12:30 Caroline Johnson (Conservative)

There is little doubt that renewable energy sources are crucial for combating climate change and ensuring a sustainable future. I am not opposed to solar panels in general. They are an important part of the mix of renewable energy sources, and they have some merit in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and in achieving our net zero ambitions. However, in the process of achieving that laudable aim, we must be very wary of unintended consequences. There is a considerable risk that in the name of saving the environment, we end up destroying it, and that in the name of energy security, we make ourselves dependent on food imports.

First, I will address the most salient issue, which is food security. The drive to net zero carbon emissions can be sustained only so long as there is food on our shelves. We would ideally have policies prioritising energy security and food security, but as it stands, the balance has tipped too far towards energy security at the expense of food security. National self-sufficiency in food has fallen from 74% to 61% since the mid-1980s. Although the Government may be right that food security does not necessitate complete food security during peacetime, and it is reasonable to assume that some level of international trade in food will always be a contributing factor, the war in Ukraine and its associated impacts on food security and prices internationally has demonstrated that the maintenance of historical trade patterns cannot always be relied on.

As is usually the case, I completely agree with my right hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour. He will be aware that 12 nationally significant infrastructure project applications are currently in progress in Lincolnshire for large solar projects. That includes Beacon Fen, Springwell, Heckington Fen and Fosse Green Energy, all of which are in my constituency. Those solar schemes alone would cover 9,109 hectares of farmland; such an area would otherwise produce 81,000 tonnes of wheat, which would make 57 million loaves of bread or 1.5 billion Weetabix.

My hon. Friend knows that I am the last person to be a nimby, and Nottinghamshire’s heritage is among the richest for industry and energy production—it dates back centuries—but the point that our right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) made could equally be applied to the situation in Nottinghamshire. We are not opposed to solar farms. The issue is the scale of the applications and their aggregate impact on the landscape, which is profound. Were the three applications in my constituency to go ahead—I know that one borders the constituency of my hon. Friend—they will stretch from the South Yorkshire border all the way down to the Vale of Belvoir, peppering thousands of acres of land and impacting more than 60 villages. The landscape of that part of Nottinghamshire will be changed for a generation. That is simply unfair and exactly what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has campaigned against—an over-zealous application of net zero, which turns the public off.

Small-scale solar farms in my constituency have been welcomed by local communities, because the developers have spoken to parish councils and worked with local residents to ensure that the siting is appropriate. It is these large-scale financial vehicles, which masquerade as solar farms trying to help us to achieve net zero, that have caused consternation. I am afraid to say that that includes the East Park Energy development proposed in my constituency.

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend; in fact, he must have read my speech in advance, because my next point is that it is questionable to what extent solar is the most appropriate source of renewable energy. In the UK, solar generates maximum power for an average of only 2.6 hours per day, which falls to less than one hour per day during winter, the time of year when energy is most needed—in practice, we are most likely to need energy when it is dark and cold rather than when it is sunny and there is bright daylight.

The previous debate that I secured on this issue, in June last year, focused on planning regulations, and I do not plan to go into that subject in huge detail again today. To give the Government credit, since then they have clearly tried to get to grips with the issue, and they released a new national policy statement on renewable energy infrastructure in January. Nevertheless, I fear there is still a loophole in the regulations. The cumulative impact of solar applications is not properly defined, and the regulations are still characterised not by strict rules but by guidance, which can be flouted. Many planners still utterly ignore the guidance to avoid the use of the best and most versatile land. Half of the Heckington Fen project in my constituency would be on the best and most versatile land and—horrifyingly—it is proposed that 94% of the Drax project in east Yorkshire will swallow up BMV land.

As we have said, this is not mere nimbyism. Communities should not be criticised for resisting solar projects if they are in the wrong place, as these are. Indeed, there should be a greater push for rational, proactive policy to facilitate renewable energy schemes that do not harm our landscape, rather than steamrolling over the views of locals. Large-scale solar projects are a democratic issue. We are sacrificing public trust through opaque planning laws, eschewing public consultation and silencing the voices of residents affected by these schemes. The rightful concerns of residents who do not wish to live in an energy factory must count. I hope that we as representatives can do much to redress the balance.

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13:04 Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)

I will slightly curtail some of the points I intended to make because my hon. Friend has made them so well, but I echo many of them. Residents in my seat have told me that, like me, they are wholly supportive of renewable energy from solar power and the ambition of tackling climate change, but they have a number of concerns. One such concern is the loss of prime agricultural land at a time of war. Residents argue, and I could not agree more, that farming subsidies should not be used to encourage more solar farms. What we really need are more wheat and dairy farms so that we can be sustainable as a population.

My hon. Friend has made some excellent points. He is right that commercial pressures and the legislation we signed up for—I was happy to vote for that to reach net zero—are driving this between them. We have a lot of unintended outcomes from the policy; it was introduced for laudable aims, but it is time to pause things and look at the matter again.

Taking all the politics out of this, we are talking about human nature and behaviour. It is an illustration of the tragedy of the commons. Projects such as solar farms are needed to meet communal goals such as net zero, and most people agree that renewable energy is a good idea.

