Future Generations Commissioner Urges Wales to Double Ambition for Community Energy
Local power, owned and run by communities, can be the key to solving Wales' future energy needs, says the Future Generations Commissioner.
Welsh Government needs to be more ambitious so Wales has more solar, wind and water energy sources owned by and earning money for local people, said Derek Walker.
Mr Walker, whose role is to challenge government on how they're improving lives for people born in the future, wants to see more schools, health centres and community buildings in Wales powered by renewable energy, where communities earn and save money from the energy themselves.
In his Future Generations Report, he calls for more resourcing and support from Welsh Government for renewable energy projects, owned and led by community organisations and local authorities, and asks public bodies to do more to collaborate with the community, to release land for local energy schemes, and purchase the energy.
Mr Walker is meeting First Minister, Eluned Morgan, on World Environment Day, June 5, to advocate for more support for local energy. During the meeting he will share the work of Star of the Sea, Borth, an arts and music venue with roof-top solar panels, which directly powers the neighbouring NHS GP surgery.
His Future Generations Report highlights further collaborative successes, including Awel Aman Tawe and its two-turbine 4.7 MWp community windfarm 20 miles north of Swansea, and a community-owned micro-hydro turbine in Bethesda which generates electricity that is sold to the grid from the local river, with profits reinvested back into the community.
Wales has already achieved 1GW of locally owned renewable electricity and heat capacity, against its target of 1.5GW by 2035. Mr Walker said he wants to see at least a doubling of the target to 3GW by 2035. 1GW is enough to power half a million homes.
He said:
'Community energy will play a crucial role in addressing climate change, involving communities in decisions, reducing energy bills, creating jobs and helping Wales become more energy-resilient in the future.
'While Welsh Government has committed to expanding renewable energy generation by public bodies and community enterprises and good work is being done, the targets aren't ambitious enough.
'I want to see Welsh Government increase resourcing to its Energy Service, so that over the next 10 years we can unlock the latent potential and make our communities the new power hubs in Wales.' A learner at Garnteg Primary School using solar equipment helping to save the school money, and our planet. Image by Patrick Olner.
The Welsh Government Energy Service has invested £210 million in more than 400 projects since 2018, including wind farms, rooftop solar installations, low carbon heating schemes, hydropower and zero emission fleets and EV.
This, Welsh Government says, will achieve an estimated £367 million in local income and savings in their lifetimes and will have prevented the burning of nearly 300,000 tonnes of coal.
In 2023, it set a target for 1.5 GW of locally owned renewable energy generation capacity by 2035, with an expectation for all new energy projects to have at least an element of local ownership from 2020. It has also committed to expanding renewable energy generation by public bodies and community enterprises in Wales by over 100 MW between 2021 and 2026.
Paul Cowley, Community Renewables Technical Manager, Welsh Government Energy Service, said:
'Across the nation, community organisations are grappling to address very real issues from the local to the global. Community energy delivers on multiple fronts, supporting local jobs, helping to build community resilience, responding to fuel poverty and the affordability of energy and taking action to tackle the causes and effects of climate change.
'The Energy Service provides a range of technical advice and funding support to local councils and social enterprises. The latent demand for such projects is huge so we welcome the commissioner's call for more community energy in Wales.'
