Labour urges government to back Swansea tidal project

Labour has called for no trade-off between government backing for a nuclear power station in north Wales and a pioneering tidal lagoon plant in Swansea.

Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said during yesterday evening’s (4 June) parliamentary debate on Horizon’s Wylfa Newydd plant that it would be “outrageous” if the government decided not to go ahead with Tidal Lagoon Power’s £1.2 billion project in Swansea Bay.

She said: “To assume that Swansea is somewhat redundant, given the plan for investment in Wylfa, is very short-sighted. I understand that Tidal Lagoon Power has offered to negotiate further but has not received a response from the government.

“An ambitious, decisive and forward-thinking government would jump at a project like that, just as they have done with Wylfa.”

The government should “stop messing about” and do a deal with the scheme’s backer and the Welsh government which has offered to help bankroll the project.

Business secretary Greg Clark said the government is undertaking a “rigorous assessment” of the Swansea Bay project.

He said: “We believe in a diversity of energy supply, but we need to make sure that value for money is offered for taxpayers and bill payers.”

The debate took place as BBC Wales reported a leaked email from Alan Cairns in which the secretary of state for Wales described the cost of the Swansea Bay project as “awful”.

According to the BBC, Cairns wrote that the cost of electricity generated by the tidal bay project would be twice that from nuclear, without the prospect of “significant savings” on subsequent projects.

The Swansea Bay tidal lagoon was recommended for approval in a report by former energy minister Charles Hendry last year.