Deaths of Members
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the deaths of the noble Lords, Lord Desai, on 29 July, Lord Sawyer, on 3 August, and Lord Paul, on 21 August. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lords’ families and friends.
Death of a Former Member: Lord Boswell of Aynho
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell of Aynho, on 30 August. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lord’s family and friends.
Retirements of Members
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I should like to notify the House of the retirements, with effect from 25 July, of the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan of Partick, and from 31 August, of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I thank the noble Lords for their much-valued service to the House.
Civil Service: Artificial Intelligence Productivity Gains
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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Viscount Camrose
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of productivity gains across the Civil Service resulting from the deployment of artificial intelligence; and how they are measuring and evaluating these gains.
Viscount Camrose (Con)
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and, in so doing, draw noble Lords’ attention to my technology interests as set out in the register.
The Minister of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Lord Vallance of Balham) (Lab)
The Government have assessed the potential productivity gains from AI across the Civil Service, identifying which solutions are most effective and that will scale. We conducted the world’s largest trial of general-purpose AI tools, such as Copilot, to measure their impact and benefit. These evaluations inform which technologies deliver which outcomes and will enable us to prioritise adoption. Our assessment indicates significant economic benefits from widespread, well-targeted AI deployment across His Majesty’s Government.
Viscount Camrose (Con)
My Lords, in May, the Government announced a rightly ambitious plan to drive tens of billions of pounds per year in Civil Service productivity savings through AI. In June, they estimated that use of AI tools was saving civil servants 26 minutes a day. Even if that is true, the Minister will agree that time savings, however welcome, do not equate to productivity. Now that the Government have spent £573 million on AI tools and consulting for the Civil Service, how will they measure productivity gains to rapidly build on successes and shut down failures?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
The figure of £573 million is, of course, forward spend, so that is not what has been spent; it is a commitment over the next few years. It is important that we measure this. Guidance on how to measure the impact of AI tools was issued last year; there is a rigorous process for doing that. On the 26 minutes that has been picked up by the Copilot study, it is of course a general AI tool. Much greater savings come with specific uses in specific areas, which will not be general across the Civil Service.
The noble Lord is quite right to point out that time saving is not productivity, but what we do know from studies elsewhere and across business is that, when you get those time savings, about half of it goes on core tasks, about a quarter is on other strategic and creative work and about 25% goes on enhanced well-being. That is what we might expect as a result. There is a lot to do to make sure that we implement this properly across the Civil Service.
Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)
My Lords, would my noble friend the Minister also consider assessing productivity gains from basing civil servants in the regions rather than in London? In my view, as an ex-regional Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber, that would be an effective way of ensuring that the Government were focused on reducing regional inequalities and encouraging regional growth.
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for the question. I am not going to try to add the regional Civil Service to my brief, but I will say that this is exactly the sort of area where AI is rather good at working out whether there is a benefit, because it can spot patterns that are difficult to spot individually or by human endeavour. This is a place where you could begin to see what the real impacts are and what drives success rates in the regions.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as an adviser to DLA Piper on AI policy and regulation. Given that the Government have just set up a sovereign AI unit with a budget of £500 million to promote domestic AI leadership, what steps are being taken to ensure that British companies and start-ups have fair access to Civil Service AI contracts rather than defaulting to large US tech corporations? Why is the UK Civil Service so heavily reliant on procurement from major US technology firms such as Microsoft—the Minister mentioned Copilot—OpenAI and Google, rather than focusing on developing its own domestic AI tools and platforms?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. I have a full Question on sovereign AI on Wednesday, when I will answer that question in more detail, but in the meantime let me say that there is not a some inbuilt bias against that; it is just that many of the large language models are, of course, from US companies, and those are the ones that are available at the moment. However, the sovereign AI unit will use that £500 million specifically to stimulate UK companies as well.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we have time to hear from the Cross Benches.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, while the results from the landmark Civil Service AI trial are clearly encouraging, does the Minister agree that it highlights the urgent need to train up public sector workers across all departments on the effective and appropriate use of generative AI? I suggest that such training and guidance apply in particular to us—by which I mean noble Lords on all sides of this Chamber.
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
It was interesting to see the report from MIT last week on the use of AI across companies, which noted that 95% of companies got very little benefit and 5% got massively disproportionate benefit. One of the reasons why you get much greater benefit is training people properly and allowing there to be proper disruption of existing workflows—so I completely agree with the question. What the noble Lord is talking about is an important part of this, which is why there is a series of schemes across the Civil Service, including the senior Civil Service, both to recruit people with AI skills and to train staff.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former Minister for the Civil Service—although it was an awfully long time ago. The record shows that the biggest increase in output and productivity in the Civil Service and the biggest fall in numbers in modern times occurred between about 1972 and 1982. Of course, the driving force for that was not so much energy efficiency, although there were attempts to improve that, as removing whole industrial functions from the public sector. The Civil Service numbers fell from about 815,000 down to about 510,000 in 1982. That was an enormous cost. The lesson of that is that, if one really wants to increase productivity and slim the Civil Service, as I believe the Government do, there should be the removal of whole functions from the Civil Service—in this case, the industrial Civil Service—into the private sector.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
The question is: what areas are the Government going to look at now to remove functions from the state sector, which will be the sure way to increase productivity and reduce numbers?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
It is an area where AI is important, because AI does just that. There are certain things AI does to improve the efficiency of what is already done, and certain areas in which it does things that cannot currently be done. Both of those areas will lead to disruption of current workflows. This goes back to my previous answer: the disruption of workflow around AI is the big change management challenge.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, my experience of introducing technology—not AI but other technologies—to large organisations is that there is a huge cultural aspect. I agree that training is very important, but does the Minister agree that, for AI to succeed, the entire workforce has to want it to succeed? How are the Government and Civil Service going to embrace the huge cultural change required to take full advantage of this technology?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I agree, and I have alluded to that in previous answers. The challenge is a cultural one around workflow. I go back to the MIT report, which shows that, especially in big companies, there are high levels of adoption and low levels of disruption. The challenge is to get high levels of adoption with appropriate disruption taking place. That is a cultural challenge. That is why not only training but leadership are needed to make this happen.
Lord Markham (Con)
My Lords, we are all aware that probably the biggest challenge in government is productivity in the NHS, which has declined by about 20% since the pandemic. However, in none of the conversations and negotiations on the resident doctors’ dispute have we heard about productivity being a key part of the solution. Can the Minister reassure us that we really are trying to drive productivity gains, so that any wage increases can be fully justified?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord. I can certainly reassure him that AI in the health service is going to be one of the big areas where changes occur. It is going to introduce changes in a number of ways. The first is in workflow organisation, which is key for the NHS to look at. The second is in new treatments and ways of diagnosing. It is already being used to reduce the need for humans to look at X-rays and so on to get them through more quickly, so there is an efficiency gain. There are also new approaches, such as using AI to make sure that remote monitoring—for example, taking photographs of suspicious moles and seeing if they are malignant—is potentially massively enhanced. There are many opportunities for productivity improvement through AI.
Palestinian Territories: Development Support
Lord Polak
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps, beyond the potential recognition of a Palestinian state, they are taking to support the development of the Palestinian territories, including best practice in governance, anti-corruption measures, and institutional capacity-building.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government recognise that a reformed Palestinian Authority is essential to long-term stability and development, and in advancing a two-state solution. The UK continues to contribute substantial official development assistance for the OPTs, alongside providing humanitarian relief for Palestinians and support for Palestinian economic development. We will strengthen governance, accountability and civic space in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including supporting the Palestinian Authority to deliver its reform agenda.
Lord Polak (Con)
I was at Kerem Shalom last week and saw full trucks going into Gaza and empty ones coming out. What talks have HMG had with COGAT to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which gets food supplies directly to the people at no financial cost, as opposed to other agencies, where food is confiscated by Hamas, forcing the needy to pay?
Capacity building is important, but are we not wasting British taxpayers’ money when Palestinian textbooks for the new academic year—this year, and I am holding the book—are teaching 14 year-olds, on page 40, to lionise suicide bombers, praise Palestinian daggers slashing Israeli throats and call on students to remember the image of burned Israelis? Is there any point in sending the British people’s hard-earned cash to support a Palestinian state, when Palestinian children are being indoctrinated and incited by these grotesque images, and 48 hostages are still being held?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I recognise and commend the work that the noble Lord does to bring about a future for the people of Israel and the people of Palestine. He knows and I know—and I think there is broad agreement—that the right future here is for a two-state solution. Our view is that the best way to bring that about, or when that does happen, is for there to be a Palestinian Authority that has the capacity and capability to be able to run the future state in a way that we would all wish to see.
The points that the noble Lord raises about textbooks are valid. That is one reason why we want to work with the Palestinian Authority to reform how this is done—and there are other issues, too, which I am sure will be raised in this exchange.
On the issue of food, I am glad that the noble Lord has been, and I am glad that he saw some aid trucks going in. However, the sad truth of this is that what is going in is a very small fraction of what is needed. More than 2,000 people have been killed trying to access aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation; it is failing to deliver aid in the volume needed. The IPC has now designated famine, and we expect that thousands of children will die in the coming months unless the levels of aid are dramatically increased. I know that that is what the noble Lord wants to see as well—nobody in this Chamber is arguing that that is an acceptable situation. What we have to do is to work out how to persuade the Government of Israel, who are the only people who are able to allow that aid in, to get the aid, the medical supplies, the people and the water to where it is needed to save those lives, and that must be done immediately.
Lord Pannick (CB)
My Lords, today is the 695th day in captivity of the hostages taken on 7 October. Do the Government accept that there can be no progress in addressing the tragedy of Gaza unless and until all those hostages, and the dead bodies retained by Hamas, are returned to Israel?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I cannot see a situation where there is any kind of peace, lasting or otherwise, that comes about without the release of those hostages. What their families have been forced to endure for far too long is unimaginable for many of us. Many of us here have met the families of those hostages. Thank goodness some of them have been released, but, as the noble Lord says, many have not. We call on anybody who has any ability to help to bring it about that those people are released and tragically, in too many cases, that their bodies are returned, and for that to happen immediately.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that a future Palestinian state is going to need as many well-qualified individuals as possible to make things happen? In the light of that, I congratulate the Government on having agreed to take some students from Gaza. Will the Minister confirm that about 80 of these have been offered places in British universities? Will they all be able to come, and will they be given the financial support to take up their places?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Clearly, what has happened in regard to the students is through no fault of those students—it is a very difficult situation. We are talking to our colleagues in the Home Office, and they obviously—and we understand why—want to make sure that all the necessary security clearances are obtained. That is not easy in this context, and we may well in the next few minutes talk about the medical evacuation of children as well. These things need to be done, and they need to be done responsibly. It is absolutely devastating what has happened to the life chances and educational prospects of some of the brightest and most able young people in Gaza, who, as the noble Lord says, should be making a contribution to the future of their country.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, Prime Minister Netanyahu has spoken openly of his vision for a so-called “Greater Israel”: a vision of permanent war, illegal settlement and, presumably, the occupation of other sovereign countries. Do the Government accept the reality that Israel seems determined to make a Palestinian state impossible and will continue to expand, at the expense of Palestinian survival and the prospects for peace in the entire region? What concrete action have the Government taken to make it clear that these outrageous plans are completely unacceptable?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
One of the reasons that the Prime Minister made the statement on recognition at the beginning of the Recess was specifically to keep the prospect of a two-state solution alive. Some of the actions that the Government of Israel have taken recently have made that less likely and harder to envisage, so we have taken the decision that, should the situation remain as it is at the UN General Assembly at the end of this month, we will take what I think is the hugely significant step of recognising the state of Palestine.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, following on from the answer that the noble Baroness has just given, of course, the Government lose no opportunity to lecture us on how much they support and are bound by the concept of international law. The Montevideo convention sets out in international law the four criteria that constitute a state. Will the noble Baroness tell the House specifically which of those criteria are filled by the state of Palestine that they are about to recognise?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I am afraid that there is nothing in my tone this afternoon that has been in any way lecturing or hectoring. I have been clear about our reasons for reaching a position where we feel that we have to consider recognising the state of Palestine. We will do that in the right way, in the situation that I have described and that the Prime Minister has described at great length, at the General Assembly at the end of September.