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Wales Online
4 hours ago
- Wales Online
'We were right on 20mph, Brexit was wrong and Nigel Farage would be a disaster for Wales'
'We were right on 20mph, Brexit was wrong and Nigel Farage would be a disaster for Wales' Departing Welsh Government cabinet member Julie James gave her no holds barred take as she prepares to leave frontline politics Julie James meeting school children at Lisvane and Llanishen reservoirs in 2021 (Image: Patrick Olner) When Julie James speaks, people listen, not only in terms of her Senedd contributions, where she is more than happy to put her opponents in their place, but her cabinet colleagues too - especially since First Minister Eluned Morgan made her "minister for delivery" a year ago. It is the sort of title possibly more suited for a spoof sitcom, but it's also the sort of job you can only give someone you know will ruffle feathers if that's what is needed. A member of Labour for almost 52 years, she also holds sway in the political party. She was, after all, one of the resignations on that July day last year that signalled to Vaughan Gething he could not resist any longer, and within hours he had quit as First Minister of Wales. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here . Her official Senedd biog reads: "Julie is a committed green campaigner, environmentalist and a keen swimmer and skier. Julie is a member of Unison and is also a member of Gray's Inn" - a varied mix indeed. She has lived around the world, but moved back to Swansea to raise her three children. Professionally she has worked as a lawyer, been assistant chief executive of Swansea council. Now, the clock on her time in frontline politics is ticking, as she is one of the 13 Labour Senedd members who will not seek re-election in May's election. Article continues below Entering politics was a long held ambition, and she finally did it at 53. Brought up in a political household, her father was a Labour Party councillor and trade unionist and, in her words, both her parents were "both crazy climate change activists". It's probably no surprise she is also a lifelong vegetarian, something she describes as being "very bloody weird" when she was growing up. "I've always very firmly been of the view, right from when I was 16, if you want to change something, you have to stay in it. 'Perseverance is everything' "It's a conversation we have all the time, if you've resigned from the Labour Party in principle, then you can't vote for the candidate or make sure the people who believe what you believe are the ones who represent you. So, well done with your principle, but now you don't have a voice. "I've always thought having a voice is important and I've also thought, perseverance is everything. I'm nothing if not persistent. "Some things take a long time. I've been a member of the campaign for one member, one vote, [an internal Labour party voting system] since I joined, we got that in 2018. Fifty years is a long time to be persistent. You get there in the end. I've always been like that." During the pandemic, Julie James was Mark Drakeford's climate change minister (Image: Patrick Olner) Before standing for election to the Senedd she had what she calls a "perfectly good career". A former environmental regulation lawyer, she admits her time in the cabinet "hasn't worked out as quite the little retirement job I had in mind". But had always wanted to do it, when her predecessor in the Swansea West seat, Andrew Davies, said he was standing down "serendipity" saw her selected, and then elected. But six months after being elected, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She kept working. "What are you going to do if you're not working? Sitting at home looking at the wall wondering if you' that's no good for me at all," she said. She had four operations during her treatment, but once she was better, told Carwyn Jones she was ready to join his cabinet. She is now serving her fourth First Minister, with roles like skills and science, local government all on her CV, but the role created for her by Mark Drakeford, whose leadership election campaign she chaired, is her passion despite some very vocal opponents. In his tenure Mr Drakeford axed the M4 relief roads, placed a ban on new roads, set new targets for recycling and net zero, and who can forget it her department, and her deputy Lee Waters who brought in Wales' 20mph law, for example. Public opinion didn't deter her. "I suppose I always felt we were doing the right thing. You get a lot of crap from people who want you to do something that isn't the right thing. "I put a lot of stock by having done the right thing. So yes, we did things that were unpopular. The 20mph is a classic because it has saved tens of lives. It has stopped thousands of people's lives from being changed across Wales. Everyone in Wales now has at least a 10% drop in their insurance, that's the most successful policy we've ever had and sod it, some people didn't like it I did," she said. 