Welsh Secretary says another Tryweryn ‘would not be possible’ in Wales
The Welsh Secretary says another Tryweryn “would not be possible” in Wales.
David TC Davies’ comments come nearly sixty years on from the drowning of the village of Capel Celyn in Gwynedd to provide water for Liverpool.
Speaking on S4C’s Y Byd yn ei Le programme, Mr Davies said that talk of another Tryweryn was just “spooking people.”
But Plaid Cymru has called on the Welsh Secretary to ensure all decisions on water resources are devolved to the Senedd.
Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts says that, under the current arrangement, Wales’ “natural resources are being diverted elsewhere without recompense and without consultation with local people either.”
Raising the matter in Westminster, Ms Saville Roberts referred to the example of Thames Water’s plans of “moving vast volumes of water from Wales,” while arguing this need could be mitigated if the loss of “630 million litres of water every day through leaky pipes” was addressed.
David TC Davies accused the Plaid Cymru member of “spooking people about the possibility of another Tryweryn in Wales. That would not be possible because the planning system is devolved so it wouldn’t be possible to see another Tyweryn like we saw 60 years ago.”
Mr Davies went on to say that “anyone who wants to build a new reservoir has to make a planning application through the local authority and then through the Senedd in Wales, so to all intents and purposes powers for this have been devolved already.”
But Professor Richard Wyn Jones of Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre says that if the UK Government “thought another Tryweryn was necessary, there’s nothing at all the the Welsh Government nor the Senedd could do to stop it.”
Richard Wyn Jones said it was “ironic” that the Welsh Secretary referred to the devolution settlement.
“We’ve seen the Government and the Parliament in London’s readiness to undermine devolved powers over the last few years,” he said.
“The truth is we have a government in London that emphasises Parliamentary Sovereignty, and it can do whatever it likes, so the truth is if the Government in London thought another Tryweryn was necessary, there’s nothing at all the the Welsh Government nor the Senedd could do to stop this.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson said “any development that involves sourcing water from Wales must demonstrate economic, environmental and wider benefits for the people of Wales as well as ensuring there is enough water for those that need it.
Water companies wholly or mainly in Wales must follow Welsh Government’s guiding principles for Water Resource Management Plans and Welsh Ministers have a statutory role in the sign off process for any plans.”
Y Byd yn ei Le is broadcast on S4C at 9pm on Thursday and can be watched on BBC iPlayer and S4C Clic.
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The whole of Cymru is going to become “another Treweryn” if we don’t actually start standing up for ourselves…..
Hands up who doesn’t believe him!
If I remember correctly Tryweryn never had planning permission granted because they passed an act of parliament at Westminster. It was opposed by just about every politician of every party in Wales at the time but that made no difference.
TopCat is an odious scumbag at the best of times but why does he feel it necessary to lie like a Johnson?
because he’s a tory?
No because he is a hypocrite who claims to be an advocate of wild swimming yet voted to allow sewage in our rivers. Also because he actually advised a young woman she should abandon the grandmother she cared for to go to London to get a job.
He is an empathy and intelligence free zone. Scumbag.
They have just passed the “internal market” bill, to circumvent the devolved Govs, there is nothing stopping them creating another law to enact anything they want. Never trust a Tory.
Never trust a Tory or a Saes.
Another Tryweryn couldn’t happen because campaigners would stop it because of the environmental impact and NOT because it’s flooding an area of Wales. Welsh sovereignty is down the list of priorities. Wales is already being turned into a concret forest of wind turbines that provides more power than Wales needs. Where are the protests? As long as it falls in line with the Green agenda, right? Why didn’t the Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, stop the drowning of Capel Celyn? Because Labour are as Unionist as the Conservatives when the chips are down and yet people keep voting for them… Read more »
Oh you silly, silly fool. I think you must have hit your head far too hard this time.
The point of creating all that energy is to also sell it for profit. That’s one way of us being able to afford our own national independence through energy independence.
Secondly, all but one of the Welsh MPs voted against the drowning of Capel Celyn. That was overrruled through an Act of Parliament that even Wilson could do nothing about.
I think it’s time for your afternoon nap, grampiau
An act of a foreign parliament.
!!! Let’s not forget how the British parliament had been eradicated by the ancestors of those who now claim they are British. The British Parliament had only recently being re-instituted…and it’s in Cardiff.
Before you dismiss others as silly fools spend a bit of time looking at your own statements. Example – The point of creating all that energy is to also sell it for profit ….. Very elegant except it’s wrong given the fact that most profit flows into coffers of major corporations and energy suppliers with a very thin trickle sometimes paid into “community schemes”. Now had our dopey regime in the Bay and its predecessors been more alert they would have fostered community ownership instead of handing profits to corporates who don’t give a damn about Wales and its people.
If the British Labour Party had a problem with it, they would have opposed it. They didn’t oppose it because they didn’t care about Capel Celyn. Iago Prydderch is quite right to say the purpose of Welsh Labour is to prop up British Labour. The clue is in the name 🙄😒
Electricity generated in Wales is sold for profit, but not profit for Wales. The profit goes to where ever the companies are based, which if they are in the U.K. is almost always London, but many of them are not U.K. companies
I wouldn’t trust one word that comes out of his mouth if it doesn’t benefit England and not any benefits to Wales i think he is working is way too the house of Lords just like Neal kinok all his life he wanted too ban the house of Lords and now what is he???
It’s nice to have a “Welsh” Secretary who is always on the side of Wales and the Welsh people, isn’t it………..
Not only is it possible, it’s effectively inevitable as they have been talking for years about how Wales should be supplying more to South East England. This guy, and any Welsh person who think like him are totally delusional if they believe that England can’t, and Won’t take advantage of Wales and its resources. They have been doing it for 250 years now! Slate, Coal, Gold, and Water. Even our history and stories are taken and sold as English to the wider world. When are we going to wake up and realise how we are used by the Anglo of… Read more »
Well show Welsh solidarity and go to Swansea on 20th May in our 10s of thousands and march for independence 🏴.
Would you believe a man like David TC Davies who said he learned Cymraeg to bait Plaid Cymru in the Senedd. Only a fool would trust his word. A man who stated Wales should not receive one penny of HS2 consequential even though Scotland & Northern Ireland would receive billions and Wales nothing. And he refused Wales the power to create a Saint David’s Day national bank holiday. Anyway, he lying. Another Tryweryn is already happening. The Tories are in the process of networking water from reservoirs in mid Wales to the SE of England. It’s effectively an abuser returning… Read more »
It all planning is devolved like it is in Scotland
Westminster can still approve overhead power lines, nuclear power stations and gas pipelines without taking notice of the views in Wales
Not all planning …