16:00 Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)

Whenever we have a debate about wind farm development and the instigator of the debate opposes a planned wind farm, there are cries of nimbyism or of the Member being at the climate-change-denial end of the spectrum. I am the instigator of this debate, but I am not a nimbyist or a climate-change denier. Nevertheless, I am opposed to E.ON’s proposal to build a wind farm in my constituency of up to 45 wind turbines, each four times the height of the Angel of the North. It will cover 7½ square miles of my constituency, or 5% of its geographic area—equivalent to the size of Newton Aycliffe just to the west of the proposed site, which has a population of about 30,000.

County Durham was the first county to reach its 2010 target, and it is well on its way to reaching its 2020 target for renewable energy. Like my hon. Friend, I have many wind farms in my constituency, which is largely rural and has two areas of outstanding natural beauty. Energy providers now acknowledge that the cumulative effect of ever more developers rushing to build wind farms is reaching saturation point in the county.

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. In a moment, I shall be pointing out how much of a role County Durham and Sedgefield residents are playing in combating climate change.

“An unfortunate repercussion of County Durham being forward thinking in its approach to renewable energy development is the potential for cumulative impact to occur...The pursuit of several wind farms within the county by competing developers has potential to cause an unacceptable impact upon the landscape.”

County Durham’s record on renewable energy is another reason why I believe that we are not being nimbyist in our approach. The county council was the first local authority in England to have a renewable energy strategy; it dates back to 1994. The renewable electricity target for County Durham in the regional spatial strategy—I realise that it does not apply any more—was 82 MW installed capacity by 2010. Since then, about 165 MW of installed capacity of renewable energy development has been permitted in the county. Only 11 MW of that was permitted on appeal—the majority, 154MW, was granted by the council.

County Durham’s 2010 target has been met and exceeded by a substantial margin. The aspiration to double that target by 2020 has already been achieved, and progress is being made towards the more recent national target of 30% by 2020. That has been achieved through a planned approach based on the north-east region’s renewable energy strategy and development capacity studies commissioned and endorsed by local authorities in the region.

Since then, two additional wind farms totalling nine turbines have been permitted. The area is therefore at or approaching the capacity identified in the Arup report. Currently, there are planning applications for three additional wind farms and a single turbine development in the area, totalling 13 turbines; and one planning application for 10 turbines is in abeyance. Those applications will be determined against the development plans of the relevant planning authorities, having regard to both the Arup capacity study and the evolving cumulative impact picture as they progress through the system. According to impact assessment studies, the area chosen by E.ON at the Isles—the company has built many wind farms in the area—can cope with only four to six turbines, but E.ON plans between 25 and 45. Durham can meet its targets because we have proved willing to embrace other renewable technologies in the same area. In Chilton, which is in my constituency and north of the Isles, Dalkia has just opened a biomass facility, producing 15 to 17 MW of electricity. Some 24.4 MW of electricity is generated from biomass in the county, 12.7 MW from landfill and 2.1 MW from hydro. County Durham is playing its part. Everyone wants to share the benefits of renewable energy, but we also need to share the burden.

We are getting energy from other renewable sources such as hydro, landfill, and biomass, and now our constituents are beginning to wonder whether we are all in this together. They look at Hampshire, which is using three times as much energy as Durham but taking only about 4% of it from renewables. Moreover, there is not one on-shore wind farm in the area, despite the fact that it is the county in which the Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change has his constituency.

According to the Renewable Energy Foundation, if the Isles wind farm goes ahead with 45 turbines, E.ON will see a revenue stream of more than £570 million over 25 years, some 54% of which is subsidised through our utility bills. E.ON has said that the Isles wind farm could generate enough electricity for 53,000 households. The subsidy would equate to £235 per household per year. The community benefit that it proposes is £460,000 a year or £8.60 per household. The company is taking with one hand and giving us back peanuts with the other. What plans do the Government have to reform or review the subsidy system for wind farms and for renewable energy in the round?