'Sheer hypocrisy' The brief was massive, and her deputy, Lee Waters, has since admitted the toll, fronting that policy took on him personally. She says she tried to persuade him from fighting every battle. "There were some people you can persuade and there are lots of people you can't persuade. Don't try, just stick to your guns quietly, carefully, sluggishly, persistently and you'll get there. You don't have to do the warrior thing but it suits some people. "I'm quite happy to quietly do it in the background." For those who watch Senedd regularly, her contributions are the ones you turn your head to watch. She cannot hold back, particularly when the Conservative opposition speaks. She cannot, she says, bear their "hypocrisy". "The Tories spend a lot of time telling us that we should do things faster, whilst also we should cut all the taxes and we should pump a lot of money into businesses that don't need it, take it away from people who do need it, and at the same time we should have done a lot more on, I don't know, salt marshes or something. "That doesn't add up and it's just the sheer hypocrisy." Julie James MS speaking to Conservative Andrew RT Davies MS during the first day of Welsh Parliament at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay in 2021 (Image: Ben Evans/Huw Evans Agency) "The Tory group in the Senedd does my head in a bit because they backed the UK Government big time. Lots of them backed Liz Truss, lots of them publicly. They backed Brexit and then at the same time they stand up in the Senedd and they shout at us about the fact that austerity is cutting our money, crippling our communities, knackering our health service. Brexit has done our trade in. "I can't bear it." But the threat in 2026 to Labour isn't the Tories, they face their own battle to get any seats, but Labour faces a two pronged attack from Plaid on the left, and Nigel Farage's Reform on the right. She knows the threat Reform brings. "It's the same thing as Brexit, isn't it? We failed on Brexit and we failed on Brexit because we didn't understand that a lot of people, just taking Swansea for an example, a lot of people in Swansea could see the largesse of the European Union, they could see the universities they could see, but they had no share in it. "They can see that some people are doing alright out of it, but they aren't. Many worked, for example, in facilities in the university, for example but they were having their hours and wages cut while they could see in their world other people very well out of it. "If you don't share it out, then obviously the people who aren't getting a share are angry, rightly angry, and that's what's happening across the Western developed world and with Reform. 'Taken down a path' "We have a society that, on the one hand, is getting technologically more competent, wealthier, with nicer lives, longer lives and so on and a huge section of that society is sick and poor and struggling and they're bloody hungry. "They're being taken down a path by demagogues who are doing it for their own purposes, and they're going to make their lives worse. "Brexit is a perfect example of that. Nobody can point me to anything that Brexit has done isn't a disaster and of course, if you put that to some of the people who backed it, they say, 'well, it wasn't done properly'. What an absolute nonsense. Isn't that the same as Reform, what they're promising might, on a very surface level, make some sense." Get daily breaking news updates on your phone by joining our WhatsApp community here . We occasionally treat members to special offers, promotions and ads from us and our partners. See our Privacy Notice She speaks of a Reform pledge to give non-doms a chance to avoid paying some UK taxes, by paying a £250,000 fee, and income from the measure would be transferred annually tax-free to the bank accounts of the lowest paid 10% of full-time workers. "Until you talk to people about it and you say, 'well, actually most non-doms would be paying a great deal more than that, they should be paying 40% of their income all the time, and ask 'Do you know how many people in Wales are on the minimum wage?' Think how much it is to give them £10 each per week, which would have to be the absolute minimum for it to make a difference. "When you do that on the doorstep, some people will listen to that but lots of them won't and they'll say they've had a gutsful of 'you lot'. "Until we can get some trust in mainstream politics we've got a problem. We've had 14 years of people shouting at each other, a lot of misinformation. There's no trust in that, people promising them the 'Big Society' or whatever the hell the Johnson one was. it doesn't mean anything to anyone." But, I put it to her, UK Labour has been as guilty, promising change but delivering it via a series of policies which have been deeply unpopular. "Absolutely," she concedes. "UK Labour have come in and they have made a series of decisions which have undermined trust in mainstream politics. They're new. They have four more years to fix it. They will fix it," she is. "But, Labour here is bearing the brunt of that," she said. As deputy skills minister in 2015 Julie James said she was passionate about women in science (Image: Western Mail) When we met, a poll had not long put Labour's support in Wales for the Senedd election at 18%. That is not, she said, being projected on the doorsteps to such a degree but there shouldn't be a lot of hope taken by Labour by that. "In the 80s we used to have 'shy Tories' where people would swear blind they weren't going to vote for Thatcher and clearly were. And we're getting those but for Reform." Her Swansea patch can, broadly, be split into the northern part of the constituency