I accept that there is a need for regulation and enforcement, but we should direct our attention to the huge number of quangos and agencies indulging in mission creep, way outside what was originally envisaged. We have woken up and found that the European convention on human rights is now regulating on climate change for some people in Switzerland who have said that it is violating their human rights.

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13:19 Greg Smith (Conservative)

of renewable energy

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14:22 Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)

Why are we in this situation? Quite a considerable discussion has already happened about different classifications of land and the return on land. Ultimately, as a Conservative Government and a Conservative party, we want to ensure that we achieve net zero and recognise the balance that we need in our energy mix, which will continue to need the use of fossil fuels for many decades to come. We must ensure that we are on that sustainable journey to electricity generation both locally and nationally in that regard. It is important that solar has a role to play in that but, as has been accurately pointed out, one of the aspects that understandably concerns people is that all too often the economics of some of the plans that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and its predecessor Departments set off on lead to quite a different outcome from that expected.

Where do we go from here? I am conscious that the national policy statement for renewable energy infra- structure, EN-3, covers a lot about solar. It does not even exclude grade 1 land from consideration, but it is up to the developers to show that they have considered brownfield sites and I think, Minister, we need some strength and confidence that that really is being done. I know that the Planning Inspectorate provides advice to Ministers to make the final decisions, but it has to be a far more transparent process than what people experience today. It feels like a tick-box exercise; it feels like a rubber stamp. That may not be the intention of the Minister or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but it is critical that we address that.

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14:35 Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)

The problem we have is how we ally together a policy that, by and large, everyone in this Chamber is agreed on and the way we carry it out in practice. The policy, on which I think there is no real difference between the Opposition and the Government, reflects the strong view that we should move rapidly forward on the deployment of solar across the country. The Government have a target of 70 GW of solar to be deployed by 2035. In our plans for decarbonisation of the energy system by 2030, we want to see 50 GW installed by 2030.

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14:56 Andrew Bowie (Conservative)

Three years ago, the Government adopted our sixth carbon budget with the world’s most ambitious climate change goal—to reduce emissions by 77% by 2035, compared with 1990 levels. We also committed to fully decarbonising the electricity system by 2035, subject to security of supply. Renewables such as solar and wind, alongside other low-carbon technologies such as nuclear, will underpin the UK’s transition from a reliance on fossil fuels to a new, secure, clean energy system. Solar is an important part of the energy mix, and its deployment is a key part of the Government’s strategy for energy independence and clean growth.

As the recently published national policy statement for renewable energy infrastructure sets out, solar developers

Let me briefly touch on community benefits, which have also been raised. It is important that communities can participate in and benefit from the deployment of new low-carbon energy technologies in their local area. However, the Government do not have a formal role with regard to community benefits for solar and other large-scale renewable energy projects. We believe that those are best agreed at a local level, between the renewable operator and the local communities, so that they can be tailored to each community’s individual needs. They cannot be taken into account and, I am afraid, are not relevant to the planning decisions. A number of solar developers already provide community benefits on a voluntary basis. We are working with Solar Energy UK, the industry body, to provide further guidance and advice on community benefits for solar developers and communities and to develop a more consistent approach across the country that is fair to all parties.

I assure right hon. and hon. Members that we are deploying rooftop solar. It remains a key priority for the Government, and continues to be one of the most popular and easily deployed renewable energy sources. We want to see more rooftop solar on industrial and commercial properties, such as warehouses, factories and buildings, to make maximum usage of the available surfaces for business as well as for the environmental and climate benefits. There will be more on that in the solar road map, which will be published in the next few months.

We need an increase in ground-mounted solar alongside rooftop solar over the next decade to meet our energy security and net zero goals and to reduce the cost to consumers. But it is clear to me, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and His Majesty’s Government in general that this growth must be sustainable and enabled by a robust planning system that balances the wider benefits with the local impacts, that local communities are listened to and that food security concerns are addressed. That is what we are committing to do. I look forward to the publication of the solar road map, which is the result of the solar taskforce’s work. The document will set out deployment scenarios as well as key actions needed to address challenges in several priority areas, including the grid, rooftop supply chains and skills.

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15:14 Caroline Johnson (Conservative)

We have heard about how inefficient solar farms and solar panels are as a form of energy compared with other forms of green energy, and how, as the technology becomes better over time, these large solar farms put in in the countryside will become obsolete long before their 40 years are up. We have also heard that they are not as green as they are said to be and they are certainly not as morally clean as we would wish them to be.

I was quite disappointed to hear what the Labour spokesperson, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), had to say. He talked about solar being an important part of the solution to net zero and said that it is important to consider planning—well, yes, of course. He also talked about supporting onshore wind, which I know my constituents, by and large, do not support—they do not support the idea of covering their beautiful farmland with windmills instead of solar panels. He talked about spreading this out evenly, but what does that mean? Does it mean that every district council must have so many? How would that work in the centre of London? He did not really have a policy, and for a party who think that they might be in Government in less than six months’ time, that is really quite remarkable.

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