15:00 Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)

I will start by making it clear that I am not here to deny the pressing need for alternative energy sources, and I am in no doubt about the threats that we face from the twin hazards of peak oil prices and rising greenhouse gas emissions. I also want to acknowledge the work of Rob Hopkins and Transition Town Totnes in my constituency. They have inspired not only a national movement but an international movement that is leading the way in taking practical steps towards more sustainable and resilient communities.

I thank the Minister for his response this morning in oral questions, because it went to the nub of this issue. We do not want to resist solar PV as such; we want to resist inappropriate solar PV. I was immensely relieved, as all my constituents will be, to hear that he is working so closely with his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to bring forward a change to planning regulations, in order to make it very clear to planners and local councillors that local opinion, the need to protect our heritage and our rural landscape, and all the other factors that matter so much to local communities, cannot automatically be overridden because of the need to go forward on renewable energy.

Perhaps I can just set out the scale of where we are and say why communities are so worried. At the moment, we have 1.6 GW of solar capacity within the UK, and almost all of that is in microgeneration. The average scale is 4/1,000th of a megawatt and only 71 of the current 369,912 sites that are listed on the renewables obligation and feed-in tariff database are more than 500 kW in size. To put that in context, that would be a site of more than 2.5 acres. These sites contribute just 203 MW of that total 1.6 GW of installed capacity. However, if we look at the Department of Energy and Climate Change planning database, we see that 1.7 GW is in the planning pipeline or under construction, which is even greater than the solar capacity that we currently have installed. The point is that most of that 1.7 GW is completely different; it is not microgeneration but large-scale generation. In fact, more than half of it is very large-scale; we are talking about projects that are more than 5 MW. To put that in context, 1 MW requires around five acres of land, so more than half of that 1.7 GW that is in the pipeline will be of a scale greater than 25 acres. That is the nub of this issue.

As the Minister will know, there are many community-owned projects, and he will be aware of TRESOC—the Totnes Renewable Energy Society—in my constituency. I was proud to open its first community-owned array, which is on the roof of the local general practitioners. That is the kind of place these projects need to be. TRESOC has 502 members, who share the dividends. The point, however, is that people have to be able to afford the shares in the first place, so that automatically excludes those in fuel poverty. Will the Minister put some flesh on the bones as regards subsidies, because there are probably a lot of misunderstandings about how they operate and who benefits from them?

The south-west understands that it has a responsibility to contribute to energy generation from renewables. It is encouraging that Regen SW’s figures show there has been a 50% growth in that contribution in the past year. Capacity in the south-west is now 1 GW, and 7.3% of that electricity generation comes from renewables. Devon is the major contributor, closely followed by Cornwall. Between them, Devon and Cornwall are responsible for the lion’s share of renewable energy generation in the south-west.

My constituents understand the need to keep the lights on, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and our dependence on imported fossil fuels, but they maintain that the greatest gains are in powering down and reducing energy use. We are about to spend £42 billion on High Speed 2, and I wonder what a fraction of that investment could do to transform cycling, for example, throughout the UK; to transform and electrify the entire railway system; and to invest in our vital future in marine renewables. I hope that our legacy will be in such developments. I am confident that with the Minister’s support, working closely with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government, it will not be industrialisation and a wasteland across rural Britain.

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15:20 Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)

I applaud the recent written statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, in conjunction with the Minister, about the national planning policy guidance on wind turbines. I think that I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes confirm today that we can look forward to further planning policy guidance to local authorities on other sources of renewable energy. I hope that the Minister will confirm that.

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15:43 Sheryll Murray

We must ensure that local authority planning officers and planning inspectors are immediately made aware of any new planning policy guidance on solar arrays and other renewable energy sources to ensure that local councillors who make decisions locally have the best opportunity to adhere to the new guidance.

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15:44 Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat)

I think that we can all agree that solar power is a real option for producing energy in the very near future, not only to meet our renewable energy needs and targets, but to keep the lights on. Solar arrays are swiftly installed and can balance the supply from more intermittent sources of generation, such as wind.