Baroness Berger (Lab)
My Lords, one of the most important things we can do to help create a Palestinian state that we all want to see is the Government’s work to support reform of the Palestinian Authority, which should form an embryonic state. What update can the Minister provide us specifically on Michael Barber’s vital work supporting governance reform of the PA?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I think the noble Baroness’s question is incredibly constructive and it is our view that the Palestinian Authority is the only viable leadership for a future Palestinian state. As she said, Sir Michael Barber has been doing work for some time now on trying to improve capacity and to work with the Palestinian Authority on issues such as taxation, civic space and democratic reform, all things that we fully accept need to happen in order for a future Palestinian state to be safe and successful.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, the viability of any potential Palestinian state must surely depend not just on effective institutions but on credible, capable political leadership. What assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the prospect of that emerging in the Palestinian Territories in the near term?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I might suggest that the noble and gallant Lord defines “near term”. Clearly, there is a great deal of work to do, but that should not put us off. If it is our position, which it is, that we want to see a two-state solution and that the Palestinian Authority is the only viable leadership for the state of Palestine, it is our duty and responsibility to work with those people in as constructive, open and positive a way as we can. I am very pleased with the support that we have been able to provide and I am glad that Michael Barber has done what he has done. My only regret is that it may well be some considerable time before we see the fruits of our work in the establishment of a sustained peace and the two-state solution that so many of us wish to see.
Children: Dangers of Screen Time
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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Baroness Laing of Elderslie
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the dangers of screen time for children.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government recognise concerns about the impacts of screen time and are committed to protecting children online. We are continuing to explore how the evidence base on the impact of screen time on children can be improved, because the science is uncertain on the relationship between screen time, social media use and child development. We are assessing evidence gaps and will consider what, if any, further research and action are needed.
Baroness Laing of Elderslie (Con)
I thank the Minister for her Answer and appreciate what she says about conflicting evidence, but does she agree with me that there is a problem and that teachers need help solving it? Given that situation, will the Government now advise schools to strictly limit screen time for children, including the screen time in which it is expected that they will do their homework, and thus strengthen the ability of individual teachers to deal with what is undoubtedly recognised as a problem?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that teachers, parents and early years settings are concerned to make sure that they get the use of screens right and bear in mind what the evidence tells us—for example, that overuse of screen time will tend to displace other important activity, such as physical activity or sleep. That is why the Government have already issued advice to parents on those issues and updated our advice for early years settings. It is also why we are clear that mobile phones have no place in schools, for example, and that new criteria around filtering and monitoring standards should be in place. We will continue to support our teachers, as well as parents, in trying to get the balance right for all our children.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the Department for Education is requiring the reception baseline assessment for four and five year-olds to use the format of touchscreen devices. There is concern that the introduction of a screen-based element to assessment for the youngest children will encourage and embed an approach to early years education that is at odds with a healthy approach to child development. There is considerable evidence that even limited screen use by very young children carries negative impacts spanning cognitive, linguistic and emotional development, and educational attainment. Will the Minister tell us how we can allay those fears?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
There are two separate points in the noble Lord’s question. I very much agree that the safety of our youngest children in particular should be a priority and that we should continue to monitor and review early years safeguarding requirements and guidance. As I suggested earlier, we have already updated the guidance regarding online safety and appropriate device and screen usage in early years settings. That is linked to advice from the World Health Organization on appropriate usage, particularly sedentary usage, of screen time. The point about assessment is different. My understanding is that the tool the noble Lord references will be used on a short-term basis and largely by teachers, working alongside students. We do not want to be in a position of suggesting that there is no use for technology and screens as we develop our assessment, whether for young children or older children. However, his broader point is right. That is why the Government have provided advice already and are continuing the research necessary, to be clear about what is appropriate use for children.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, the Minister may well have seen an interview with some young people at the end of last term. They are in a school where there has been agreement between the school, the parents and the young people that there will be no screen time, other than for educational purposes, in the school. The thing that was most striking about the reaction of these young people was how they had made a whole range of other friends. Previously, when they had breaks they would always go on their phones—and their thumbs would be going at 90 mph—but once that was not allowed they actually talked to their fellow pupils and developed a whole range of new friendships. It is a very important part of children’s social development.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord, with his very extensive knowledge, makes two important points. First, when we are talking about the impact of screen time we need to involve young people in describing and thinking about where there should be controls and what the alternatives are. Secondly, to go back to my point about screen time displacing other activity, there are fears that screen time displaces appropriate sleep, appropriate physical activity and, sometimes, as the noble Lord has rightly said, the interesting conversations that we are able to have with our colleagues that I am so much looking forward to now that we have returned from the Summer Recess.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that it appears that mobile phones have replaced dummies, with children using them at a very early age? Do we not need to get across to parents that this is not a good idea, given that we know that young children’s brains are developing faster than at any other time in their lives?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
This is precisely why advice is provided by the Government—for example, through the Chief Medical Officer; by ParentZone through videos that it has produced specifically to focus on screen time, with practical advice to parents on how to set boundaries; and the early years guidance that I was talking about that links to the World Health Organization guidance, which, as the noble Lord says, identifies that there is really very little benefit, particularly from sedentary use of screen time, for very small children. I hope all those things will support parents in making the appropriate decisions to support their children in doing things other than simply looking at screens.
Baroness Barran (Con)
Given what the Minister has just said and the points made by the noble Lord opposite, what is stopping the Government following the French health ministry in banning screens entirely in childcare settings for children under three?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I think here, once again, it is important that we are clear, first, about the evidence of the impact of screens and, secondly, that there are times when there are benefits from the active use of screens. I know that noble Lords opposite have pushed on bans—whether that is for mobile phones in schools or apparently a new ban now—but, while all of us are concerned about this, it is a complex area in which there are benefits as well as disbenefits. It is appropriate for us to build our policy developments and the practice in our schools and early years centres on evidence and that is why the Government are also working hard to build the evidence base in this area.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, many young people watch a variety of shows on their small screens, including new films. How are the Government encouraging these films to be seen more widely in the cinema, where they belong?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Earl has tempted me very far out of my policy area, I have to say. My understanding is that cinemas have seen a growth in people going to see films there. Certainly, I know that young people in my life are very keen to carry on going to the cinema as well as watching a whole variety of media in different ways on their screens. The important thing is that we have control over the content of what they are watching, and that is why the Online Safety Act is so important. As I said previously, we are also clear that excessive time spent on a screen can prevent you from doing a whole range of other things which are also fun and important for your life.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that if schools—especially those for younger children—were to place more emphasis on reading books, that would help ameliorate the problem to a certain extent? There is a follow-on problem in that many state schools, especially those for younger children, have very poor libraries, which need a lot more books.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an important point about reading, which is why I am sure he is pleased that the Government have announced that 2026 will be a national year of reading, with lots of opportunities through our schools, communities and libraries for children to learn about the benefits of books and reading.
Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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Lord Randall of Uxbridge
To ask His Majesty’s Government when they intend to introduce activity regulations under the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023 provides a framework for the introduction of future bans on the advertising and offering for sale, in England and Northern Ireland, of low-welfare animal activities abroad. We are currently engaging with both industry and stakeholders to explore the most effective way to protect animals in specific low-welfare activities abroad from considerable suffering and unacceptable practices. We are therefore looking at both legislative and non-legislative options.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)
I thank the Minister for her reply. She said that this is an important piece of legislation, which was piloted through this Chamber by my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood. It is now two years since this important legislation was passed with strong cross-party support from the then Opposition, and indeed from the Minister herself, and we still have not seen these regulations. Can the Minister now give us a clear and transparent timetable for the introduction of the regulations?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Lord is correct. As he is aware, I strongly supported the then Bill when it went through Parliament, because I do not want to see the abuse of animals in any circumstances. However, having looked at the Act and how to take it forward, there are certain challenges to ensure that it is effective when it is brought in. There is no point having legislation that is not going to do what we want it to do. First, it has to be clear for advertisers and enforcement bodies which activities are in scope, so we are looking at which activities to prioritise and bring into scope. We need to determine whether an advertised activity meets the criteria for being low welfare, because we need to ensure that high-welfare activities are not inadvertently impacted. We also need to ensure that the party placing the advert can be identified. This is complex, because it is about banning advertising only in this country, whereas many advertised holidays are not from organisations based here and the activities are abroad. It is complex, but I am determined that we get this right.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of media reports suggesting that this appalling practice is on the increase? In the light of that, what urgent support and guidance can she provide for the UK tourism industry that could be used right now to reduce this immediately, particularly given the current delay that she described in the introduction and implementation of the Act?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
One reason I talked about non-legislative options is that we want to stop people buying such holidays in the first place. One problem is that, when people book a holiday with an elephant ride, they simply do not understand what has happened to that elephant and how it has been treated so that it can be ridden—so there is an education piece. It is currently the case that ABTA, which represents around 90% of British travel agents, offers guidance, working with its own members, as to what kind of activities are considered to be unacceptable. That guidance is there and we have been working with ABTA to look at how we can encourage further uptake—90% is a high number, but it is not everybody.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I do not often ask questions. I am prepared to bet that if the Minister was still sitting on this side, she would be berating the Government for dragging their feet. I would like to ask that selfsame question, connected with another more practical one: when may we expect some regulations? Will it be in months or in years?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I am so sorry to disappoint the noble Baroness, but I cannot give her a date. All I can say is that it is something I am actively looking at and working on. We are shortly going to be publishing the animal welfare strategy, which I have been preparing over the last 12 months; that will be out before the end of the year. We are including this within the animal welfare strategy as something that we want to deliver.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, following my almost namesake, since we humans are also animals, is there any way the Government can stop Members of Parliament carrying out low-level activities abroad rather than attending Westminster or their constituency—mentioning no names?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I would imagine that is probably an education piece.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm what specific criteria or evidence the Government are using to determine which activities abroad will be considered low welfare under the forthcoming regulations?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I am determined to look at what makes the biggest difference. The whole essence of my approach to animal welfare is what makes the biggest difference, where are the most animals suffering abuse, and what can we do to try to reduce that. Those are the criteria we are looking at.
Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)
My Lords, I had the privilege of taking this legislation through this House, with the support of the Minister. I am profoundly disappointed that, two years after it reached the statute book, it has not been implemented, letting down the 150 charities which campaigned for it and the animals it would protect. Does the Minister recall the terrible fate of 20 year-old Andrea Taylor, who was violently killed on a visit to the Nongnooch resort in Thailand when an elephant which had been brutalised charged her? She is one of the many tourists killed or injured because this legislation is not yet effectively in place. Is it not unacceptable that until this law is implemented by regulation, tragically, there will be more Andrea Taylors?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I congratulate the noble Lord on sponsoring the Bill; I was very happy to support him. I point out that it may be two years since the legislation, but I have not been the Minister for two years. That is not to say that it has not been some time. I have met campaigners and stakeholders, and I am determined to take this through. It is, unfortunately, proving to be more complex than I would have liked, and I am absolutely aware of the tragic case he talks about. That is why we need to work not just on the legislation but more broadly than that. People can still buy these holidays online, advertised from other countries. We need to look not just at the legislation we can bring forward through this particular Act but much more broadly.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, there is a pattern emerging from the Minister’s department, in that we continue to have a similar situation around the regulations on deforestation and forest risk products. What can she do to ensure her department turns the will of Parliament into legislation rather more quickly than seems to be happening at the moment?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I am aware of what the noble Lord is talking about regarding deforestation. I have been working with Minister Creagh from the other place on this and we are looking at the best way to take it forward.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us whether the civil servants working on this and other issues have timeframes for these decisions? It seems to me that they should know how long it will take to conduct some sort of investigation and come forward with policies, so that the House will have some idea of when things are going to change.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The Civil Service animal welfare team in Defra is extremely committed and works incredibly hard. This is a very broad area, with many areas of animal welfare that we are working on at the same time. This is something that we want to deliver on. I know the team is working very hard with both industry and stakeholders to look at the best way to bring legislation forward.
