16:23 Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)

I agree with my hon. Friend. If we believe in localism, surely we believe that local councils should be able to set distances between renewable energy projects and dwellings. I like to think that such a measure would be contained in any localism Bill that the Government bring forward, and I would argue strongly for that.

I certainly agree. In my constituency, Daventry district council will look tomorrow evening at adopting a policy. It is happy to be challenged about the distance that dwellings should have to be from renewable energy projects. All local authorities should develop such a plan because it is local people who should buy into these things.

I was talking about noise. Some of us just do not believe that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is promoting wind farms, and not inhibiting them, by trying to force new noise criteria on the whole country. It is slightly worrying that the Hayes McKenzie Partnership has been commissioned by DECC to carry out the new noise review that the Minister recently announced. The science around noise seems to be a very moveable feast.

Does my hon. Friend also agree that the Leader of the Opposition’s statement of 2009 in a documentary when he was Climate Change Secretary, in which he said that it should be “socially unacceptable” for people to be against wind turbines in their area, like not wearing their seat belt or driving past a zebra crossing, is an unhelpful position and one that, now that he is Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, he might like to review?

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16:40 The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)

In the remaining 13 minutes I want to go through the issues raised so far and put them in the context of the role that wind has to play in our energy security and our move to a low-carbon economy. I assure my hon. Friend that I understand the concerns that he and others have raised, and as Minister I have taken some of the actions that are designed specifically to address them. Wind has a contribution to make and an integral part to play in dealing with energy security and tackling climate change. We cannot separate security of supply from a low-carbon economy, we cannot have security of supply without a low-carbon economy and we cannot have a low-carbon economy without security of supply. We see those elements as going together, and without them we will not have affordable pricing.

We removed regional spatial strategies and the top-down regional energy targets, because they moved us away from the localism we want. We are committed, in relation to applications for below 50 MW, to local communities and local councils deciding how their areas will develop. The new planning framework will cover all forms of development and set out national economic, environmental and social priorities. Tackling climate change and ensuring our energy security will be among our top priorities, but as I said, we want communities and individuals to own a stake in our collective low-carbon future. That is why we are looking at how local communities can benefit from business rates staying locally, and why we want more genuine community ownership of applications, so that people can see the link between hosting a facility and the benefits that it brings directly to the local area and to the services that people care about.

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