I am a keen environmentalist, and I believe that we have to make huge strides on energy saving, as well as on renewable energy generation, to ensure that we meet the targets that we set ourselves in the Climate Change Act 2008.

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15:58 Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)

People are getting cross, because they feel that they are being sold green energy as a total solution, but I am sure that the Minister will admit that we need all types of green energy in order to balance. We have got the balance wrong. I do not blame him for that, because he has done his best to ensure that the money goes to community schemes and individuals, but we have to do much more. My local council in Mid Devon was successful in putting solar panels all over council and social housing, which has been a benefit of about £3 a week to many of the tenants, who are hard-pressed for cash—that is a great way of using the subsidy.

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16:07 Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)

Research shows that solar produces electricity at times of year when wind and hydro power generate less. Solar parks can help energy suppliers to balance supply from other forms of generation. Crucially, that helps to reduce the cost of supply to the bill payer because suppliers are less reliant on the short-term energy market, where power is more expensive. The time when electricity is generated from solar technology is a good match for demand, especially in daytime factory production, office and retail spaces. It would be misguided to put all our renewable eggs in one basket. This debate is a reminder about why it was folly for the Government not to commit to setting a decarbonisation target in the Energy Bill to clean up our power sector.

I look forward to the Minister’s response to my questions, and I will conclude with this final thought. Just a fortnight ago, the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change reported that the UK had fallen behind in meeting our carbon reduction targets. If we are to get back on track we need an approach that makes the most of all our renewable energy sources, and that must include solar.

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16:18 The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)

I also know the hon. Lady shares my absolute conviction about the need to act against dangerous man-made climate change and about the imperative of growing the stock of renewable energy as part of our energy mix, but we have to do that in a balanced and careful way, and the two are not incompatible. Therefore, I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss what we might term the menace of inappropriate large-scale arrays, and hopefully, to allay some of the concerns that have been raised during the course of today’s debate.

Deployment of solar PV, like any other major renewable energy source, must be thoughtful, sensitive to public opinion, and mindful of the wider environmental and visual impacts. That is exactly the point that my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray)made in her excellent speech, really speaking up for the beautiful countryside in her constituency, and that point was also made by my other hon. Friends. I fully appreciate people’s worries. As my hon. Friends have described, the deployment of large-scale solar farms can have a very real, negative impact on the rural environment, particularly in very undulating landscapes. However, it is also important to say that the visual impact of a well-planned and well-screened solar farm can be properly accommodated within the landscape if done sensitively. Projects such as Powis castle and other National Trust sites are great examples of that. I was hugely impressed by the vision for a large-scale local energy park when I visited Kettering this week. It was a well-thought-out mix of onshore wind, biomass and solar, done with the consent and sympathy of the local community.

Localism remains a fundamental keystone on which the coalition has built its policies. It runs through the coalition like the words in a stick of Blackpool rock. We remain completely committed to ensuring that the voice of local communities is strongly heard in matters that directly affect them. The deployment of renewable energy is a perfect case in point.

I reiterate that I strongly believe that a local planning process, backed up by strong community engagement and robust best-practice guidance, is the most appropriate vehicle for decisions on the siting of large-scale solar PV. The national planning policy framework is clear: an application for renewable energy development should be approved only if the impact is, or can be made, acceptable. However, the framework needs to be reformed and what is and is not acceptable needs to be made far clearer. I am pleased to say that, after excellent cross-Government working, the DCLG will shortly issue new guidance setting out that the need for renewable energy does not automatically override environmental protections or the planning concerns of local communities.

“The need for renewable energy does not automatically override environmental protections and the planning concerns of local communities”

In conclusion, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes for raising this timely and important issue. I reiterate that I am committed to solar PV taking its rightful place in a 21st century renewable energy mix and the UK reaping the carbon savings and economic benefits that that will bring. I remain committed to my big 20 GW vision for the UK, but not at any cost. It will come only if we continue to drive down the cost of solar towards grid parity, work with the grain of public opinion and develop solar in a way that works with local communities and does not detract unduly from our beautiful countryside.

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