(Title Image: Animal Aid)

Here’s a summary of questions to the Environment, Energy & Rural Affairs Minister, Lesley Griffiths (Lab, Wrexham).

Onshore wind process “flawed”

Llyr Gruffydd AM (Plaid, North Wales) raised concerns that the process of selecting priority areas for onshore windfarms within the draft National Development Framework (NDF) is flawed, with a number of the eleven selected areas being deemed unsuitable for wind energy or only suitable for small scale projects of 10MW or less.

“….it will have a huge impact on your ability to fulfil what, I presume, are your aspirations, in terms of decarbonisation and energy or renewable energy production. Now, the strategic search areas in TAN 8, of course, had a target, in terms of proposed energy generation. There’s no indication of what levels of energy your energy priority areas in the NDF are expected to contribute.”

– Llyr Gruffydd AM

While not wanting to give AMs an impression she wasn’t concerned, the Minister reminded everyone that the framework is still very much a work in progress. Wind energy will likely form a big part of Wales’ future energy generation, but she was unwilling to comment while the consultation was still live – something Llyr said the Minister was hiding behind.

Minister needs to see evidence on UK Labour’s decarbonisation targets

Not one to turn down the opportunity for some electioneering, Shadow Environment & Rural Affairs Minister, Andrew RT Davies AM (Con, South Wales Central), turned to UK Labour’s policies and in particular an aim for the UK to have net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. The Welsh Government’s target date is 2050. Was 2030 really that realistic? The GMB union said such a radical decarbonisation programme would “be completely devastating to whole swathes of communities the length and breadth of the UK” (though he didn’t expand further on this point).

The Minister put some “clear red water” between the Welsh and UK branches of Labour:

“….this Welsh Government took the advice from our advisory body, the UK Climate Change Committee. They advised us that the target that we should reach for here in Wales because this is the Welsh Government that you’re questioning now, should be 95% (reduction in carbon emissions). I’ve asked the committee to go back and see if we can go further to net-zero by 2050….What the UK Labour Government comes forward with on the evidence that they’ve gathered for obviously the UK….I’d be very interested to see that evidence and then we can look at it further.”

– Minister for Environment, Energy & Rural Affairs, Lesley Griffiths

Voluntary slaughterhouse CCTV scheme “not working”

Vikki Howells AM (Lab, Cynon Valley) raised the matter of disturbing footage from the Farmers Fresh slaughterhouse in Wrexham. It was clear to her that the voluntary slaughterhouse CCTV regime wasn’t working and it had to move to a mandatory system.

Darren Millar AM (Con, Clwyd West) made the same point, suggesting Wales should follow England in legislating for mandatory CCTV.

The Minister hasn’t ruled a mandatory programme out, but would prefer to see where the voluntary system goes:

“I’ve not ruled out legislating to introduce mandatory CCTV, but I did commit a year ago to work with businesses to look at whether they would do CCTV installation voluntarily. We’ve put forward the food business investment scheme, where we would give funding for CCTV. The bid process for that doesn’t close until the end of January. I want to see how that progresses before I make a decision looking at the next steps in relation to mandatory CCTV.”

– Minister for Environment, Energy & Rural Affairs, Lesley Griffiths