7. What are the Cabinet Secretary's expectations of companies providing tangible community benefits in relation to energy-production projects? OQ61023

Community involvement is crucial to our energy policy and my expectation is that all new projects have at least an element of local ownership. My objective is to retain social and economic benefit for renewable projects to support a just transition to a net-zero energy system.

Thank you for that response.

Real and tangible community benefits have been found to be crucial in winning over local residents when it comes to renewable energy schemes. These benefits schemes can go further, but at least they are being proposed. Unfortunately, when it comes to coal extraction schemes, community benefits are nowhere to be seen. There is a particularly awful example in my region of a community being ridden over roughshod by the owners of the Ffos-y-fran opencast mine, who have left behind an environmental disaster after making vast amounts of profits over nearly two decades of noise and dust for local residents.

Another coal extraction scheme in my region on the site of the former Bedwas colliery is promising to restore and, in some cases, enhance the land once it has removed thousands of tonnes of coal. However, there doesn't seem to be any mention of a tangible community benefit as yet. Cabinet Secretary, do you agree with me that, whenever natural resources are extracted, in whatever form, there should be recompense for nearby towns and villages in the form of a tangible community benefit that has a long and lasting impact?

Well, what I think we both want to see is an energy ecosystem that isn't extractive in that sense and that is renewable in the genuine sense and takes full advantage of the renewable energy resources that we can boast as a nation. I think that's the ambition that we probably both share. And I know that he'll welcome the launch of Ynni Cymru, which I think will make a significant contribution to changing the landscape in that direction. It has already committed almost £1 million-worth of resource grants, which will help community groups directly to participate in schemes and to accelerate the projects that we have on the horizon. So, I share with him his ambition to make sure that the community, in any area where there is generation, or, indeed, transmission, is able to point to a benefit to them, which is good for the project but is also good for our communities.