuclear, diversify our energy mix and generate steady, clean power. We must not let this opportunity pass us by.
It is also thanks to this Conservative Government’s leadership that we have seen the creation of the new £26 million Anglesey freeport. With spades in the ground at Prosperity Park, the Anglesey freeport is expected to create 13,000 new jobs and generate £1 billion of investment across the island and north Wales. Celtic freeport in south Wales and Teesside freeport show the potential of freeports to boost our manufacturing base for new renewable technologies. Last year, we saw the power of this net zero economy, with £74 billion in gross value added to the economy as a whole and more than 765,000 people employed. The people of Anglesey are ready and waiting to play their part.
Building on that model, I would like to see the Government target a new wave of business rates reliefs at areas with low-carbon industries that need to invest in skills training. That could create thriving enterprise hubs across the country like the one at Menai Science Park—M-SParc—and unleash a new generation of skilled workers ready to power Britain.
But, of course, our new power generators and the jobs that they bring with them will be rendered redundant if we do not have the grid connections in place to put them to use. Where new transmission lines are needed to deliver the wind power of the Irish sea, or Ynys Môn’s new nuclear site at Wylfa, it is important that developers engage with local communities and ensure that they are properly compensated for the disruption that the construction will cause. To achieve that, the Government should extend and mandate community benefits for transmission and generation.
Last year, the Chancellor committed to giving communities that host transmission infrastructure discounts on their electricity bills of up to £10,000. That package also included extra benefits that could be transformational for some communities, with schools and village halls refurbished, educational bursaries created and improvements made to local healthcare provision. That is a sound investment for developers and bill payers alike. By building out the grid, we can make the whole system more efficient and reduce the waste of constraint payments, in which renewable generators are paid to switch off when the system cannot cope. That could save a staggering £1 billion a year and help in the push to decarbonise our electricity supply by 2035.
By increasing the capacity of the national grid in a way that takes into account the beauty of our countryside —especially of places such as Ynys Môn—we can realise Ynys Môn’s promise as the mother of Wales, supplying clean, home-grown power to our United Kingdom. I now call on the Government to give us the tools that we need to do the job.