Lord Borwick (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the commitment previously given to provide an opt-out for certified zoos will be part of these regulations when they are published?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I assume that the activities the noble Lord is referring to regarding zoos are high-welfare activities. As I said, we are looking at how best to bring legislation forward. For any activity to be exempt, there would need to be compelling, sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the activity was high welfare and therefore not to be constrained by any legislation coming forward. Part of the work in developing future legislation is considering how best to do that.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
Monday 1st September 2025
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
Lords ChamberPlanning and Infrastructure Bill 2024-26 View all Planning and Infrastructure Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 110-III(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Third Marshalled List) - (1 Sep 2025)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is a drafting correction which would remove the definition of “qualifying distribution agreement” from clause 16. The definition is unnecessary because the term is already defined for the purposes of clause 16 in clause 13(8).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 72 in my name seeks to leave out lines 12 and 13 on page 22 of the Bill, removing the additional definition of “qualifying distribution agreement”. It is a straightforward technical amendment. Its purpose is to tidy up the drafting of the Bill by removing a definition that is no longer required. The term “qualifying distribution agreement” is already defined in Clause 13(8), following other changes made during the passage of the Bill. The amendment will help ensure that the legislation is clear, coherent and free from unnecessary or redundant definitions. It will not alter the substance or effect of the policy but support the overall clarity and workability of the Bill.
I hope that the Committee will support this amendment. I look forward to the debate on the other amendments in this group; I will reserve comment on them until I make my winding-up remarks. I beg to move.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for being so brief and to the point and for allowing me the opportunity to explain the purpose of the other amendments in this group in my name, which are Amendments 73 to 76. Like the Minister, I look forward to hearing from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about grid capacity in his Amendment 79. I remind the Committee of my registered interest as chair of development forums in Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire.
My amendments relate to Clause 17, which contains a power to give Ministers the opportunity to designate strategic plans for the purposes of the connection reforms that are taking place in relation to the transmission and distribution networks. I suppose it would be helpful—not least because it will connect to what the noble Earl, Lord Russell, will raise—for me to remind the House that this process is under way. In effect, it was commenced by the Connections Action Plan under the previous Administration in November 2023. A simple way of expressing it is by saying that there was a lot of commitment to future substantial increases in generating capacity in a range of technologies, which were increasingly forming a queue to book their potential connection to the transmission or distribution networks. However, there was considerable risk related to whether those projects would be delivered on time or at all.
The volume of such commitments made it very clear that a significant proportion of them would not be viable, because there would be an excess of what was required. The numbers varied, but I think the latest figure was something like 714 gigawatts of grid capacity relative to about 500 gigawatts of demand. Instead of the old regime, which can be characterised as “first ready, first connected”—namely, those who were planning to provide capacity simply booked a place in the queue and then, when they were ready, they were given a right to be connected—the intention now is for there to be strategic planning behind the process leading to the net-zero objectives in 2030, which were published under the Government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan last December.
Since then, Ofgem and the National Energy System Operator have been working on this. For the avoidance of doubt, references in Clause 17 to the independent system operator and planner, ISOP, are actually to the National Energy System Operator, or NESO. Ofgem agreed on its methodologies, I think in April, and has now, after consultation, approved the processes. I think that we are in a position—but the Minister can correct me if there is more detail—where we are anticipating, potentially in a matter of weeks, the first allocation of commitments by Ofgem to what is known as Gate 2. As I understand it, Gate 2 means that Ofgem will say that it is committed to these projects and that they will be connected to the transmission or distribution networks when they are ready and because they are needed.
There are two differences with that approach. First, the queue will be straightforward; it will be not just “first ready, first connected” but “first ready, first needed, first connected”. Secondly, the two criteria that Ofgem will apply, in the first instance, will be that there is a clear timetable—with milestones, which, if they are not met, may cause such projects to lose their place in that queue—and that they will be connected when they are needed. There is therefore a direct relationship between the strategic planning for electricity capacity in a range of technologies and the projects that NESO agrees will be brought in to supply the grid at given times in the future.
If I understand it correctly, the present strategic objective is set out in the connections annexe to the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. It sets out a range of technologies, and capacities that are required in those technologies, and then breaks them down by regions across the country. There is therefore a plan to which the alignment should relate. The Explanatory Notes state that the designated strategic plan according to which the National Energy System Operator should work may be, for example, the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, so we can see the relationship with that.
The Explanatory Notes do not say this, but the Delegated Powers Committee’s memorandum from the department did: in addition, the designated plans are intended to include the strategic spatial energy plan intended to be published in 2026. That is in addition to what is in the clean power plan, which has 2030 targets and ranges for its potential capacity requirements through to 2035, and will extend that to 2050 so that there is a longer strategic alignment between the people who are making substantial investments and the commitment on the part of the grid to take that supply into the grid.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my recorded register of interests: I am a non-executive director and a board member of the Water Retail Company. I will speak to my Amendment 79 and respond to the amendments on connections reform.
Amendment 79 calls on the Government to insert a new clause into the Planning and Infrastructure Bill under the heading of “increasing grid capacity” and proposes that, within three months of the Bill becoming law, the Secretary of State should publish a plan to achieve two simple yet crucial objectives: to reduce the cost and the time taken for new connections to the electrical transmission or distribution system; and to permit the development of local energy grids. The need for this amendment should be beyond reasonable doubt. I am concerned that, if these reforms are not made, we will not be capable of meeting the Government’s stated objective, which we share, to achieve clean power by 2030—a key step on our overall climate change and energy targets.
To decarbonise, we must electrify. Electricity demand is set to rise by at least 11% before 2030 and at least double by 2050. How we heat our homes, how we travel and how we power our industry must all be by electricity, which demands wiring everything up and ensuring that both low-voltage and high-voltage networks are fit for purpose. I would argue that this is one of the biggest societal energy changes since the Industrial Revolution and is only some five years away, which is merely the blink of an eye in planning terms. At present, the delay in getting grid connections is one of the greatest obstacles to decarbonisation, to developing new housing and industry, and to increasing our economic output as a country. Our businesses and communities are waiting seven to 10 years—even longer in some cases—before they can secure the right to feed clean energy into the system or to make power connections. Developers in grid hotspots—or “not spots”, potentially—are reporting connection waits of several years as being typical.
We need to be prepared and to get this stuff done. My amendment is designed to help do that. If we are going to be a leader in renewable energy and to get all the renewable energy in place, the grid connection system needs to be reformed. I very much recognise the Government’s recent reforms to try to update the grid connection system. In April 2025, working alongside Ofgem and the National Energy System Operator—NESO—the Government announced reforms to prioritise clean energy and infrastructure for grid access, aiming to eliminate so-called zombie or speculative projects and to fast-track the shovel-ready schemes that are set to go. The new target model option, TMO4+, introduces stricter queue management, milestone targets and progressive penalties for lagging projects, as well as prioritising the projects that are crucial for clean power and our overall economic growth.
These reforms are intended to help deliver that 2030 clean power plan, unlocking up to £15 billion in investment and supporting a more responsive and modern grid system. These are all steps in the right direction, and we definitely welcome how the Government have made progress since they came to power, but I feel that more needs to be done, hence the amendment that I put forward here. I worry that, if we do not do more, we will simply not be ready and will not hit these targets.
The second element of my amendment touches on local energy grids. Local energy grids are still in their infancy, but my party very much supports them. They empower our local communities and help them to benefit from the clean power revolution that is coming. Their efforts are quiet, modest and determined, and I want this Government to do more to support them. I believe they are essential in galvanising public support and helping the Government to take communities with them on this journey. Alongside many others across both Houses of Parliament, I fought to get community energy into the Great British Energy Act and I am delighted to have done that.
However, more help is needed to get this stuff over the line. Local energy grids are important and will benefit the country. They help to make the grid more secure and resilient. They reduce the need for transmission and the loss of transmission time, and they reduce the need to invest in the high-voltage grid overall. They take our communities with us and bring support. We all need that: this Government need that and we need that. Our communities should benefit from the revolution that is taking place. My amendment is designed to help and to support the Government. My hope is that the Government can support this amendment, or it would be appreciated if they brought forward an amendment on Report.
I turn briefly to the other amendments in this group. I recognise that the Minister has put forward a drafting amendment and we are fine with that. On Amendments 73 to 76 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, we recognise what they are about and welcome the questions that the noble Lord raises. These are important issues, which we should discuss in Committee, about the replication of policy and policy statements, and how those systems are set up and will work in practice.
However, as we go into this rapid period of change, my worry is that, if his amendments are passed, we could end up with a system that is centralised more in Westminster, is less responsive to the changes that need to happen at pace and at scale and is not as well connected to the communities and those on the ground facing change. Those would be my general concerns with those amendments, if agreed, but I look forward to the Minister’s response and I think it is important that those amendments were raised. I look forward to further debate on this group.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, connections reform is very important if we are to give the grid capacity. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, is right in wanting to speed things up and to ensure that these connections are not too costly. That matters whether you want more renewable energy in the mix or would prefer—as I would—to continue with a mixed supply, including better and continued use of North Sea oil and gas.
However, the fact is that the grid is not resilient and everything is too slow. We have too many layers of decision-making, too much strategising, too many bureaucratic rules and, therefore, not enough speed and determination. I know that that is behind the Government’s planning reforms. I fear that my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendments could also slow things down, but he may be able to reassure me on that. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how we can ensure that these changes will speed things up and get us the reforms that we need, if the economy and the energy economy are to work well in the months and years ahead.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Lansley’s approach of being specific about what it is that developers and investors should be looking at instead of what the latest designated strategy might be. This approach also makes sure that we do not end up with more reasons for judicial review, when it is left to judges to determine what is the strategy or where there is nuance and so on. My noble friend made points about making that direct link to understanding a moment in time and that the measure has been through the parliamentary aspect of the process, initiated by the Government of course. That simplicity will in fact help the Government in achieving a lot of the aims which they seek.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to this group of amendments, which relate to the connections reform provisions within the Bill. These are largely technical and drafting amendments, but they are none the less important to ensure clarity and alignment across the legislation. I agree with many of the issues raised by my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Coffey, particularly anything that slows down the grid connections process or adds more cost to the consumer.
Let me start by welcoming Amendment 72, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, which, as she stated in her admirably brief opening, makes a simple drafting correction. It removes the definition of “qualifying distribution agreement” from Clause 16, as it is already defined in Clause 13(8). This is a helpful tidying up amendment that improves the consistency of the Bill’s language, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for bringing it forward.
Amendments 73 to 76, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, would also serve to improve the clarity and coherence of the Bill, particularly in relation to NESO and its responsibilities. Amendment 73 would ensure that NESO is required to have regard to the strategy and policy statement under Section 165 of the Energy Act 2023, rather than the designated strategic plan. This helps to bring the language of the Bill in line with existing legislation and policy frameworks.
Amendment 74 makes a similar adjustment to Clause 17, ensuring that NESO must have regard to the strategic priorities set out in the strategy and policy statement under the 2023 Act. Amendment 75 then defines “strategic priorities” as those contained in the most recent strategy and policy statement issued under that Act—again reinforcing consistency and legal precision. Amendment 76 replaces references in Clause 17 to “designated strategic plans” with “strategic priorities”, to align terminology with Section 165 of the Energy Act 2023. My noble friend Lord Lansley has put forward a strong case for these changes to the Bill, and they appear to be sensible and constructive amendments.
Finally, Amendment 79, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, raises an important issue by highlighting the delays and high costs associated with connecting to the national grid. This amendment addresses a key barrier to energy development and considers the use of local grids as a way of improving efficiency.
This has been a good, thoughtful and short debate. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, it is reassuring to hear such a degree of consensus across the House that we all want to deliver the same thing from this—speeding up the connections process. I have expressed my frustration many times before in this House that it can take longer to get a grid connection than it did to build the whole of the A1(M). That is a just a nonsense and we have to move on from it.
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for their amendments, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Coffey, for their comments.
I am afraid I have to oppose the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. I understand how well intentioned they are and I greatly respect his experience in these areas, but they would have significant unintended consequences for the Government’s ability to respond swiftly and effectively to the evolving needs of our energy system.
At the heart of the amendments is a proposal to require that the strategy and policy statement, also known as SPS, designated under Part 5 of the Energy Act 2013 is used for the purpose of prioritising connections to the electricity network. I recognise the helpful attempt by the noble Lord to ensure consistency and clarity with regard to the obligations of Ofgem and the National Energy System Operator, NESO. I also fully recognise the importance of parliamentary scrutiny and do not for a moment suggest that we should seek to avoid that. But we must also be honest about the practical implications of this approach.
The SPS is subject to a rigorous process that is entirely appropriate for a high-level, overarching statement of policy. But it is not designed to accommodate the pace or specificity required to support the complex and fast-moving reforms we are undertaking to unblock and accelerate electricity network connections. We are entering a period of rapid transformation. The grid must decarbonise. New technologies are emerging. Electricity demand is shifting and increasing and the connections process must evolve to keep up.
