Swansea Bay lagoon plant talks continue, says Perry

The government is assessing the scale of the Welsh government’s offer to help bankroll the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon plant before making a decision on the project, Claire Perry has revealed.

While being cross-examined by the House of Commons environmental audit committee yesterday, the energy and climate change minister was pressed on the timing of the decision on the £1.3bn tidal power project in south Wales.

Referring to a recent Welsh government announcement that it would contribute to the scheme, she said: “Conversations are taking place to establish whether the Welsh government offer of financing can be quantified. There are a series of extremely important discussions happening.”

Ministers have yet to decide whether to approve the Swansea lagoon project more than a year after it was endorsed by former energy minister Charles Hendry in a government-commissioned review.

During the hearing, which was held as part of the committee’s inquiry into green finance, Perry admitted that the government’s decision in 2015 to scrap £1bn-worth of support for carbon capture storage had been “really disappointing”.

But pointing to the relatively slow roll out of CCS plants, only 21 of which are up and running across the world, she defended the government’s cautious approach to the technology

She said: “We are not alone in wanting to drive costs down to deploy the technology.”

And the minister dismissed concerns that the sale of the Green Investment Bank to Macquarie would undermine efforts to encourage investment in low carbon projects.

“I don’t think the change of ownership will make a difference.”

“Given they (Macquarie) are the largest global investor in infrastructure, they are able to market green deals more broadly. That sale was the right thing to bring more capital into green infrastructure.”

Pointing to recent figures showing strong investment in renewable energy, she said: “There doesn’t appear to be a market failure.”

And she rubbished the suggestion that her department’s clean growth strategy was open to a legal challenge over whether it contained strong enough measures to deliver the government’s carbon reduction targets.

She said: “The idea of a legal basis for challenging the government is for the birds. We will continue to work like stink to meet those targets.”

Perry also challenged the view that the government’s success on tackling climate change should be measured on the level of subsidy it provided.