Afzal Khan (Labour)

1. What assessment he has made of the potential contribution of domestic solar energy generation to meeting COP26 commitments. ( 906484 )

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James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)

I yield to no one in my determination to see us reach net zero by 2050, but does the Secretary of State not agree that the right place for solar is on buildings, including domestic buildings across the nation, as the question from the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) suggests? We do not want hundreds of acres of prime agricultural land to be threatened, as is happening in Wiltshire, by vast and unplanned solar farms that people simply do not want to see, particularly post-Ukraine.

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Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

The COP26 President acknowledges the tremendous contribution that solar has made and can make to the achievement of our net zero goals. I am sure that he also acknowledges that it is now one of the renewables that is cheapest and most quickly installed, so why are the Government ignoring its future development, having devastated the industry a few years back by precipitously withdrawing all support for development, and doing nothing to ease the penal planning restrictions on both domestic and ground-mounted solar installations? He says merely that he expects installations to increase fivefold by 2035, but without providing any support to allow that expectation to become a reality. Is it not time that the Government took seriously the contribution that solar can make to net zero targets?

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