Worth paying 'over the odds' for tidal lagoon - Labour

Chris Ruane says "we may have to pay over the odds, but it's a price worth paying"

It would be worth paying "over the odds" to get a £1.3bn tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay built, Labour has said.

Shadow Wales Office Minister Chris Ruane criticised the chancellor's failure to give the go-ahead to the £1.3bn project in Wednesday's Budget.

A government commissioned independent review backed the scheme, which needs a subsidy for the electricity produced.

Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said he wanted the project to happen but "on the basis it is value for money".

Mr Ruane, MP for Vale of Clwyd, said it was a "key project for Wales".

He told BBC Wales: "There are going to be six tidal lagoons cross the United Kingdom. This was the first experimental one, small scale off Swansea, and if it had been a success then the others would get built.

"Four of those six would be in Wales, including in my own constituency."

Asked if Labour would agree to the scheme regardless of cost, Mr Ruane told BBC Wales: "When you look at how much public funding has gone into early energy technologies like nuclear, like wind, like solar - we may have to pay over the odds, but it's a price worth paying.

"These structures will be built for 125 years and we'll be able to time our electricity to the minute for 125 years. The Hendry Review reported in January, the government has sat on it and done nothing for 11 months. They had an opportunity to do something today and they didn't."

An artist's impression of the lagoon

Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said: "I really hope that it will happen but on the basis that it is value for money. We should never want it to happen if it is not good value for money."

Mr Cairns defended its absence from the Budget.

He said: "It isn't tied to a Budget decision. It is an independent decision that will be taken on the value for money."

Labour MP Alan Whitehead said other Budget changes - limits to low carbon levies - looked like "a catastrophic shutdown for most of Britain's renewables industry".

He tweeted: "No new levies until at least 2025, and no indication of alternative ways of underwriting. Means no new solar PV, no new onshore wind and no support for tidal."

But sources close to the Swansea project said the changes did not mean no support for tidal power as there was still an unallocated pot of £557m and a decision to support Swansea would require a very small proportion of this.