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6.15 pm
Mr. Rowlands: Wind farms are contentious in certain communities. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the right to object should be reduced to make planning more positive and proactive? What is he suggesting in that respect?
Mr. Dafis: I am suggesting that the planning process should be part of an all-Wales strategy. There should be targets for electricity produced from wind power, and that might lead to a search for, and designation of, appropriate sites. I do not favour removing the right to object--that would be dictatorial--but the planning process can be used positively. Planners must understand the significance of a scheme when they make their decision. I believe that many planners are not sufficiently well informed.
Mr. Öpik: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that acrimony arises in local communities over issues such as wind farms precisely because of the absence of a sustainable energy development strategy? If there were such a strategy, perhaps wind farms would not be built piecemeal and communities would not be upset.
Mr. Dafis: I do not want to get into a protracted argument about wind farms.
The Temporary Chairman: Please do not.
Mr. Dafis: If we are to have a sustainable development strategy for Wales, we must also have a sustainable energy strategy.
The assembly will have transport responsibilities. Wales needs an integrated transport policy to reduce road traffic. As the Government are committed to achieving a reduction in road traffic, how will the assembly develop such a policy? The Welsh road and rail network was conceived outside Wales. It is peripheral to the English network--no wonder we have poor north-south links. A sustainable communications policy must contain the right mix of transport modes--road, rail and air--which the Welsh Office has been promoting recently.
Getting investment priorities right will be difficult because the assembly will no more be responsible for rail than is the Secretary of State. There is a clear case for further devolution. The assembly will have to co-operate closely with the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising, the franchising authority. Opraf should be in that list of bodies, set out in schedule 4, that the assembly can require to attend its meetings. I hope that the Minister will consider tabling an amendment to bring that about.The successor body to Opraf--the strategic railway authority--will subsume the franchising functions.
Electronics play a crucial role in communication policy, enabling communication without physical movement, rendering distance irrelevant and reducing the need for road traffic.
Sustainable development is about opportunities, and opportunities for all parts of Wales. It is about industrial areas just as much as rural areas. We shall discuss rural policy later, but it is worth noting that Professor Gareth Wyn Jones, an expert on the subject, suggests that
That is just one reason why I consider it essential for sustainable development to be a duty for the new WDA, not just for the assembly. A revamped WDA will, after all, be up and running before the assembly meets, and sustainable development should be one of its key considerations from the outset--it has not been one in the past. The agency needs to build a sustainable development culture. It needs to get its head around the philosophy and the principles of sustainable development, and it needs to develop expertise.
The Welsh Development Agency Act 1975, which the Bill amends, refers to the environment, but the wording shows that the agency's environmental functions are seen separately from its other functions. It has tended to interpret the Act's provisions in aesthetic rather than deep sustainability terms. After all, the Act predates Brundtland, Rio and the process that has resulted from all that.
I understand that sustainable development is to be a duty of the English regional development agencies. That is in the Bill, and I want to know why the same does not apply to the WDA. May I also ask whether the Secretary of State has received any representations from the WDA opposing the duty of sustainable development? It should be at the heart of the agency's responsibilities, not at the fringe. It should not be an add-on, as it has tended to be in the past. The agency should be able to explore the environmental implications of development at an early stage, in order to avoid many of the damaging, costly conflicts that can develop during the process of pursuing a particular kind of development.
The subject is linked to the question of land use planning. I hope that the Secretary of State can assure us that the assembly will have the power to produce strategic planning guidance for Wales, which would help the agency--for instance, in relation to the location of inward investment projects. It would be stimulated, or indeed required, to locate inward investment projects, and other development projects, on previously developed land--what the Deputy Prime Minister now calls recycled land;
it used to be called brown-field sites. In that way, we could integrate land use in industrial development. The use of such areas, rather than green-field sites, should be preferred, if not exclusive.
We have a major opportunity to make sustainable development a defining theme for Wales and its assembly. I hope that I have shown how important it is that the WDA, as well as the assembly, has a duty to bring about such development.
Would the Secretary of State consider strengthening the wording of new clause 38 at a later stage? It uses the word "promoted", but it has been suggested to me that we should instead refer to the "achievement" of sustainable development, as other legislation does. For example, the Environment Agency has a responsibility to bring about--or aim to bring about--the achievement of sustainable development. It is a small point, but that duty should be seen as really important, and there should be no way of avoiding its implications. However, I admit that some of our amendments also refer to "promoting".
I look forward to hearing from the Secretary of State, and from other hon. Members.
Mr. Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd):
I intend to make only a short speech, based on my personal experience of the area that I come from in north Wales.
I welcome new clause 38, which recognises the importance of sustainable development. If the Welsh assembly adopts a strong sustainable development policy, we shall lead the way in the United Kingdom on the issue. Sustainable development is important in all areas of Wales, but especially in areas that depend on the environment for employment. In my constituency, the towns of Rhyl and Prestatyn developed, grew and prospered because of their location and their seaside environment. As well as its coastal environment, however, my constituency is blessed with an area of outstanding natural beauty, which straddles the Clwydian range and sweeps down into the vales of Clwyd and Elwyn.
Unsustainable economic development has had a devastating effect on all parts of Wales. The whole north Wales coast has suffered from environmental degradation caused by past Governments, councils and industries that have used the environment as a cheap means of disposal. There has been a knock-on effect for subsequent generations--including this one--and on today's environment and economy.
Let me give an example drawn from my own constituency in the 1960s. Rhyl urban district council decided to use a 60-acre salt marsh on the River Clwyd--one of only three north-facing rivers in north Wales--as a rubbish dump. It was seen as a cheap option. Domestic and industrial waste was taken across north Wales and dumped on that haven for wildlife. No record was kept of the rubbish that was dumped there over a 20 or 25-year period, and no one knows to this day what was dumped. It is a chemical time bomb. The rubbish was piled 40 ft high, and bulldozed over with a metre of topsoil. The land is now so polluted that it cannot be used for housing or industrial purposes. Methane is bled out of the rubbish tip by valves, and rain water washes out leachates into the surrounding mud banks and into the Irish sea. The land has been polluted for over a generation, and will probably be polluted for many generations to come.
"a comprehensive strategy for the sustainable use of renewable natural resources in rural Wales could create about 10,000 new jobs".
Given the multiplier effect, the professor reckons that as many as 14,000 jobs could be created.
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