Dear Sian

I'm writing to you as secretary of the People's Assembly Wales and in particular in relation to your role as the lead Plaid designated member for the implementation of the Cooperation Agreement.

You may have heard of us in relation to a number of campaigns such as the one for universal free school meals and other anti-austerity issues. Our website provides some overview of our campaigning: https://pawalescymru.blogspot.com/ 

We meet online every fortnight as an open cross party and none, network of activists of the left in Wales. We also have a Messenger group which effectively operates 24/7 as well as other social media outputs. If you wish to know more you are most welcome to join our mailing list.

The particular reason I'm writing to you is that earlier this year in our regular meetings we worked through the Cooperation Agreement identifying areas that we thought should be implemented as fast as possible and where the policies could be much more radical.

In relation to the area of climate change we thought that the proposal to establish a publicly owned renewable energy organisation Ynni Cymru was particularly important for taking forward generation not using fossil fuels. We also thought that Unnos Cymru was an excellent idea if it could have a focus on retrofitting and also be publicly owned and work in conjunction with Ynni Cymru.

We have suggested that in two ways these proposals could be more radical in terms of their impact and effectiveness. First, we would suggest that instead of Ynni Cymru just adding 100MW of renewable generating capacity to current 'community owned' provision of around 800MW, that it should become the major grid and energy supplier in Wales with a renewable energy capacity of at least half the current Welsh 12GW by 2030. We have already mentioned the retrofitting role of Unnos. Second, we would argue that what 'public ownership' and 'community ownership' needs be much more specific and we are proposing that a 'bottom up' cooperative model for both organisations could be encouraged and developed with the strategic backing of the Welsh Government and local councils. There are many social and long term economic advantages to ownership and control through cooperatives, particularly when compared to the opaque model of ownership and governance of Dwr Cymru and Cardiff Airport, both examples that are often referred to as how public ownership works in Wales.

We outlined our ideas in an initial discussion paper in April of this year and, following widespread interest and responses to this paper, we have now added to and updated that original proposal. We think it is now at a stage where we can provide sufficient detail to feed into any plans that are currently being prepared by the Welsh Government to take Ynni Cymru and Unnos forward.

The original discussion paper (now Part 1) and the follow up briefing (now Part 2) are both included in this post to our website that was updated today: https://pawalescymru.blogspot.com/2022/04/ynni-cymru-for-renewable-cooperative.html 

We hope that you find these ideas useful and are able to consider taking them forward for consideration in the process of implementing the Cooperation Agreement.

We of course, would only be too pleased to provide further information and thoughts as well as help to undertake any further research that you or others may think is necessary.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Solidarity

Len Arthur People's Assembly Wales secretary