In that context, the Government must be able to designate timely targeted guidance, potentially in the form of multiple documents, tailored to different parts of the sector, such as generation or demand connections, or technology-specific plans and strategies. Indeed, the Government have already signalled their intention to designate the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan and the Industrial Strategy—both existing documents published recently—when the necessary powers are available. These are concrete, strategic documents that will help the industry to plan and invest with confidence, hopefully meeting some of the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. But these amendments would prevent that. They would limit us to a single document—the SPS—and, in doing so, tie our hands at precisely the moment we need the most flexibility, creating potential delays and preventing the granular and specific strategic direction required for the grid connection process.
There is a further and more fundamental issue. Distribution network operators—DNOs—have no legal obligation to have regard to the SPS. These companies are critical to the delivery of connections reform and are responsible for connecting a significant volume of new generation and storage that will connect directly to the distribution network. They are privately owned and operated and the SPS was never intended to bind them. To attempt to do so now would be not only inappropriate but unworkable.
If we are serious about reforming the connections process—as I believe we are; we have heard that this afternoon—we must ensure that our strategic plans can apply to the full range of actors involved. That means having the ability to designate plans that are fit for purpose, timely and applicable to the right parties. The strategy and policy statement is a high-level strategic document intended to provide Ofgem and NESO with clear direction over the Government’s strategic priorities and desired outcomes for the duration of our term to inform decision-making. In contrast, as I have said, designated plans for the purpose of connections reform may include more granular, tactical guidance. These documents are designed to complement, not conflict with, the SPS.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, I would also say that plans are in place and being implemented for the connections to the transmission and distribution system. In November 2023, as the noble Lord mentioned, the Connections Action Plan was published, setting out expectations for the scale and pace of reform. This formed the basis for the National Energy System Operator’s connection reform proposals, which Ofgem have just approved. The broad ambition, on which legislative measures have been based, will see faster electricity network connection dates offered, at both transmission and distribution.
The noble Lord asked me a very specific question around the Gate 2 process. The implementation of current connection reforms is under way, as I said. We are working closely with NESO and Ofgem, and we are anticipating the Gate 2 decisions in the coming weeks; “coming weeks” is one of those expressions that I have got used to as I have been a Minister.
The Bill as drafted is intended to ensure that we have the tools to deliver the energy transition effectively. The measure as drafted strikes the right balance. We believe that it provides a clear mechanism for designating strategic plans while preserving the flexibility —which we know we will need—to respond to a rapidly changing sector. I therefore kindly ask the noble Lord not to press his amendments.
I turn now to Amendment 79, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. He said that he believes this is the biggest change since the Industrial Revolution in terms of power accessibility. I do not disagree with that statement. Let me begin by stating that we are in full agreement that the current delays arising from the first come, first served approach to grid connections are absolutely no longer tenable; I hope I have made that very clear. For this reason, in December 2024, the Government published the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. This document outlines our plan to work collaboratively with the National Energy System Operator—NESO—and Ofgem to deliver a fundamental overhaul of the connections process.
The objective is to accelerate connection timelines for the most critical projects and to unlock billions of pounds of investment for renewable energy generation. Through the implementation of these reforms, it is estimated that up to £5 billion in unnecessary network reinforcements could be avoided. In turn, this should lead to long-term savings for consumers through lower electricity bills.
The reforms in question have been developed by NESO in close consultation with both industry stakeholders and Ofgem, following all requisite formal procedures, including public consultation. Ofgem has since approved these proposals and implementation is now well under way, as I have already mentioned.
This Bill is intended to support the reforms. Notably, the Bill will confer powers on the Secretary of State to designate strategic plans. These plans must be taken into account by both NESO and distribution network operators when exercising their functions in relation to grid connections.
It is anticipated that the Secretary of State will initially designate the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan and the Industrial Strategy, followed in due course by the proposed strategic spatial energy plan. These strategic documents are designed to reflect the needs of the nation’s energy system, including measures to address the inefficiencies of the current grid queue by prioritising projects of greatest national importance. Introducing a new statutory requirement for a further plan would risk delaying this progress and might introduce unwelcome uncertainty for industry participants.
On the matter of local energy grids, we do not consider that there is any regulatory impediment. The necessary infrastructure, including local networks that integrate both generation and demand, is already permissible. Such networks may be developed and operated by distribution network operators or independent network providers, or under private wire arrangements via statutory licence exemptions.
We are also firmly committed to supporting local and community energy initiatives. These play a vital role in the UK’s broader energy landscape and we are determined to ensure that communities continue to benefit directly from the transition to clean energy. We will be discussing more about that later this afternoon.
To that end, Great British Energy will work in partnership with mayoral combined authorities, community energy organisations and the devolved Administrations. This collaboration will include the provision of funding and strategic support, from planning advice to technical guidance, for local community energy stakeholders. I trust this explanation provides sufficient reassurance to noble Lords.
Lord Lansley (Con)
I thank the Minister for that. Is it then the Government’s intention to publish a new strategy and policy statement under the Energy Act? At the moment, legislation requires Ofgem to have regard to what is effectively an out-of-date strategy.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I hope I picked up that question during my response. I will just check back to make sure that I got the wording right. I think that is the case but I will confirm it to the noble Lord in writing. Still, I think he is correct in his assumption.
I trust that explanation provides a sufficient response for the noble Lord, and I ask him not to press his amendment.
Earl Russell
“Extension of permitted developmentThe Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed—(a) make provision for the following to be included as permitted development—(i) upgrading of existing electricity lines from single to three phase;(ii) alteration of conductor type;(iii) increase in the height of distribution network supports to maintain minimum ground clearances under the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002;(iv) increase in the distance of supporting structures by up to 60m from their existing position when replacing an existing overhead line;(v) in relation to new connections from an existing line, an increase in nominal voltage to a maximum of 33kV and related increase in pole heights;(vi) upgrading of existing lines from 6.6kV to 11kV;(vii) installation of additional stays supporting wooden poles;(viii) upgrading of existing apparatus, including the increase of capacity of pole mounted transformers, subject to the provisions of section 37(1) of the Electricity Act 1989 (consent required for overhead lines) and the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002 (S.I. 2002/2665);(ix) temporary placement of a line for a period of up to two years;(b) consult on the introduction of further measures for the purposes of enabling electricity distribution network upgrades and reinforcements to be delivered as permitted development.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would expand permitted development rights for upgrades to the transmission network.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, the amendments in this group are all on the extension of permitted development. My Amendment 77 concerns the extension of permitted development rights for low-voltage electricity networks. It intends to help this Government achieve their ambition of a clean, affordable and secure energy system by 2030.
The amendment would enable clearly defined and modest upgrades to be treated as permitted development. That includes the upgrading of electricity lines from single to three-phase, the alteration of conduct type, modest increases in pole height where required by regulation, the temporary placement of lines to facilitate works and the reinforcement of existing apparatus such as pole-mounted transformers.
This is not a revolution; it is about pragmatism. These are modest technical improvements that would make our national grid fit for the 21st century. This is not about new infrastructure on green fields. This is needed simply because our electricity network, built decades ago, is fundamentally ill-equipped for the task required of it. I am increasingly worried about the capacity of the low-voltage grid and the investment in it. This is needed to bring electricity to our homes and to ensure that we can make the transitions we need to make—having electric vehicles and installing heat pumps to help us hit our clean-power targets.
At present, these modest network upgrades face planning processes that can take months and sometimes even years, often longer than building the relevant generation plant itself. That results in higher costs and, in some cases, stranded investment. Companies across the energy sector report the same difficulties: planning bottlenecks, slow permissions and land-acquisition rules that lag behind those of gas, water and telecoms. That is not right; there should be a level playing field for these things.
Without reform, costs for paying for clean generators to turn down because the grid cannot handle their power could soar from £2 billion a year today to £8 billion by the end of the decade. These costs are absorbed by companies and passed on to bill payers, who face higher bills. We need to get this stuff done and it needs to work. It takes a series of minor but essential upgrades and technical adjustments to equipment, not new developments, and relieves them of lengthy planning processes. Nothing in this amendment would reduce safety. Electricity safety, quality and continuity regulations remain firmly in place under Section 37 of the Electricity Act 1989, which still governs overhead powerline consents. The safeguards endure. What would change is that we would no longer require the full machinery of a planning inquiry simply to raise a pole by a few feet or to replace a conductor with a modern equivalent.
The benefits are clear. First, it would speed up bureaucracy and get things moving. Secondly, it would lower costs and avoid delays. Thirdly, it would help us achieve our climate and renewable targets. Fourthly, it would provide us with security and resilience in the system and help get electricity to our front doorsteps, where we need it. This amendment would also require consultation on further measures, ensuring that where wider reforms are proposed, the public and stakeholders are fully engaged. I am not asking for a blank cheque here; this is a carefully drafted step forward. The Government have said that this Bill is central to their plan for clean power by 2030, and we agree. This amendment is modest and seeks to help unlock the arteries to make sure that electricity can be delivered.
As I have said, this is slightly complicated because it is a shopping list of very minor improvements. But it reminds me of the approach of British Cycling, which found that a number of very small incremental differences, if implemented as a philosophy, made huge fundamental strides and gains in its ability to win and achieve its goals. The same is true with these amendments. More importantly, these are reforms and changes that DNOs and wider industry bodies are calling for, and that they say they need to achieve clean power. This is about making sure that they can do what they signed up to do to help secure more investment and get things moving.
As I am opening this group, I will circle back to the other amendments at the end. I do not want to speak to other people’s amendments before they have introduced them.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 185B, and I completely agree with the noble Earl on his amendment. I have tabled amendments on permitted development elsewhere in this Bill. It is a hugely important part of getting planning right. The Government should take some courageous decisions on what delays we do not need. What do we recognise that we have to do and how do we allow people to get on with it? Getting an efficient transmission network is something we absolutely need to do.
Moving a transmission pole may upset someone locally, but it is part of a national need. That it should be delayed, that people should take huge amounts of time on whether it should be here or there or whether an extra prop to a pole should be allowed, is just ridiculous. I am very sorry that we have allowed this to accumulate over the years. I am delighted to find the Liberal Democrats in support of reducing regulation; long may this continue. This is a really constructive way forward.
I have added the idea that we ought to allow a bit more freedom for wind generation. When I grew up, it was common to see agricultural windmills—those galvanised towers with clanking blades—all over the rural landscape. They provided power of a kind, type and price which suited the local conditions.
I remember when land wind turbines were introduced, and we all thought that they would be horrid, would desecrate the landscape and that it would be miserable, but we are used to them now—they are part of everybody’s landscape, just about. If we do not overdo it, I think that we have a reasonable basis for saying that we should experiment on allowing people to put these down for local need to generate electricity where it is needed and in a way that it is needed. It will not get done unless there is a commercial requirement for it, but we should look at freeing up the restrictions that we have placed on people putting up wind turbines and ask what is really needed here. Have we not learned enough to allow us to free this up a bit?
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 94E, but I start with Amendment 77 and simply say that I completely agree with the noble Earl, Lord Russell. We are not talking about the horrific, huge pylons; these are quite simple, and it makes much more sense to make it as straightforward as possible to up the energy locally.
I say to my noble friend Lord Lucas that there already are, I think, permitted development rights for turbines to the level that he suggests. I suggest that the permitted development right is solely for a single turbine, and I note that his amendment refers to “turbines”. I would not want this to be a back door to having significant numbers of wind farms on a variety of land, if he were to press this any further.
The reason my amendment is in this group is that also has to do with permitted development rights, regarding solar. We will debate solar today under other parts of this legislation, but this amendment seeks to try to get permitted development rights for solar on reservoirs. There are certain reservoirs, some very close to London, where sometimes a bit of sailing happens but, by and large, they sit there empty. Important as these reservoirs are for the water supply that we need, this would be quite a straightforward way of allowing for a modest amount of solar extension, which may only be that which is needed for the local facility, or perhaps a little further. I would not suggest that any would have to have an automatic connection to the grid, because that would probably be exceptionally expensive. The point is that, if we are going to increase the amount of renewable energy, why not allow reservoir owners to put this sort of solar development somewhere we are not then displacing agricultural land and where it does not require the huge extensions or connections that we see today right across agricultural land all over the country?
Floating solar is apparently seen as a nascent technology in the solar road map, so has not really been included in this Bill. I am conscious that we have read in the press this summer that there might be a second planning Bill, but I suggest to the Government that they should carpe diem. Why do we not get on and get this sort of permitted development right? Elsewhere in the Bill, I have suggested an easier way to try to include reservoirs and large ponds. In fact, the Secretary of State for Defra, Steve Reed, has been very specific in some of the open meetings that he has had that it needs to be easier for farmers to be able to access reservoirs and have them on their land. From my perspective, this could be a double win.
