Never mind, it will never happen

Tweet I’m not entirely sure what purpose the Conservatives thought they were achieving by holding a debate in the Senedd this week on the building of a new nuclear power station in Ynys Môn.  It’s not a matter over which the Assembly has any power – and the Tories are usually the first to deride other parties for wasting debating time on matters over which they have no influence.

Whatever the intended purpose may have been, it did highlight the problems with energy policy in three of the four parties represented in the Senate.  (Lack of coherence from the fourth is entirely normal.)

For the Tories, it highlighted a willingness to take a step into the financial unknown in support of their big business friends.  It is entirely clear that no nuclear power stations will be built unless they are given public subsidies, guarantees on prices, or clear undertakings to underwrite risks. The fact that the extent of these costs is currently completely unquantified is apparently irrelevant as far as Tories are concerned.  They will be happy to see all of us, as taxpayers, contribute whatever it costs to enable the large companies involved to make their profits.

For Plaid, it highlighted, yet again, that the party’s energy policy has been turned into something of a shambles by short-term electoral considerations.  The party is, as I’ve commented before, apparently opposed to all new nuclear power stations except the ones that companies actually want to build.  And to read the local press in Carmarthenshire at least, it is in favour of all new wind powered stations except the ones that companies actually want to build. Whilst there are still some in the party prepared to argue the case for renewables – and Cynog Dafis had a paean of praise for wind farms in the latest issue of 'the Welsh agenda’ – overall the party’s stance on energy is now completely incoherent, especially when compared to the clear and unequivocal stance it adopted on energy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Then we come to Labour.  I thought that the comments by the Conservative AM Angela Burns were a little unfair.  Amongst other things she said that there had been little progress from the Welsh government in developing energy policy in Wales. But that’s completely untrue; there has been plenty of progress in developing policy on energy in Wales – the policy on energy produced by the One Wales government between 2007 and 2011 was an extremely good policy.  The problem with the Labour Party stance is that the development of policy and the implementation of policy seem to be seen as two entirely different things.  Policies once developed are put onto a nice big shelf somewhere and the government carries on as though it had never bothered to go through the exercise of developing them.

In any event, the Senate has now declared its support for a new nuclear power station in complete contrast to its previous support for an entirely renewables-based energy policy.  The only saving grace would appear to be that they are no more likely to be able to implement the new policy than they were to implement the old one.

Beware the siren voices

Tweet No surprise that I’m far from being as thrilled as others seem to be about the phoenix-like resurrection of the Horizon project for another nuclear power station on Ynys Môn.  There’s more to energy policy than jobs, but this is not only not the best energy policy for Wales, it’s not even the best way to generate jobs in the energy industry in Wales.

The game is far from over however; it will be some time before the fat lady can commence her aria.  There are still many hurdles for the project to overcome, not the least of them being the unanswered questions about how it will be funded.  The official line about no public subsidies for new nuclear is simply not credible; without subsidies, whether hidden or open, there will be no new build.

At a time when most of the rest of the world is turning its back on nuclear stations (well, uranium-powered ones at least), it’s hard to believe that any project run by a company whose own country has turned its back on the technology will actually come to fruition.

There is a real need for jobs on Ynys Môn, but there is a real danger in the apparently unqualified welcome given by many politicians to this scheme.  That danger is, simply, that they will count their chickens too soon and take their eyes off the ball, if that’s not mixing too many metaphors.  Assuming that these jobs are ‘in the bag’ would be the greatest disservice that anyone could do to the people of the island, since if (or when, as I tend to believe) the project collapses, there would be no plan B.

People should be vary careful about believing the siren voices of the short-termists who seem to be claiming that the island’s problems are about to be solved.

Rigging the system

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Ynys Môn council has been dysfunctional for many years, and regular attempts from both inside and outside the island to resolve the issues have failed.  The differences are generally not political, but personal; councillors are as prone to falling out with members of their own party as they are to falling out with members of other parties.  And ‘independent’ covers a multitude of sins.

Clearly, something needed to be done, and sending in the commissioners can have come as no surprise to most people.  New elections – and preferable a largely new set of councillors – are an inevitable part of the longer term solution.  I’m concerned, though, about the latest proposals from the boundary commission.  Or, rather, I’m concerned about the direction given to the boundary commission by the minister.

The general guidance used by the boundary commission in relation to all councils in Wales is set out here.  In paragraphs 5.4 onwards, the preference for single-member wards is made clear.  Although the commission can and must consider whether multi-member wards have advantages, in general they are asked to prefer single-member wards.

The minister has the right to over-rule the consideration – paragraph 5.5 of the general guidance specifies that he may do so in specified areas.  In the case of Ynys Môn, he has decided to do so.  As the introduction to the report on the island’s electoral arrangements makes clear, the Minister made a specific direction in relation to Ynys Môn, which “requires that we should, in the first instance, consider the desirability of multi-member electoral divisions throughout the County”.

Personally, like anyone else who advocates STV, I favour multi-member wards; they’re essential if we want to have a more proportional result.  So I have no objection to the introduction of multi-member wards per se (although I’d prefer it to be accompanied by a move to STV).

But is it right to have a different approach in one council area from that being implemented everywhere else, where the main reason for that difference appears to be to facilitate the election of different people?  There is no doubt in my mind that the Minister has acted in accordance with the powers conferred upon him, because those powers don’t seem to require that he provides any reason or argument for adopting a different approach in one area, or place any constraints on what considerations he might apply.

And that’s where my concern lies.  There is a dangerous precedent here, under which the Minister has directly interfered in the work of the boundary commission to instruct them to take a particular approach in Ynys Môn, largely because he doesn’t like the result of the elections there.  I don’t like them either – but I’m simply not convinced that rigging the electoral system is the right way to deal with that problem. 

And Ynys Môn isn’t the only place where I don’t like the results of the elections.  If the Minister also feels that, what is to stop him interfering further in other areas to obtain a result more to his liking?