which is mainly social housing or council homes, and the south, with people who work in the university, the hospital or council. It is a patch which tells the story of the threat to Labour in Wales, quite succinctly with the Reform threat in the north, but the Plaid, Green, Lib Dem threat in the south. "What people might think is, 'we don't need Welsh Labour because they're going to win so I can indulge myself in a protest vote', so I spend a lot of time reminding people what happened in Gower when 1,000 people voted Green and they got a Tory MP for the first time in a hundred years. "I personally rang up quite a lot of people and said, 'how's that working out for you?'" The signs are all there that Labour will have a tough time in the election for which she won't be a candidate. "What we've got to do is give people something positive to vote for. I do not want people to vote Labour because it's the least worst option. We've got to do something that means you actually believe in us, which I think we can do. And secondly, we've got to persuade them that even if they're a bit sceptical about that, swapping to a different party and splitting the progressive vote, will put a Reform government into Wales." One of the many narratives she says she cannot tolerate is about immigration and limiting immigration, particularly in Wales. 'This immigration thing does my head in' "In truth, my own view is that Wales should have its arms wide open and say, 'Come, come, come, come, come in numbers' and if you're young, working age, of breeding age, come. We need those people, we need a lot of them. The more highly skilled, the better. And by highly skilled, I mean skilled in care as well as skilled in technology. "The immigration thing just does my head in. I just don't understand why anyone in Wales is even remotely worried about immigration. It's tiny and the immigrants who come to Wales have hugely enriched our society. "Without the Ukrainians where would our care system be?" She is one of those who has seen a new, upstart party come into Welsh politics. In 2016, she saw the Ukip contingent arrive in the Senedd and admits the challenge posed by a new, inexperienced party, was probably good for the institution - in some ways. "For the first time in ages we had to argue from first principles why we were doing what we did," she said. "We didn't have a broad consensus that we could build from. We had people saying that they fundamentally didn't agree with it and I think that's actually quite a decent discipline to have to do". But she saw the weaknesses too. As the group splintered, they did not pull their weight on committees, she says. "They were really disruptive and not because they had an ideology we didn't like but because they were chaotic. "Actually an enormous amount of the work of the Senedd, like any Parliament goes on in the committee rooms behind closed doors and it's long and boring and tedious and very important indeed. On a visit to Coleg Gwent as deputy skills minister in 2016 (Image: Coleg Gwent) "You have to spend hours and hours going through long, awful documents and acts and they didn't show up and the Senedd is tiny so the burden on everybody else is high." She has seen the government machine, first hand for years, what, I ask her, would it mean for the government - away from the political people - if a party like Reform took over. "There's some danger anyway because there's a lot of us leaving," she said. "Even if Labour had its normal share in the polls and whatever, we'd have a lot of new faces coming in." There is work in the government buildings preparing for a new administration, about providing advice and briefings. "You want a government that's got the right information in front of it and so on." But they have also, she said, been putting measures in place so laws cannot be rowed back on easily. "We've been trying to embed a lot of things. We'll make them harder to get rid of, if I'm absolutely honest. I spend a lot of time working through legislation, making sure it's been implemented, and it would have to actually have primary legislation to repeal it so it would be much harder to just turn the ship back the other way. "In the end, we can't prevent them from doing that, but we can make it harder. "I think a Reform government would be a disaster. If they were to do any of the things they're saying, and who knows whether they would, because their policy platform is fluid, at the moment. They're saying that they would abolish the NHS and replace it with an insurance based system. That's pretty disastrous for an old, poor, sick country like Wales, where most people have a pre-existing condition, probably couldn't get insurance or afford it or whatever. "They would absolutely, definitely stop free prescriptions, free parking at hospitals. They would stop the nationalisation of the trains and the buses. "You'd go backwards very quickly. I suspect they would, as they have done in some of the councils they've taken control of, try to stop, as they have done in America, the diversity, inclusion and equality programmes. Article continues below "They would afterwards realise what they'd done and try to scramble to put them back. I think they'd starve public services of money. We protect our local authorities. Most people in Wales do not understand how bad the local authority situation in England actually is."