The other aspect that people may not be aware of with regard to the benefit of floating solar on reservoirs is that it could potentially help boost water security. One of the things with reservoirs is that it is not just about usage and them being drained ineffectively; it is also about evaporation levels, which means that we start to see a significant reduction in how much water is available. By simply having these solar panels, we can have a physical barrier between the water and the sun.
It is suggested that it is possible that such development could boost biodiversity on reservoir sites. Any opportunity that we can take, in a mutually beneficial way, to boost nature as well as energy resilience is something that I would hope that the Government could consider.
I understand that the UK is home to Europe’s largest floating solar farm, on the QEII reservoir, and I know there has been a bit of on and off, literally, about how effective it has been. Nevertheless, it is important that we consider all opportunities to make sure, at very limited or ideally no cost to the bill payer, that we maximise the amount of energy that is directly available to us.
On energy security rolling forward, trying to get more homegrown electricity is key. That is why I hope the Government will look at this carefully and consider the benefits of permitted development rights for floating solar on our reservoirs.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, like many Members in the Committee, when I read the list in my noble friend’s Amendment 77 I was absolutely incredulous that we are in the position where planning permissions still have to be given for that scale of change to our electricity distribution system. It is incredible. I hope that whichever Minister is answering on this group will be able to give us concrete guarantees that action will be taken in this area, whether through accepting this amendment or through secondary legislation. We need to get on with this and with the Government’s own programme.
I very much welcome the boldness of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which is perhaps unusual coming from those Benches, and the tenor of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. One thing that strikes me, and she mentioned it, is that a lot of reservoirs, certainly in my part of the world, the south-west, are used as recreational facilities, and obviously we would not want to squeeze that out. The other thing that occurs to me, particularly this year, is that floating solar on reservoirs is very likely to become non-floating fixed solar panels, given the rate of rainfall that we have been having, or not having, over some of these summers.
I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to these very positive suggestions for how we can move renewable energy forward in this country.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, with the solar energy that is reaching me at the moment, it is actually quite hard to see whether there is anybody out there, but I will take it for granted that there is and that they are all listening with rapt attention.
I apologise that I was unable to participate in earlier debates on the Bill, but I have been following it closely. I should declare that my family farm has some of what the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, referred to as “hideous”—or was it “horrendous”?—pylons and poles coming across it. My grandfather actually welcomed these as signs of the inevitable march of progress, but, even then, and certainly now, not everybody is quite as enthusiastic as he was.
While I see and support the logic of Amendment 77, it makes no provision overtly for wayleaves or compensation for those whose homes and businesses are affected by any additional poles et cetera. I hope that any amendment along these lines would accommodate such arrangements, as is the case with current power lines. Will the Minister, or perhaps the noble Earl himself, confirm that that is the intention?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, to pick up the point of the noble Lord, I remember my uncle getting pylons next to his house and how the compensation saved the day for his small business.
My own view is that it is good to have permitted development rights for minor changes, particularly if energy providers are calling for them. It makes sense to use this Bill to allow permitted development. My noble friend Lord Lucas said that it was hugely important, and I think it is hugely important to speed things up. As we have already heard, it is a surprise that some of these things require planning permission, and there is a lot of potluck as to whether you can get planning permission quickly in any particular area.
I just believe that we need to get things moving so I am not sure why the changes need to be in a regulation, as proposed in Amendment 77 from the noble Earl, Lord Russell. Can the Government not work out what can be easily excluded from planning control and put it in the Bill? That is how we used to do things in the Bills I remember presiding over in the 20th century when I was a civil servant. Is there anything that we can do to get rid of these things, rather than wait for further regulations and consultations, if it is straightforward?
I agree with my noble friend Lady Coffey that we should be careful not to allow multiple wind turbines through a back door. Clearly, the detail of this needs to be looked at; it has to be genuinely smallish things. I am less sure about permitted development rights for floating solar simply because I know so little about it; if we were to proceed with that, it should be in regulations. I am always asking the Minister how we can speed this process up. Permitted development rights here, and perhaps elsewhere in the Bill, can play a part.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 77 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, seeks to require the Secretary of State to designate certain electricity network upgrade works as permitted developments within 12 months of the passing of this Act. I refer the Committee to my register of interests, including as a developer of solar and wind energy generation infrastructure.
The amendment is detailed and specific, covering a range of necessary and often routine upgrades to our distribution network. These upgrades are not exceptional; rather, they are part and parcel of the essential modernisation of our grid. As demand for electricity grows, driven by electric vehicles, heat pumps, an increasing shift to electrified systems and the construction of new data centres, so, too, does the need for a distribution network that can meet that demand safely and efficiently.
The concerns raised by the noble Earl in bringing forward this amendment have merit. Local electricity distribution is hampered by regulatory delays, planning burdens and procedural hurdles, which can slow down or increase the cost of what are in many cases necessary infrastructure improvements. We understand the motivation to streamline these processes and provide industry with greater certainty. However, there are important questions around local engagement, visual impact and environmental considerations, which would need to be worked through. Permitted development rights by their very nature bypass certain planning safeguards, and we must take care not to undermine public confidence in the system by extending them too broadly or too quickly. I ask the Minister whether there are other ways of simplifying the decision-making on such upgrades.
Amendment 94E in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey would require the Secretary of State to make regulations to extend permitted development rights to include the installation of floating solar panels on reservoirs. At a time when we are seeking every opportunity to expand renewable energy without placing additional pressure on land, utilising existing bodies of water in this way may present a pragmatic and low-impact solution. My noble friend makes an important and timely point about the potential of underused spaces to contribute to our energy goals. I hope that the Government will look closely at how permitted development rights can help facilitate the responsible deployment of floating solar technology.
In a similar vein, Amendment 185B in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas seeks to expand permitted development rights for small-scale onshore wind turbines up to a height of 30 metres. This, too, is a proposal worthy of consideration. Enabling more local generation of renewable energy, particularly where there is community support, can play a valuable role in decarbonising the grid and improving energy security.
I look to the Minister to provide clarity on the Government’s current thinking in this area and to address the important questions raised by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Lucas. Specifically, I hope that he can reassure the Committee that the Government recognise the need for timely electricity network upgrades and are actively considering how the planning framework can support that aim while balancing the interests of local communities and the environment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for raising this important issue through Amendment 77. The Government fully recognise the need to accelerate electricity network upgrades to support the transition to net zero. We agree with the intent behind this amendment and with many of the specific proposals that it contains. However, we do not believe that it is appropriate to legislate on these matters through this Bill at this time. The amendment proposes exemptions from the consent process under the Electricity Act 1989. These are technical and regulatory matters that are generally best addressed through secondary legislation, following proper consultation.
The Government launched a public consultation on 8 July; it closes tomorrow. It includes proposals that closely reflect those in this amendment and seeks views from a wide range of stakeholders, including network operators, landowners and local authorities. The Government must undertake a thorough evaluation of consultation responses to understand any stakeholder concerns or unintended impacts ahead of implementation. Introducing changes now, whether through primary or secondary legislation, before that work has been done would pre-empt the consultation process and risk undermining the careful balance that we are trying to strike between speeding up delivery and protecting landowners’ rights. We are committed to acting quickly once the consultation process is complete, but we must do so in a way that is informed, proportionate and legally sound. For these reasons, I kindly ask the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for raising the important issue in Amendment 94E. The Government are committed to achieving clean power by 2030. We will need to see significant increases in the development of all types of solar, whether sited on land, rooftops or water, to achieve this mission. The Government are therefore supportive of floating solar and consider it a technology ripe for development, especially considering the increased efficiency of solar panels on water and the wider benefits of preventing algal blooms and reducing climate-related evaporation. An effective planning system is pivotal to delivering our clean power mission. The system must work in a way that supports both new infrastructures, such as floating solar, and more established technologies.
The noble Baroness may have seen that the Government published their first ever solar road map on 30 June; it commits to more than 72 ambitious actions across several areas, including planning. The road map includes a section on the opportunities of floating solar and identifies the needs both to provide clarity on the planning requirements for what is a relatively new technology in the UK and to ensure that these measures are proportionate. In the solar road map, the Government made a clear commitment to explore how planning levers could further support floating solar projects. This work will be overseen by a new government and industry solar council, which is being set up to assist in driving forward and monitoring progress on solar road map actions. However, we do not believe that it is appropriate to legislate on these matters through this Bill. I believe that it is only right that we conduct further work to ensure a strong evidence base on potential proposals and ensure that we have considered the breadth of benefits and impacts. I hope that the noble Baroness is content with this response; I kindly ask her not to press her amendment.
Amendment 185B, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seeks to classify some small-scale wind turbines as permitted development, provided certain conditions are met. I am grateful to the noble Lord for this amendment. He may have seen that the Government published their first ever dedicated onshore wind strategy on 4 July; it commits to more than 40 ambitious actions across several areas, including planning. One of the opportunities identified in the strategy regards small-scale deployment. The Government recognise the importance that small-scale onshore wind developments could play in achieving our wider decarbonisation goals and want to consider changes to the planning system to better support it—[Interruption.]
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, the rules that determine whether a turbine can be classed as permitted development and not require a full planning application have not been updated for over a decade. With advances in technology and increased demand for small-scale generation, there may be opportunities to update these rules. Therefore, I hope the noble Lord will be pleased to hear that the Government committed in the onshore wind strategy to publish a consultation this year on whether existing permitted development rights are fit for purpose and could support other forms of small-scale onshore wind deployment. I believe it is only right that we conduct a full consultation to gather views, insights and evidence on potential proposals, and ensure that we have considered the breadth of the benefits and impacts.
I hope the noble Lord is content with this response. Before I ask him to withdraw his amendment, I will respond to the very important point alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The Government recognise the urgency of reform and have already taken action. We have published the 8 July consultation; we will gather views on proposals and we are committed to bold and effective reform, but it is essential that we understand the full impact of these changes on all those involved. We will move at pace to bring forward any necessary legislation once the consultation analysis is complete. I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Coming back to Amendment 77, I mention one word: growth. We are trying, with cross-party effort, to reform the planning system and speed it up. I hear some good ideas from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, my noble friend Lord Lucas and others, yet we are having another consultation and another quango—doing something “in due course”, at some time, somewhere else. This is the flagship planning Bill, and I want the Minister to consider whether there is more we can do in it to set a better tone on speed and growth, and to get local authorities to move forward on the things which, as many agree, are bureaucratic and unnecessary.
Lord Teverson (LD)
Following on from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, can the Minister give us some idea of a timetable for this, given that there is total unanimity that we are not in a sensible position and we need growth and to move this whole proposition forward? The consultation is about to end. Will we get this fixed by the end of the year, for instance? Could we be revolutionary and have something ready for Report? I am interested to hear from the Minister.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
We all share the opinion that we need to get this Bill on to the statute book speedily and to ensure that we have the growth to which the noble Baroness alludes. However, we need to do this by reflecting on and responding to the consultation, and for that to happen, we have to wait for it to finish—which is tomorrow, by the way. We will look diligently and carefully at the responses and ensure that we have a system that is fit for purpose, growth and development, so that this country grows. This Bill will play its part, but there will be secondary legislation following consultation. We hear noble Lords’ desire, which is also the Government’s; we are all on the same page, and we want to move robustly and diligently in considering the consultation that we launched.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on this group of amendments. It has been a very useful group, and I note the unanimity around the House on these issues.
I thank the Minister for his response. I note that there is a consultation, which is closing tomorrow, on some of these matters. I would be interested to know which bits of my amendment are not in the consultation and how the Government plan to take those forward. I also press the Minister to take them forward as quickly as possible. If there is any scope for having conversations between now and Report, I would welcome that. If we can collectively take action on these matters where we agree, and make progress, that would be welcomed across the House. A government amendment on Report would also be greatly appreciated.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for her important amendment. It is important that floating solar is not excluded. As she said, it is a nascent technology, subject only to the issues of not taking up water and leisure space, and perhaps that of drought. I absolutely welcome her amendment and hope that it can progress as well.
I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his amendment. I am not certain I can promise him a bonfire of regulations from my party hierarchy, but I support the amendment he has put forward, subject only to that one drafting issue. It is in exactly the same spirit as my amendment but comes from a different place, looking at what we can do to provide permitted development for such things.
