Renewable Energy Providers: Planning Considerations
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
It is a great pleasure to respond to this debate and to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) for securing the debate. I am short of time, so although I hope to answer most of the points that she raised, I am happy to get back to her at a later stage if I have not done so. I also thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) and my right hon. Friends the Members for Witham (Priti Patel) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for their contributions.
I want to assure everyone that sustainability remains at the heart of this Government’s ambition for development, and that that includes the protection of the environment and local communities. Energy security and protecting our environment are just some of the key challenges we face in the UK. Meeting those goals is urgent and of critical importance to the country, and we believe that they can be achieved together for the UK.
We believe that renewable energy will play a key role in helping to secure greater energy independence while building a more sustainable and greener future for generations to come. However, the Government recognise that, as with any new infrastructure, there will be local impacts. It is therefore essential that we have a robust planning system that not only helps to deliver energy security, but protects the environment and local communities and supports the Government’s wider ambitions on net zero.
The dramatic rise in global energy prices following the covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has emphasised the urgency of the need to build a strong home-grown renewable sector. Energy security is therefore one of the Government’s greatest priorities. As the British energy security strategy sets out, there is a growing need to diversify our energy sector by growing our nuclear sector, increasing our capacity for renewables across solar, onshore wind and offshore wind, and exploring how hydrogen can be incorporated into the domestic energy supply mix.
Our “Powering Up Britain” policy paper, which was launched in March this year, made clear how important the planning system is to delivering the Government’s commitments on energy security, net zero and energy prices. We need lots of new low-carbon infrastructure, including generation, network connections and storage, as we have heard today. Our national planning policy framework makes it clear that local planning authorities should have a positive strategy in place to promote energy from renewable and low-carbon sources. Last month, we updated the framework in relation to onshore wind. These changes are designed to make it easier and quicker for local planning authorities to consider and, where appropriate, to approve onshore wind projects where there is local support.
Jacob Young
I will come to the points that my right hon. Friend made in just a moment.
For nationally significant infrastructure projects, the average time for development consent order applications to be decided increased by 65% between 2012 and 2021, and demand on the system is only increasing. We are therefore bringing forward reforms, as set out in the NSIP action plan, to speed up the process for users of the NSIP planning system, to grow our economy, achieve our environmental and net zero goals and level up jobs and opportunities for local communities.
Jacob Young
I am sorry, but I am very tight for time and I want to come to some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned.
I turn to community engagement. Early engagement between developers and communities is essential to understanding the impacts of energy development in local areas and to securing appropriate mitigation where impacts cannot be avoided. It is key to securing benefits from projects.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned solar farms. The Government recognise the need to preserve our most productive farmland, as far as possible. The Government seek large-scale ground-mounted solar deployment across mainly brownfield, industrial and low and medium-grade agricultural land. Where significant development on agricultural land is shown to be necessary, the NPPF sets out that areas of poor land quality should be used in preference to those of higher quality. It is proposed that any use of land that falls under Natural England’s BMV—best and most versatile—agricultural land classification will need to be justified during the consideration of a planning application.
Sir John Hayes
Can the Minister say that grade 1, 2 and 3 agricultural land will not be appropriate, and that that will be in the policy? Furthermore, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) gave me a commitment on wind that topography will be a factor and that wind cannot be sited in areas that will have a disproportionate impact on the landscape.
Jacob Young
I hope to come on to my right hon. Friend’s second point. On agricultural land, the BMV classification covers land in grades 1, 2 and 3a, but not 3b.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham for her comments on the plans between Norwich and Tilbury. I am unable to comment on the case directly, but I know that she has met numerous Ministers. She is a brilliant campaigner and champion for her constituents in Essex. If she is struggling to get further meetings, I will help to arrange them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned rooftop solar. We have recently consulted on changes to permitted development rights for both domestic and non-domestic ground and rooftop solar; further details will be announced in due course. I note her questions and points about solar tracking, and the clarity that she has provided. She is well informed—I certainly was not aware of some of the challenges. At this stage, I am not aware of planned changes to solar tracking, but I will ask the planning Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud and to hear the case in respect of companies such Bee Solar and how the rules could evolve with the technology.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon for her work in establishing the all-party parliamentary group for the Celtic sea. I cannot give her the assurance that she seeks today, but I will ask my officials to meet her and her councillors to discuss what she has mentioned and help them to assess the energy system in local plans.
On the points made about planning resourcing, the reason why the planning Minister is not here today is that she is upstairs in a Committee on a statutory instrument that will increase planning fees by 35% for major applications and 25% in other cases. I hope that that goes some way to addressing the points made by the hon. Member for Bath.
I thank hon. Members again; I hope I have left enough time for my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud to respond.