Welsh Affairs — House of Commons, 2016-03-03
Topic: Mixed Topics
Paul Phillip Flynn (Labour, Centre-left): It is a tad ungracious to complain about the absence of the Secretary of State for Wales without having sympathy for the dreadful week he has had. On Monday, it was the humiliation of having to withdraw his signature Bill. Things then got worse. Humiliation was heaped on humiliation on Tuesday when he lost a competition in which last year he won first prize. This year, he came in an extremely lowly position. This extremely prestigious competition is run by the Beard Liberation Front. Happily, there was one Welsh parliamentarian, with a beard of a different hue, who managed a creditable position. It is quite right that the Secretary of State wants to hide the pathetic starter beard that disfigures his features and not to be seen in public today. We do understand The main point I would like to make, after expressing sympathy with the Secretary of State, is one of optimism for the Welsh nation. I recall in 1957 the publication of a book called "Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd", a story about the future in which somebody is transported to 2033. It was a dreadful Wales that he saw. It was a Wales that had changed its name to West England. The language was dead and the Welsh personality had gone. There was another depressing moment in 1962, when the genius Saunders Lewis made his speech "Tynged yr Iaith". He foresaw a Wales where the language would die and not live beyond the 20th century. When we look at the Wales of today, however, there are huge reasons for satisfaction and optimism We had a lovely service this week, with Welsh spoken at its beautiful best by the young children, representing the future, from the Welsh school. The fact is that we have succeeded in the dream. In the 19th century, politicians came here in their droves as Welsh patriots and soon became seduced by this place. Wales was let down, generation after generation. Now, however, we can rejoice. We have our own Parliament on the soil of our country, where we speak both the beautiful languages of Wales. I had the pleasure this week of talking to a delegation from the Icelandic Parliament. While we call ourselves the mother of Parliaments, they call themselves the grandmother of Parliaments. They are in Cardiff today. I am sure they will be equally impressed by the young grandchild of Parliaments, a Parliament that started brilliantly and has achieved much in spite of criticism from outside. I think we can all take pride in the Welsh nation In this atmosphere of consensus, one person to whom we should pay great tribute is the man who ensured that Welsh is heard on the lips of all our children in Wales, wherever they live. That was a very courageous decision. That was the work of Wyn Roberts, who was called the bardic steamroller. He was a member of the Gorsedd bards and his subtlety was regarded as akin to a steamroller. I think that was a little unjust, but we should remember the vital role of steamrollers in the area of construction. He constructed politics. I watched with great admiration the way he took the policy on Welsh language education through a hostile party of his own. We need to acknowledge that great debt The issue I would like to raise is one that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). It is the sole point I want to make and it relates to the future of energy in Wales. If we look at our map and our potential, our North sea oil, which is Scotland’s great treasure, is the tide and hydroelectric power. We have allowed this immense source of energy to run to waste untapped. There is an extraordinary devotion to Hinkley Point, which I find inexplicable. It is based entirely on a stubborn view that will not accept the truth and the scientific reality. It will not accept that Hinkley Point is the final manifestation of a technological blind alley. It is an EPR reactor. The one in Finland is now seven years late and €6.7 billion over budget. It will probably never work. The one at Flammanville has had a terrible technological problem in the roof of the reactor’s vessel, and it will probably never finish As for finances, if we look on the other side at tidal power and at the source of the energy, we find that it is free, British and of immense power, whereas the source of energy for Hinkley Point is an imported form of fuel that will leave a legacy for all time. The source of the power on the tide is entirely predictable—unlike most other forms of renewable energy such as solar. We can predict precisely how the tide is going to come in and make the energy entirely demand responsive by linking whatever it is—lagoons, barrages or whatever—to electric storage schemes that allow us to pump water up to the heads of the valleys when electricity is required and save the energy when it is not. That is how the Dinorwig power station has provided a vital element in our electricity supply for many years Now that it seems we have had yet another year’s delay at Hinkley Point, the Government must come to their senses. They have done an atrocious deal with the French to guarantee them a price of electricity that is twice the present going rate and is guaranteed—and index-linked—for 35 years, yet we cannot guarantee what the price of electricity will be for 35 weeks. This is an extraordinary deal. All the sensible money has retreated from Hinkley Point. Centrica invested £200 million, but it has gone—abandoned the project. All the money left is Chinese, and China is anxious to invest in what it sees as a Hinkley sprat in order to get the mackerel of all the future engineering at Bradwell and everywhere else, in perpetuity. China is stealing our jobs and our skills through that deal. EDF is virtually bankrupt. It has a debt of €37 billion, and its board has now cancelled the project—a further cancellation—for another year If we look at the evidence at other EPRs, we see that they are going nowhere, so we should recognise that this investment, taken together, is one of the worst investment decisions since the building of the pyramids—when objects were bought at great cost but had no practical value. It is now becoming clear that the established scientific community, which has been locked in this stubborn view that we had to have Hinkley, is realising that we have an enormous financial disaster on our hands—and that at some time it will be necessary to pull out What could be better than investing the money in tidal power? Ignored for so long, this great moving cliff of water that comes up and down the Severn—the second highest tide in the world—could provide energy that is green, non-carbon, predictable and eternal in its duration. We have seen examples where it has worked magnificently. Fifty years ago, a barrage was built in La Rance in Brittany, and it still has turbines in pristine condition producing energy that is the cheapest in the world. That, I believe, is the way forward for Wales.