Across these amendments, there is some interesting uniformity and common purpose on getting these things done, and I thank the Minister for his response. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 77.
Earl Russell
“Electricity distribution networks: land and access rights(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, consult on and implement measures to give electricity distribution network operators powers in relation, but not limited, to—(a) the acquisition of rights over land for new and existing overhead lines and underground cables;(b) the acquisition of land for new substations or the extension of existing substations;(c) the entering into of land for the purposes of maintaining existing equipment;(d) the entering into of land for the purposes of managing vegetation growth which is interfering with the safety or operation of overhead equipment.(2) Any powers granted must be compatible with the need to complete works related to development in a timely, inexpensive and uncomplicated manner, and may include the provision of compensation to relevant landowners.”Member's explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to consult on giving electricity distribution network operators powers in relation to the acquisition of and access to land.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, the amendments in group three are all on electricity distribution and cabling. I apologise that there is quite a lot of crossover between my amendment in this group and those in the other group; in retrospect, it might have been better to have kept them together. A lot of the overarching general points that I made in the last group apply to this group. I am introducing a series of practical measures that I would like the Government to take forward to help them achieve their stated aim, which I share, of getting to clean power.
My Amendment 78 is about land access rights. It would require the Secretary of State to consult on giving electricity distribution network operators powers in relation to the acquisition of and access to land. Land access rights need to extend to renewable energy operators as well, and that is my mistake; the drafting of my amendment was not as clear as it should have been. If the Minister, in responding to my speech, could also include the issue of renewable energy operators’ ability to access land in building renewable energy facilities, that would be greatly appreciated.
This is about using the opportunities the Bill provides. This measure, which the district network operators and industry bodies are calling for, is not in the Bill, which is why I have brought it forward. These are small, practical steps—like the British Cycling example I gave earlier—which, if implemented, would help to get done the things we all agree on.
If we do not address these issues, we will have delays, increased costs and issues in getting towards clean power. At present, electricity licence holders have fewer statutory rights when it comes to acquiring and accessing land compared with other utilities such as gas, water and telecommunications. I am not aware that the Government have done any consultation on this, but if the Minister could let me know when he responds whether consultations are ongoing, that would be greatly appreciated. We are looking to resolve the lack of parity, remove the unnecessary bureaucracy and make sure that we can get this stuff done.
The amendment would ensure that electricity distribution network operators are given carefully defined powers to acquire rights over land for overhead lines and cables, to purchase land for new substations, to enter land for the maintenance of existing equipment and to carry out vegetation management critical to the safety and reliability of the system. These powers will not be unlimited; they will be subject to both proper consultation and fair compensation for the landowners concerned, but they will mean that we can proceed with essential infrastructure works in a timely, straightforward and cost-effective way, in line with other utilities.
I welcome the fact that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has launched a consultation on land rights, published last month. However, it falls short of what is required to make clean power 2030 a reality. It does not extend to renewable electricity generators themselves, despite their central role in the energy transition. Without legislative reform in this Bill, we risk kicking the issue down the road.
As I said, the amendment enjoys the backing of the sector, which has been lobbying Members of this House—and, no doubt, the Government, including the Minister—on it. It has long been called for by the Energy Networks Association. These are the people operating on the front line, investing in green power and taking the risks. They are the people with the contracts to deliver this stuff for the Government, so it is important that the Government do what they reasonably can to help these companies succeed, so that we can share that joint ambition and achieve things together.
To conclude, my intention is to help the Government; I share their intention to hit our clean power targets. I want to work with the Minister; I am happy to look at amending my amendment and to speak to him between now and Report. The intention is for further consultation with the industry to look at these things and try to find some practical solutions to these relatively easily surmountable issues. I hope that is possible. I will circle back to the other amendments in this group after they have been introduced. I beg to move.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, I would like to ask for a point of clarity from the noble Earl, of which I gave him due warning earlier today. As neither he nor the Minister picked up my question in the debate on Amendment 77, I hope that I will be luckier in this debate on Amendment 78.
Subsection (1)(a) of the proposed new clause in Amendment 78 refers to
“the acquisition of rights over land”
by network operators. Will the noble Earl confirm that he does not have in mind compulsory purchase powers? We will hear a lot about them later in the Bill—in fact, they probably should have had a Bill on their own, but we are where we are. Will he just confirm that? Giving operators compulsory purchase powers, in effect, has been a disaster in the radio mast arena. I would not want to see it happen again here.
Earl Russell (LD)
That is not my intention. I apologise for not being able to respond to the noble Lord’s email this morning. It is not my intention to give compulsory purchase powers. This is wayleaves, not compulsory purchase.
Lord Swire (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my probing Amendment 79A. They say that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. That could be extended to making the same point again and again and getting the same answer, which I have been doing over the past few months about burial and the different options for dealing with the great explosion we are going to witness of overhead power lines.
I am slightly nervous about the seeming consensus across the Committee this afternoon that nothing must stand in the way of the Government’s own date of 2030 for clean power, nothing must stop growth, and nothing must stand in the way of progress.
I fully concede that the Government have inherited a grid of which all Governments of every persuasion, over the last 20 or 30 years, have been neglectful. We have power being distributed in wrong parts of the country and shortages in other parts of the country, and the bearing loads of some of the grid are simply not up to the capacity that it is now required to meet. Additionally, we have an explosion in offshore wind, which has to be brought onshore, and that necessitates a great increase in the number of substations and, in turn, linkages to the grid.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I am sympathetic to what my noble friend Lord Swire just said. I think it is fair to say that it was actually the previous Conservative Administration who changed aspects of a policy statement that there be a strong presumption in terms of overhead distribution. I will not pretend otherwise. I did try and fight that at the time, but failed. It is fair to say that the cost comparison has actually fallen considerably. It is still about four or four and a half times the cost of doing it via pylons, but I think there is a lot to be said for what my noble friend has put forward.
I was somewhat relieved by the clarity brought by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that he was not considering this to be compulsory purchase, given some of the issues that I have been contesting for some time. That is what has led to my Amendment 94FA—in the supplementary list—which provides for
“Electrical or communications cables under land in active agricultural use”.
I have shared with your Lordships before that I have quite a lot of experience dealing with energy projects and NSIPs, recognising the concentration of such projects on the Suffolk coast, and that is a theme that I will return to later. One thing that struck me was that, in consideration of getting the cabling underground because these projects were going principally through an AONB—I do not know if it is in legislation, but by default what has happened is that any cabling in an AONB ends up being underground—what was clear was a complete lack of understanding of what was there underground already. In agricultural areas, one thing that is significantly underground and is very sensitive infrastructure, which is not put in by the Government, water companies or the like but is actually put in by local farmers, is underground networks for water. Considering quite how much less water there is, particularly in the east of the country, these are critical in order to make sure that we can continue to have food being grown.
Something that is very important for water and other networks is the production of Christmas trees. Christmas trees are very hungry for water in their development, which takes some time. One thing that came to light in the consideration of the creation of various substations and cabling is the fact that the electricity companies had no clue at all about this important infrastructure that is just below the surface. Of course, there is no doubt that having the cables as close to the surface as possible is definitely an economic interest, but, candidly, it ends up disrupting the agricultural potential for a lot of this land. I do not think there is any chance that Christmas trees can be grown above electricity cables. Unfortunately, Redhouse Barn, a farm that I would recommend, grows a lot of Christmas trees—it supplied No. 10 Downing Street one year—and I know that the family there was concerned, but somewhat understood and accepted that sometimes these things happen, although I hope that the compensation they get for this is a lot more generous than they were initially offered.
Nevertheless, the Government should consider speaking a lot more to the internal drainage boards around the country. We do not have internal drainage boards in every part of this country, but I expect that, where a lot of the energy generation is happening and the initial connections through cabling need to go, there will be. They will have intricate knowledge of exactly what you need to navigate. One way to avoid having to do site-by-site surveys, which we have already been told cost a hell of a lot of money, and to do all this pre-consultation, is simply to make sure that, when cabling is put in place, those trenches go sufficiently deep that we can continue to have agricultural production as well as the benefits of the transmission of electricity.
That is why I hope that the Government, although I expect they will firmly reject my proposals, will at least start to consider what is happening in reality in our productive countryside when we are trying to have this rather complicated map of cabling, pylons and the like, in order to make sure that we continue, as far as possible, to keep farming our land as well as making sure that that land—of course I will give way.
Lord Swire (Con)
Has my noble friend heard about the possibility of growing tomatoes over these cables?
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I am sure that the heat that my noble friend was about to allude to will make it attractive to certain kinds of rapid acceleration of growth. It is not the only thing that would benefit there, but it is more about trying to neutralise the impact of what seemed to be necessary infrastructure with the ongoing operations rather than disrupting those who are already farming our land for the food that we need for continued food security. With that, I put forward the benefits of my amendment.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities. I commend the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendment and for introducing this group. I will speak to Amendments 79A and 94FA—if your Lordships will pardon the expression—tabled by my noble friends Lord Swire and Lady Coffey and will end with a question for the Minister.
There are environmental and financial reasons for undergrounding these transmission wires. The environmental reasons are mostly because they are wasteful. It is debatable how much they waste, but I think it is between 7% and 10% of the energy that is transmitted, which seems nonsensical. As my noble friend Lord Swire said, they are also unsightly, which in tourist areas is very unwelcome. They are also extremely vulnerable to storm and extreme weather conditions. We have just had the first storm names for the forthcoming season—I do not know whether my niece and god-daughter will be delighted that Storm Amy will be the first one to hit us, but there we go. I remind the Minister that Storm Arwen caused such damage to the north-east of England and North Yorkshire that large swathes of north-east England and North Yorkshire had no electricity for up to 10 days. That is unacceptable.
The second power lines, which I think I referred to at Second Reading, run through the spine of North Yorkshire, from Middlesbrough all the way down to York, where they join the national grid. Only three months prior to those being built, an ethanol pipeline had been laid, tracking more or less the same route through agricultural land that the overhead pylons were following. It makes sense that if you are digging the land up once then at the same time you put the transmission lines there. Underground lines are less vulnerable to storms, extreme weather and extreme frost. In one year, we had temperatures of minus 17 degrees for six days running in North Yorkshire in the winter. Those are the environmental reasons that I put to the Minister.
We are frequently told that we cannot afford to place these transmission wires underground. I remind noble Lords that every single customer is paying, through the standing charge, for the infrastructure. Why do we not have a say, as customers, on the infrastructure that is being used? I give three examples of the latest profits for electricity companies. They are eye-watering and beg the question: why are we told that it is not affordable to place these transmission wires underground? The latest figures I have seen from Octopus Energy are of a 0.7% profit margin, delivering a net profit of £83 million. For OVO Energy, the latest figures I can find are for 2023—I cannot find the figures for 2024, though they are probably available—when OVO Energy announced a pre-tax profit of £1 billion. That is one electricity-generating company alone. For Centrica, there was a £1 billion profit for 2024. Why are we being told that it is unaffordable when there are monstrous profits to which we are all contributing as consumers?
To sum up my short contribution, I strongly support Amendments 79A and 94FA, and argue that there are absolutely no environmental and financial reasons not to underground these transmission wires.
Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Swire’s application that these things should be buried. I am the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation; that is not relevant to this debate, but it is somewhat relevant to the discussion about renewables.
My noble friend raised a few points about how previous Governments over the last 30 years have been somewhat deficient in managing the grid. The grid was perfectly adequate when we had large, central power stations, whether coal, gas or nuclear. Of course, our nuclear fleet is diminishing and nearly all those stations will be turned off by the end of this decade—probably before any of the new ones are turned on. We have obviously closed down all our coal power stations now, and gas is rather intermittent; it has to be put on stream when renewables fail us, which unfortunately happens more and more regularly. The old system worked when we had centralised, big power stations. The problem now occurs because we have decentralised that.
We could put that right by going down a domestic gas route, which I would recommend to this nation as a means to bridge the gap before nuclear is properly on stream. We could put small modular reactors in the places where old gas and coal stations used to be, because we have the huge grids, supplies and existing pylons that served that old infrastructure, which is now a redundant and dead infrastructure.
We are being asked to despoil our countryside because of the dash to renewables, in trying to link up offshore and onshore wind farms. Each of those produces fairly small amounts of energy, but we need new pylons to get it into the grid. I agree entirely with my noble friend that the required cables should be underground. I have never believed that some behemoth of an aluminium and steel platform to carry cables can be that much cheaper than an underground cable, which does not require such support. I recommend that the Government ask for some independent advice on what these things really cost.