Powys County Times
9 hours ago
- Powys County Times
Mortgage lenders under fire from Mid Wales MP David Chadwick
Mortgage lenders are under fire from a Mid Wales MP for treating homeowners as 'cash cows.' Welsh Liberal Democrat MP David Chadwick, who represents Brecon, Radnor, and Cwm Tawe, has criticised lenders for keeping mortgage rates high, despite recent cuts to the Bank of England's base interest rate. Mr Chadwick said: "It's really disappointing to see that hard-working homeowners in Brecon, Radnor, and Cwm Tawe and across Wales are being used as cash cows by mortgage providers, particularly in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis tightening so many people's purse strings." Research from the House of Commons Library, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, shows that mortgage rates have not fallen in line with the Bank of England's base rate. As a result, homeowners are paying more than £1,000 extra each year. The average monthly payment on a new two-year fixed mortgage has dropped by just £90, from £1,279 to £1,189. On a five-year fixed mortgage, the monthly reduction is only £26, down from £1,204 to £1,178. If mortgage rates had fallen by 19 per cent, in line with the base rate, homeowners would be paying £41 less per month on a two-year fixed rate and £87 less on a five-year fixed rate. This would mean annual savings of £492 and £1,044 respectively. Mr Chadwick has called on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to take action on behalf of homeowners. He said: "The Government has been far too timid and wrong-footed in tackling the cost-of-living crisis. "Mortgage rates are crippling homeowners, and spiralling energy bills leave people wondering how they will put food on the table.
Spectator
10 hours ago
- Spectator
The many blind spots in Nicola Sturgeon's memoir
Throughout her memoir, Nicola Sturgeon emphasises her achievement in becoming the first female first minister of Scotland. While that achievement should not be underestimated, I'm sure I'm not the only woman who wishes she made a better job of it. It's not just her determined blind spot on the implications of self-identification for women's rights which emerges from this memoir, but also the fact that her much trumpeted support for women, including those under attack in the public forum, seems not to extend to those who dare to disagree with her. There is widespread recognition that Nicola's legacy is marred not just by the self-identification fiasco but by other notable policy failings in the fields of education, the NHS, drug deaths and public transport (ferries and roads). Not to mention her failure to advance the raison d'etre for her political career, Scottish independence, beyond the point to which her predecessor took it. Yet she has remarkably little to say about these issues in her memoir. For example, on her failure to close the educational attainment gap she claims that it took her a while to realise the role played by child poverty. This is hardly rocket science. Besides, the child poverty payment which she finally introduced in February 2021 was a policy which she initially dismissed out of hand when it was first presented to her by Alex Neil five years earlier in February 2016. But she doesn't mention that. Clearly, she considers her handling of the Covid pandemic to be her greatest triumph. She cites the exhaustion it induced as one of the reasons for her resignation and says she came close to a breakdown in the wake of her evidence to the Covid inquiry. Yet, the chapter on Covid is curiously silent on some of the biggest concerns which have come to light since her daily broadcasts to the nation ended. Care home deaths merit a brief mention but there is no analysis or justification of strategy that led to them. Nor does she even attempt to justify the deletion of her WhatsApp messages despite her promise to a journalist to keep them. Nicola is very keen to remind us, repeatedly, of her love for books. But for all her reading, this book, like her speeches, is curiously short on big ideas or indeed literary references. Except for a very superficial treatment in the opening chapters there is little insight into why she is a Scottish nationalist and which political theories she espouses. Even where she does attempt to address difficult issues such as her sexuality, she dances around the issue and the reader is left not quite sure what she is trying to say. The confusion has not been cleared up by her media interviews during the publicity storm surrounding the book. Reflections on life as a woman in politics is one of two themes which dominates this memoir. The other is a thorough traducing of her predecessor and one-time mentor. Alex Salmond is clearly living rent free in her head except he isn't because he's dead and some think that's in no small part due to the treatment he endured at her hands. Not content with the fact that he's now gone and can never again be a threat to her, large parts of this book are devoted to further besmirching his character. Before the book was even published, Salmond's political friends and independent observers like the highly respected former Green MSP Andy Wightman and the journalist