Lord Wigley (PC)

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response and even more grateful to colleagues from all parties who have spoken in this debate. I am grateful for the support that has come from the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Anderson—albeit that he spoke earlier than he had intended, it was very welcome—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, my colleague and noble friend Lady Smith, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Humphreys, who has done so much work on this matter. I regret very much that my friend from Monmouth was unable to support the Bill, but he left a glimmer of hope that, if not now, there might be a time. Perhaps we can come back to that. With regard to the response of the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, from the Front Bench, she recognised the case but said that the Government cannot at this stage move forward with it. With regard to getting the maximum possible benefit from the elements that Wales has—wind, water and all the rest—around its coast, there needs to be cross-government co-operation between the Government of Wales in Cardiff and the UK Government. In order to facilitate that, the Crown Estate must surely see the benefit of the positive energy that comes from maximising the output from our own resources and arrange things in a way that encourages that to happen. I hope we will get a Second Reading today and that we can go into a meaningful Committee stage. I noted the points the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, made about that and look forward to it. These arguments will not go away. The Minister had discussions with his colleagues in Cardiff in November, I think, and I hope that he will keep in touch with them. I had a meeting a fortnight ago with our erstwhile colleague here, the First Minister of Wales. These are matters that are of concern to them, and they will arise in the election, on a new format, to the Senedd in Cardiff in less than 18 months’ time. There is a need to get some co-ordination on this. Even if this Bill is not the vehicle, there must be some way of maximising the co-ordination and benefit that comes to Wales from the resources around our coasts. If it can be done for Scotland, surely it can be done for Wales too.