National Infrastructure Commission for Wales meeting notes: 23 November 2023

NICW

Jenifer Baxter Deputy Chair

Eurgain Powell Commissioner

Helen Armstrong Commissioner

Eluned Parrott, Commissioner

Steve Brooks, Commissioner

Nick Tune, Commissioner
 

Secretariat/Welsh Government

Stuart Ingram, NICW Secretariat

Nicola Britton, NICW Secretariat

Apologies

Dr David Clubb, Chair

Aleena Khan, Commissioner

1.    Welcome and declarations of interest

The Deputy Chair welcomed commissioners to the meeting with a check-in, celebration of success, declarations and invitations.  The following new declarations of interest were noted:

• Jen Baxter  Clarified she is working with British Gas Energy Trust on a grant related to fuel poverty.
• Steve Brooks     Is working with new clients, Oxfam and the Social Care Charity Mirus.
• Nick Tune     Is working with the following new clients on carbon reduction activity:
  • Carmarthen Council
  • Cardiff University 

  • Swansea University.

    He is also working with TfW on a climate change project and with Cardiff Council on a digital twin project.

The Deputy Chair reflected on the nature of public life and service in Wales, noting there will often be cross over with consultancy practices and board membership as Wales is a small country.  She also noted that NICW as an advisory body  has no influence on planning decisions or allocation of public grant funding.  

Action

Circulate register of interest to commissioners to ensure entries are up to date: Secretariat
 

2.    Housekeeping

The action tracker was noted and updated.  

3.    Commissioner updates 

• Eluned Parrott invited commissioners to an Institute of Physics event related to nuclear power.
• Steve Brooks noted he had updated NICW on the Cardiff University Event through ZULIP, but wanted to highlight a film taken at the event may feature NICW.
• Eurgain Powell attended a PHW/NRW adaption health event and will share her notes as some relevance to year 3 project.
• Jenifer Baxter informed the group she was currently heavily engaged in her role as a Board Member of Industry Wales and they would be recruiting a new Chief Executive shortly.

4.    Consultation responses/ policy updates 

• Steve Brooks  confirmed the report from the RTPI joint events has now been received, but he would like to wait till 2024  to publish explaining there is no time constraint as the report is not intended to influence current policy development, but instead speaks to high level planning concepts.
• The Welsh Government’s Energy Generation 2022 report was briefly discussed.
• Nick Tune informed commissioners the Net Zero Industry Cluster have launched a finding programme and are actively looking for bids, in particular for hydrogen projects.
   

Action

• The Twitter / X platform would not be used in the future
• The Chair will publish a blog post on this subject

5.    Future Work Programme Updates 

a.    Year 1 Renewable Energy Report

Commissioners discussed when they could expect an official response from the Welsh Government.  It was noted the Minister for Climate Change will be responding to a Senedd question on the report next week. (w/c 27/11) which may provide some insight on the Government’s response.  This led to a wider discussion on NICW maintaining a dashboard of activity and periodically reviewing impact

b.    Year 2 Flood Research 

Eurgain Powell updated the group noting the 4 workstreams will provide interim reports by the end of the year.  Engagement activity for upcoming workshops was discussed, and whether workshops should be postponed due to stakeholders being busy with issues from recent bad weather.  

c.    Year 3 Development of approach to existential risk.  

Helen Armstrong advised that Cynnal Cymru were awarded the contact and an inception meeting with all commission members was scheduled for 28 November.  Steve Brooks discussed the call for evidence and that he is arranging a meeting with the Future Generations Commissioner’s office. 
 

6.    Futures Work

Ideas for future ‘mini-projects’ were discussed, including the relationship between blue green and grey infrastructure; reuse of infrastructure (repowering) and criteria for ‘what good looks like’.

Action

Ideas for mini projects to be submitted to secretariat for discussion/scoring: All
 

7.    Annual Report

The 2022/23 Annual Report is almost ready for sign off.  It was agreed that in addition to official procedures to lay in the Senedd publication on NICW website would be sufficient.

8.    Future Map of Wales

Commissioners discussed some of the constraints of developing a map, including difficulty of generating a long-term vision and clarity of purpose.  NICW role could be one of informing the process rather than production.  It was agreed a timeline would be produced and discussed at next meeting.

9.    AOB: 

Nil

The next meeting will take place 19 December in Bute Park.