I am very surprised to have had a discussion—started, again, by my noble friend Lady Coffey—about Christmas trees. I will discuss Christmas trees at the appropriate time, because my family was very involved with Christmas trees and, as a young lad, every winter I bore scars all the way up my arms from selling them. I hope to discuss that in the future.
The whole concept of electrification and the problem of serious storms was raised very well by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. I do worry. As I said at the time, if you live in that part of the world—and I think another storm hit Scotland at almost the same time—you rely entirely on electricity cables to run your internet, which runs your telephone, as the old 50-volt copper system is being wound down. You obviously need electricity for the internet generally, and one will need electricity to power one’s car, if the Government have their way and traditional cars are put on the scrap heap. One will also need electricity to heat one’s home. Storms go through parts of this country with some regularity, and I have always made the point that you can lend a neighbour a bucket of logs but you cannot lend them a bucket of electricity.
I agree with the amendment that was put by my noble friend Lord Swire. I request that the Government look at this rather more carefully, rather than say flippantly that “Thou shalt have dirty great pylons”. Norfolk and Suffolk in particular will be hit by this massively. I think my noble friend who is following me will make some similar observations about what will be hitting parts of Kent, including those that I used to represent.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 79A in the name of my noble friend Lord Swire about the presumption in favour of burying cables as the default method. He spoke of insanity, but I did not think I was going mad—I believed and agreed with every word he said. Not only is burying cables less visually intrusive but, storms notwithstanding, as we have seen in the Ukrainian conflict, surface infrastructure is more vulnerable to malign and military disruption. I have not seen any calculation anywhere that takes that national security angle into account. That is an omission that should be corrected, and would be if my noble friend’s amendment is accepted.
I do not stand entirely shoulder to shoulder with those who accept the construction of pylons in any circumstance but I am not the Luddite who is in denial about the difficulties of strengthening and hardening the grid. We all need to be realistic about what it takes for the lights to come on when you flick that switch, with fluctuating renewables on the one hand and new demands from electrical vehicles on the other. But that should not give National Grid a right to be judge and jury in its own court and carte blanche to ride roughshod.
My interest in the amendment has been piqued because I have experienced at first hand the process undertaken by National Grid when it seeks to promote a new pylon power line, in this case from Norwich to Tilbury to transport electricity from the wind farms off the Norfolk coast down to the smoke. At that time, I was leader of the South Norfolk Council, an area to be bisected across its entire height by new HV power lines. What I experienced was institutional arrogance from National Grid and its agents. It thought that a single consultation event, offered at short notice on an afternoon in a remote village hall for an area of 400 square miles, was sufficient. It had a boneheaded refusal to accept that burying was even an option—even just in part across the picturesque Waveney Valley or the Roydon Fen county wildlife reserve.
National Grid exhibited a steadfast refusal to demonstrate or explain why the option of providing a future-proof offshore ring main, connecting the existing infrastructure that used to serve the redundant Bradwell nuclear power station, was even a possibility. The suggestion that offshore was impractical was wholly disproven by the offshore link that is currently proposed from Sizewell to the Richborough marshes—I am stood next to the noble Lord, Lord Mackinlay of Richborough, and I expect him to intervene in a moment to say how wonderful that part of the world is and how it should not be despoiled.
National Grid had unevidenced assertions relating to the unaffordability of burying lines, as opposed to having them overhead, without either explaining or quantifying the quantum of those extra costs for the whole line or just per kilometre. There was a failure to consider parallel running to the existing pylon line to minimize visual impact, with the result that the wonderful and historic market town of Diss is now proposed to be fenced in on all four sides by huge steel pylons to an unacceptable degree. This lack of understanding, further, that the mooted community compensation schemes for overhead lines, but not for buried cables, might undermine the business case for pylons now turns out to be the case because it stands as part of Clause 26 of the Bill. There were other questions to answer, which I will not detain the Committee with.
Now, of course, there may have been good reasons why National Grid might be right on all the points I mentioned, though I struggle to see how, but with friends like these, who needs enemies? National Grid has gone out of its way to pick fights rather than bringing people together. As a council leader, I met officials from National Grid and put the points privately, to try to have a neutral forum where it could make an improved case for the proposals and build consensus. That olive branch was spurned, so it is little wonder that there is now widespread resistance to new pylon routes. Opposition has been carelessly and recklessly whipped up by a ham-fisted approach from the people who need all the friends they can get.
I like this amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Swire because it would set the default expectation that new lines will be buried. Of course, that does not mean that they must be buried, but for the operator to go above ground as the preferred option, he will need to make the evidential case and have it scrutinised, and to build friendships and not enemies. That is a much better approach and balance of power, literally, between the parties than the regrettable and aggravating behaviours that we have seen thus far, where the lazy overhead option is chosen and everybody else be damned.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
I just underline that the missing ingredient in this debate is actual numbers on the costs. There is a lot of theoretical toing and froing this afternoon but what we really need in this discussion is a hard number cost for, say, 100 metres of buried cable as opposed to, say, the cost of a pylon. I asked a Written Question about a pylon some months ago and got a wonderfully “Yes Minister” Answer: “Of course, all pylons are different and some pylons are more equal than others, but it is all very difficult so I can’t give you an answer”.
I hope that we can do a bit better than that. It would be great to know the cost of, say, 100 metres or 500 metres—whatever is the right metric—of buried cable and pylon with the equivalent cable. Until that answer is before us—I suspect that it will be a lot more expensive—we are not going to lay this debate to rest. I think that everybody, on all sides of this Committee, would like to see the cables buried. The question is at what cost and whether that cost is worth it. Until we have that number, we are just talking theory.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 78 from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and Amendment 79A from my noble friend Lord Swire deal with the critical issue of grid capacity and connectivity, which sits at the heart of the Government’s ambitions to decarbonise the UK’s energy system and deliver the infrastructure necessary to meet their ideological clean power 2030 target.
Amendment 78 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to consult on and implement measures to give electricity distribution operators new powers. The distribution and transmission of electricity is intrinsic to the production and utilisation of clean energy. Without access to the grid, energy infrastructure remains little more than an expensive stranded asset.
The case for action is clear. As we know, the great grid upgrade is a vital part of our pathway to net zero, yet, at present, new energy developments such as wind farms and solar parks are experiencing unacceptable delays when it comes to grid connection. Some projects face waiting times of up to 10 years—delays that threaten both investor confidence and the credibility of our decarbonisation goals. That is why the previous Conservative Government took decisive steps in commissioning the Windsor review, which examined the obstacles to timely grid connectivity. We are of course proud to say that all 43 recommendations of the Windsor review were accepted by the Government—a clear signal of our commitment to reforming the system and bringing forward vital improvements.
Yet we must recognise the scale of the challenge. Even with those reforms under way, projects without current grid connectivity may not come online until the mid-2030s. That is simply not compatible with the Government’s aim of a decarbonised grid by 2030. It is essential that the development of the national grid moves in lockstep with the pace of renewable energy production and infrastructure delivery.
Therefore, Amendments 78 and 79A raise serious and timely issues. We must ensure that our grid strategy is not only fit for today but future-proofed for the decades to come. The principles of transparency—clear delivery timelines and strategy—and strategic planning for capacity must be at the core of that effort. That said, I note that Amendment 78 would require the Secretary of State to consult on and implement measures to establish these new powers. There is perhaps a case to make for Parliament to have a say before the Secretary of State takes steps to implement powers that have come up as part of the consultation. I would be interested to hear whether the noble Earl, Lord Russell, might be open to strengthening parliamentary oversight here.
Amendment 79A from my noble friend Lord Swire is a good and thoughtful probing amendment. I recognise his continual efforts in drawing this issue to this House’s attention. It seeks to explore how the planning system might better encourage the use of buried cabling as an alternative to overhead powerlines. This is an important point, particularly for rural communities where overhead transmission infrastructure can have a significant visual, environmental and social impact. Although undergrounding is not without cost or technical complexity, the long-term benefits in certain locations can outweigh those challenges. My noble friend is right to raise this. I hope that the Government will consider whether there are planning reforms that could help to support a more strategic and locally sensitive approach to powerline deployment.
The Minister may not be aware of the very active groups in Wales resisting the march of pylons through the Teifi and Tywi valleys. These groups are uniting the opposition parties against the Senedd Labour Government. The one I know particularly well is the Llandeilo Community Group Against Pylons.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I just want to welcome that speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. It was excellent in its tone and entirely different from that of her colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Offord, when he spoke from the Front Bench. I congratulate the noble Baroness.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, let me take this opportunity to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, to her place on the Front Bench. I look forward to the exchanges ahead.
I turn to Amendments 78 and 79A, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the noble Lord, Lord Swire, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. I thank them both for tabling these amendments and for their interest in and commitment to improving grid capacity and electricity distribution infrastructure.
Amendment 78 seeks to require the Secretary of State to consult on and implement measures to grant distribution network operator powers in relation to the acquisition of and access to land, with the aim of accelerating electricity distribution network infrastructure build and maintenance. The Government are fully committed to achieving clean power by 2030. It is clear that a rapid expansion of the electricity network is essential to delivering that mission. Although we agree with the intent behind this amendment, we do not believe that it is appropriate to legislate on these matters through this Bill.
As previously outlined, the Government launched a public consultation on 8 July; it closes tomorrow, on 2 September. That consultation includes proposals on land access and rights and seeks views from a wide range of stakeholders, including network operators, landowners and local authorities. Once the consultation closes, the Government will undertake a thorough evaluation of the responses to understand stakeholder concerns and to assess any potential unintended impacts ahead of implementation. Introducing changes now, before that work has been done, would pre-empt that process and risk undermining the careful balance that we are trying to strike between speeding up delivery and protecting landowner rights.
We are committed to acting quickly once the consultation process is complete but we must do so in a way that is informed, proportionate and legally sound. I hope that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is reassured by this response; I kindly ask him to withdraw his amendment. I will take his offer forward with my officials and look forward to meeting the noble Earl, alongside my noble friend Lady Taylor, on the issues raised in this area.
I move on to Amendment 79A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Swire. This amendment would introduce a statutory presumption in favour of undergrounding power lines. It would require developers to demonstrate that undergrounding was their preferred and initial option, and that it was infeasible on cost or engineering grounds, before overhead lines could be approved. We understand that some communities hold strong views in favour of undergrounding, particularly due to concerns about the visual impact of overhead lines. We are aware that the support is partly driven by examples seen internationally, where undergrounding is used in certain contexts.
The Government’s position is that overhead transmission lines should be the starting presumption for electricity network developments except in nationally designated landscapes, where undergrounding is the starting presumption. That is because overhead lines are significantly cheaper, as undergrounding can cost up to four and a half times more, with costs ultimately passed on to bill payers. Overhead lines are also quicker to build, cause less environmental disruption and are easier to maintain and connect to existing networks.
That said, we totally understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. I reassure him that neither I nor my noble friend Lady Taylor answered the Question that he asked in relation to pylons, but we look forward to speaking to and working with officials to get more detailed examples of costs and how they work in different ways in different combinations. The noble Lord asked a question that I did not previously answer on whether the network permitted development rights proposals in the current consultation cover compulsory purchase. I can confirm they do not, but there will be a huge debate—well, hopefully not a debate, but a huge discussion—on compulsory purchases in due course.
Strategic network planning is critical to ensuring that transmission infrastructure is designed and delivered in a way that meets system-wide needs. The National Energy System Operator, NESO, through the forthcoming centralised strategic network plan, will assess technology options against key criteria—including cost, deliverability, operability and community and environmental impact—and recommend optimal solutions. Developers will then apply those recommendations at a project level, refining routes and designs within existing planning and regulatory frameworks.
Accepting the amendment would move us away from a strategic, co-ordinated, system-wide approach to grid development and towards a more fragmented process. While undergrounding is already used on a case-by-case basis where justified, the amendment could lead to more frequent project-level decisions, undermining strategic system-wide planning. That risks creating inconsistency, reducing efficiency and ultimately slowing down the delivery of the infrastructure. We need to meet our clean power 2030 and net-zero targets. Further, the amendment would shift the burden of proof onto the developer, which would add complexity, legal risk and delay to an already lengthy consenting process. Given the significantly higher costs and technical complexity of underground lines compared with overhead, the amendment is unlikely to increase the use of undergrounding but would add additional time to the planning and delivery process.