David Clegg, were able to debunk some of the allegations against him. These include the ludicrous notion that Salmond himself might have been the author of the leak which led to the media storm around allegations that he was a sex pest and that he was opposed to gay marriage despite him having introduced it as first minister. The minister he entrusted with doing so, Alex Neil, claims that Salmond handed him the equal marriage brief because, 'Nicola didn't want to do it any longer as she was fed up with it.' Despite her efforts to heap further opprobrium on Salmond, Sturgeon scorns the idea that there was any conspiracy to do Salmond down and that she was involved. She states that there was neither evidence nor motive and leaves it at that. Thus, she avoids addressing the evidence of conspiracy that has been adduced by others – some of which has been revealed under parliamentary privilege by David Davis MP and Kenny MacAskill (former MP and leader of the Alba party) – including the existence of WhatsApp messages by her husband, Peter Murrell and other close aides in which the suborning of evidence against Salmond was discussed alongside how best to pressurise the police to act. Ironically the motive for removing Salmond from the political scene emerges in the glaring resentment of him displayed in her book. In addition, anyone who's been paying attention to Scottish politics knows that he was manoeuvring to make a leadership comeback after she suffered one of her biggest setbacks with the loss of 21 SNP MPs in the 2017 general election. In contrast to her constant attacks on Salmond, her memoir is remarkably light on any explanation as to why she was unable to capitalise on the extraordinary legacy which he bequeathed her. Independence support was at its highest level ever and an explosion in SNP membership and support led to the party capturing almost 50 per cent of the vote at the 2015 general election. There is very little discussion of her strategy to capitalise on the opportunities afforded to advance the cause of independence during the Brexit saga and Boris Johnson's premiership. She sums the situation up by saying independence could not be advanced because the British government would not grant her the permission to hold another referendum. However, she does not explain what if anything she tried to do about this apart from repeatedly banging her head against the brick wall of their refusal. She also omits any reference to the viciousness with which she and her supporters shut down any attempt to discuss or debate a Plan B. Likewise, there is no discussion of what advantage she might have tried to parlay in the 2017-2019 when her 35 SNP MPs were close to holding the balance of power at Westminster. Presumably because there was no discussion at the time. I know because I was there and was pilloried for trying to initiate such a discussion. Indeed, the reader will search in vain for anecdotes about the sort of tortured policy debates in cabinet or at the party's national executive committee one normally reads about in political memoirs, because, under Nicola's leadership, such discussions were neither encouraged nor tolerated. She writes that as soon as Boris Johnson became PM she knew there would be another general election. There is no mention of the opportunity that was afforded to take Johnson down after the UK Supreme Court had ruled his prorogation of parliament unlawful. Indeed, the unlawful prorogation, the most extraordinary upheaval in modern British constitutional history, does not even merit a mention. I can only assume that this is because she failed to appreciate its significance, rather than because I was partly the author of the court victory. On the scandal surrounding the SNP finances we hear little except about the impact the police investigation has had on her and her joy at her 'exoneration'. Further discussion, she tells us, cannot happen because of the charges against her husband. How convenient. I guess we shall have to wait for another day to hear why she so determinedly shut down legitimate questions from party members and NEC representatives about the whereabouts of a £600,000 independence referendum fund that was supposed to be ringfenced. At the Edinburgh Book Festival last week she performed for a gathering of her dwindling fan base, while her legacy played out elsewhere in the festival city. There were rows raging over censorship by the Book Festival and the National Library of Scotland of the book, The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht (written by feminists, sex abuse survivors and lesbians). Kate Forbes, the woman who in a more mature Scotland might have been Nicola's successor, was banned from a fringe venue. After over an hour with her adoring fans, Nicola spent a very tetchy 14 minutes with Scotland's broadcast media and print journalists having cancelled all other planned interviews with them. In her political afterlife, as in her political life, she evades real scrutiny. For those hoping to understand better what was really going on behind the scenes during her leadership, this memoir will disappoint. It will be left to other memoirs to shed more light on what was really going on.