It is now time to look at a planning system and an energy policy that fight climate change by taking people with them, rather than taking them for granted or making them feel helpless. We need a strategic view that ensures that all parts of the country share the burden as well as the benefit of renewable energy. My constituents are united in opposition to the massive imposition of the E.ON wind farm for the Isles. Durham County is known as the land of the prince bishops. I will not stand by to watch County Durham become the land of the wind turbine.

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16:19 The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)

I think that the hon. Member for Sedgefield and I agree on the two most critical points: that renewable energy is necessary for energy security and environmental reasons, and that local communities should be given a say in shaping the environment in which they live. Consequently, in the few minutes that I have today I will seek to explain how I see those two aims coming together and set out the steps we are taking to ensure that they do. I also want to address the democratic deficit and show that wind farms can bring real benefits to communities, as long as they are situated in the right place and they have democratic approval.

Our challenge is to build an economy that cuts our carbon emissions to tackle the threat of climate change, that makes our energy secure in a volatile world and that creates sustainable green jobs to help to bring back economic prosperity. As one of the most cost-effective and mature large-scale renewable technologies, the appropriate deployment of onshore wind will play a key role in meeting that challenge. We want Britain to be a global leader in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We are committed to producing 15% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 and to reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. In July, we published the renewable energy road map, which sets out our approach to unlocking our renewable potential. It includes a comprehensive suite of targeted, practical actions to accelerate the development of renewable energy in this country.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the Government support the deployment of renewable energy through the renewables obligation which, by supporting generation rather than capacity, is structured in a way to incentivise the best use of the available resources and to maximise efficiencies. If an application has a very low load—I would consider 20% to be a low load—it will receive little benefit through the renewables obligation. The higher the load factor, the greater the support that an application will receive through the renewables obligation. However, we have recognised that it is time to review that approach; the review was scheduled for next year, but we have brought it forward because we think that it is right that communities and developers have early clarity about the thinking.

As a whole, the region has 150 MW of operational onshore wind capacity, which is 3.5% of the total UK deployed resource. Those onshore wind projects have also helped to deliver real economic growth and benefit to the local community, such as the work being done by the National Renewable Energy Centre to develop the region’s old manufacturing heritage, to help to pull the region out of recession and into recovery with new industries for the future.

I am pleased to say that through the Localism Bill we are proposing changes aimed at addressing some of the concerns that have been raised in this debate. They include abolishing regional spatial strategies and their top-down regional energy targets to move towards a localism-driven approach, so that more control is given to local authorities, as the hon. Gentleman wants; introducing provisions for projects submitted to local planning authorities, so that developers will have to show how they have worked with communities in developing their planning applications; closing the Infrastructure Planning Commission and merging its functions with a more efficient and effective Planning Inspectorate, which means that the ultimate responsibility for making decisions on nationally significant infrastructure, such as the application that the hon. Gentleman raised today, will return to democratically elected Ministers; and ensuring that energy decisions on major infrastructure projects are made by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change based upon recommendations from the new expert unit within the Planning Inspectorate. All decisions will be made in accordance with our recently designated national policy statements and important local considerations.

Our aim is to support appropriate renewable energy development, which the country needs, while maintaining environmental safeguards and, through local and neighbourhood plans, giving local authorities and communities a much greater say in how development is delivered. More broadly, if it is agreed, the framework will also enable local communities to set their own growth agenda according to local needs, and to plan and manage development to deliver that agenda.

As well as ensuring that local people have a real say in what happens in areas near to them, it is right that communities hosting renewable energy projects are rewarded for the contribution they are making to the wider society. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, there is a concentration of renewable energy resources in different parts of the country and all of us are benefiting from the actions of the communities that decide to host those facilities.

As part of achieving that, we announced that local authorities in England, on behalf of individual communities, will be able to retain the business rates generated by renewable energy deployments, not just for one year, but on a continuing basis. I am pleased that, in parallel, the wind energy industry has published agreed minimum standards for the contributions that wind farm developers will make to community development in England, as part of an ongoing commitment to close consultation with communities. Financial contributions might include, for example, building new community assets, or investment in energy efficiency measures to reduce electricity bills. That would be on top of any direct benefits for those living in the area, such as economic activity, jobs or rent paid to landowners. Of course, the most powerful reward for a community is to have a direct stake in a project and we want to encourage that.

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