Amendment 94, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, would require that electrical or communications cables under land in active agricultural use must be buried to a minimum depth of two metres from the surface level, and deeper if required. Existing legislation for electrical cabling is contained in the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2022. They require that:
“Every underground cable shall be kept at such depth or be otherwise protected so as to avoid, so far as is reasonably practicable, any damage or danger by reason of such uses of the land which can be reasonably expected”.
This legislation is supported by industry codes that provide the specific standards for the relevant minimum burial depth, considering different factors and use cases. These industry codes must comply with the legislation that forms the quality standards that network operators must legally operate within.
For agricultural land, the minimum recommended depth for electricity cables, set out in the Energy Networks Association’s engineering recommendation G57 for cable laying on agricultural land, is 910 millimetres. This is intended
“to provide sufficient depth to safeguard against damage from deep ploughing and cultivation, and from the mechanical installation of drainage systems”.
Recommendation G57 says:
“This depth requirement takes account of the wishes of the National Farmers’ Union”.
Agricultural activities including deep cultivations, subsoiling and mole draining rarely extend deeper than 700 millimetres below the soil surface. Installing cables at depths greater than 910 millimetres can introduce engineering and environmental constraints, such as increased heat generation from the cables, which may require additional mitigation measures such as increased pole spacing. Deeper installation would necessitate a wider and deeper trench, raising the risk of potential detrimental impacts on the soil resource due to soil handling and storage. The existing legislation is supported by detailed industry standards, ensuring an agile framework whereby the relevant standards can be flexibly updated and refined in line with evolving circumstances such as innovation while minimising potential impacts on agricultural land.
To conclude, similarly for communication cables, the Electronic Communications Code (Conditions and Restrictions) Regulations 2003 include a requirement that code operators must install apparatus such as cabling at a depth that does not interfere with the use of the land. This ensures that the land can continue to be used for the purpose that the landowner wishes, even where there is electronic equipment buried in the ground. Introducing a new requirement for the depth of communications cables could increase digital infrastructure deployment costs substantially, slowing network build and potentially preventing the Government’s ambition of a nationwide coverage of stand-alone 5G and gigabit-capable broadband.
For the reasons outlined, I do not think that these amendments are necessary and I therefore kindly ask the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, this has been an interesting group of amendments, and I thank everyone who has tabled an amendment or taken part in the debate. I thank the Minister for responding so thoroughly and welcome his commitment to work with me between now and Report in relation to Amendment 78.
My only real concern is that I am aware that renewable energy operators are not included in the Government’s consultation. Equally, they were not included in my amendment, but they are an important part of the picture. If we could work together to try to find a solution so that they could be included in the process, preferably prior to Report, it would be appreciated.
I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, to her place and recognise the point that she made on parliamentary scrutiny in relation to my amendment. I will take that on board. It was not my intention to exclude it.
On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Swire, it is important that these issues are raised. I welcome the fact that this was put forward as a probing amendment. These are difficult issues that need to be balanced. I do not think that anybody knows the true cost of burying cables, because it depends on what you are burying them in, so I do not think there is an absolute answer. It seems clear that some of these costs are coming down. That may be something that the Government want to look at again.
There is an important need in this debate to balance the cost, which ultimately goes to consumers, with the need for the Government to be open, able to listen, to vary plans in response to communities’ concerns and to be able to persuade and hold the energy companies to account to take more expensive options where there are particular impacts. To that end, I also welcome that the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Swire, would be against the EN-1, the overriding energy policy statement. I ask the Government to be open to the idea. I know that there are legislative conditions around areas of outstanding natural beauty, but the Government should be open and mindful of community concerns and make sure that budgets are available for burying cables where communities raise particular concerns or there are particular types of landscapes. I welcome the news that we had yesterday of the cable from Norfolk going south. In response to the consultation that took place with communities, bits of that have been buried. I think that is the right approach. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Roborough
“(4) Any fees received by the Scottish Ministers under paragraph (2)(d) may only be used to fund—(a) consumer benefits packages, or(b) local planning authorities.”Member’s explanatory statement
This would ensure that any fees paid to Scottish Ministers are allocated to either community benefits packages or to support local authority planning departments.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 80 I will also speak to Amendments 81 and 82, which are in my name, as well as Amendments 85A, 88B and 88C in the name of my noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe.
The amendments in my name deal specifically with consent and the exercise of planning powers in Scotland under the provisions of this Bill. I begin with Amendment 80, which seeks to ensure that any fees collected by Scottish Ministers for purposes related to planning are hypothecated—that is, ring-fenced—for either community benefit packages or the direct support of local authority planning departments.
There is a simple but important principle at the heart of this amendment—that money raised locally, ostensibly for planning purposes, should be used locally for planning purposes. It is about transparency, accountability and trust in public institutions. If the Scottish Government are to charge fees for planning processes, it is only right that those funds are seen to benefit either the communities directly affected by a development or the planning departments tasked with delivering and managing this complex work.
This is not a theoretical concern. As noble Lords will be aware, Scottish local authorities are chronically underfunded by the SNP-run Scottish Government. Planning departments in particular have suffered disproportionately. According to recent studies, planning is now the most reduced and lowest-funded local authority service area in Scotland. That is simply not sustainable, and it is certainly not compatible with any Government’s stated ambitions around housing delivery, infrastructure development or environmental management. Amendment 80 is, therefore, not just a matter of good governance but a matter of necessity. Without proper funding, planning departments cannot attract the right skills, cannot deliver timely decisions and cannot properly engage with local authorities.
Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)
My Lords, I rise, as my noble friend on the Front Bench said a moment ago, to speak to my Amendments 85A, 88B and 88C, which seek to effect the recommendations of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, on this Bill. I shall speak to them briefly.
The amendments fall into two parts. The first part refers to benefits that shall arise for people who live in homes near electricity transmission projects—a very good principle and one which I am sure that we all agree. The question then follows: who should be eligible for this scheme and who should be eligible to receive these benefits? The Government say that that should be decided by regulation—and, again, that seems perfectly reasonable.
The question is about the level of parliamentary procedure that the regulations in question should receive. The Government propose that only three aspects of these wide-ranging new sections, Sections 38A to 38D of the Electricity Act 1989, which this Bill amends, require the affirmative procedure, and that all other aspects of the scheme will be made by negative procedure resolutions, on the grounds that those regulations are merely of an “administrative or technical nature”. However, the committee’s view, many aspects of the regulation-making powers proposed by the Government are
“important matters of substance rather than mere ‘administrative or technical’ matters”.
I shall cite just three of them as quoted in our report. There is:
“making provision determining whether premises or works are qualifying … conferring and delegating functions in connection with the scheme”
and
“providing for payments by electricity suppliers to meet costs incurred in the carrying out of functions in connection with the scheme”.
The argument of the committee is that those matters are not merely administrative or technical but rather more substantial, and it concluded:
“The affirmative procedure should apply to all regulations made pursuant to the provisions inserted by clause 26 of the Bill, not just those matters mentioned in new section 38A(6) of the Electricity Act 1989”.
That is the first matter. The second matter is the use of forestry estate for renewable electricity, which is again a perfectly sensible aim and one with which I am sure noble Lords will agree. Clause 28 inserts new Section 3A into the Forestry Act 1967 to give forestry commissioners powers to use land in England for this purpose, and it gives the same powers to the Natural Resources Body for Wales. The Government say, in effect, that the two bodies should not worry because they will not interfere if those bodies wish to engage in small-scale projects of this kind—they will do so only if they believe that the projects that those bodies wish to undertake are significant. That is fine, but the committee noted that
“this requirement of significance does not appear on the face of the Bill”.
It went on to say:
“We do not judge delegated powers on how the Government say that they will use them but on how any Government might use them … Clause 28 should state explicitly that Ministerial consent to Forestry Commissioners’ and the National Resources Body for Wales’ renewable electricity projects should only apply to significant projects”.
In conclusion, my understanding is that the Attorney-General is of the view that delegated powers have been used by previous Governments, especially the last one, in a somewhat slipshod manner, and that this new Government will do better. If the Minister on the Front Bench is to follow in the footsteps that the Attorney-General has laid out, I look forward to him being able to give a positive response to what I have said and to the committee’s report, and I look forward to hearing from him in due course.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I turn to Amendments 80, 81, 82, 85A, 88B and 88C, which relate to Clause 18 and consents for electricity infrastructure in Scotland and delegated powers in the Bill. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, for tabling the amendments on consenting in Scotland and the noble Lords, Lord Offord and Lord Blencathra, for supporting him. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for the amendments relating to the Bill’s delegated powers.
I turn to Amendment 80, which seeks to prescribe that any fees paid to Scottish Ministers for processing electricity infrastructure applications and for any pre-application services provided may be used only for consumer benefits or local planning authorities. Clause 18 creates a power to make regulations relating to fees to be paid to Scottish Ministers on the application for consent or anything done by them in relation to a proposed application under Sections 36 or 37 of the Electricity Act 1989.
Scottish Ministers already have the power to make regulations for determining the fees to be paid on applications, with the Bill creating a power to make regulations for fees for pre-application services. This aims to allow the Scottish Government to resource their own efficient processing of electricity infrastructure applications and pre-application services. The UK Government recognise the importance that local planning authorities have in the consenting process, and that they therefore need to be appropriately resourced.
While I welcome the spirit of the amendment, the resourcing of local planning authorities in Scotland is a devolved competence. Scottish Ministers will consider the resourcing of statutory consultees and local planning authorities to ensure that they are adequately resourced and have the skilled workforce to carry out any additional responsibilities created by these reforms. It would therefore not be appropriate for the UK Government to be prescribing in statute how Scottish Ministers direct their resources.
The amendment would also provide for the directing of fees to community benefits packages. Over the past 12 months, renewable energy developers in Scotland have offered more than £30 million in community benefits. The UK Government are committed to the provision of community benefits for energy infrastructure. On 21 May 2025, the UK Government issued a working paper for public comment on proposals to mandate community benefits for low-carbon infrastructure and next steps for shared ownership. The deadline for comment has now passed and responses are being analysed which will inform next steps.
In Scotland, the provision of community benefits is already a well-established element of renewable energy developments. The Scottish Government have had good-practice principles for community benefits from renewable energy in place since 2014, and these are currently under review following the response to a public consultation that closed in April 2025. Similarly to the position on local planning authorities, it would not be appropriate for the UK Government to prescribe in statute that Scottish Ministers should direct fees received for processing consenting applications to community benefits packages.
Amendment 81 would require Scottish Ministers to hold a public hearing whenever an objection from the relevant local planning authority is received regarding an application for consent. Additionally, Scottish Ministers would not be able to make a decision on an application until at least one month after a public hearing session has taken place. The Scottish consenting reforms are intended to make the electricity consenting process in Scotland more efficient, while retaining opportunities for local communities and planning authorities to participate meaningfully in the process. A key aspect of the reform package developed with the Scottish Government is to move away from the current prescriptive methods of handling objections by local planning authorities to consent applications, which has resulted in a slower system, with decisions that can be delayed for years.
To deliver efficiencies, the proposed provisions allow for various procedures to be used in such circumstances, at the discretion of a reporter appointed by the Scottish Government. These may include holding one or more hearing sessions, or a public inquiry. Reporters are experienced specialists. In addition to considering written representations on the application, they may conduct site visits, request further written submissions from specific parties, and/or conduct hearings or inquiries. The amendment would introduce an additional requirement to the consenting process, mandating a public hearing regardless of other procedures a reporter may determine necessary, which could already include a hearing session or written representations. These reforms will bring in a more efficient consenting process that brings certainty to both applicants and communities. To achieve this, it is vital that the Scottish Government are able to examine objections by local planning authorities through the most appropriate and proportionate method.
Amendment 82 would remove Clause 18(4), which changes the way in which local authority objections to applications for consent for electricity infrastructure are managed. At present, public inquiries are required to be held in Scotland when the relevant local planning authority objects to an application under Sections 36 or 37 of the Electricity Act 1989, no matter the nature of the objection. Public inquiries tie up many electricity infrastructure consenting applications in Scotland for months and even years. This adds both time and uncertainty to the consenting process, leaving communities and applicants in limbo. It is a major barrier to the timely deployment of low-carbon electricity infrastructure when we need it most. While public inquiries have a key role to play in ensuring that there is a transparent and thorough assessment of significant objections to electricity infrastructure projects, it is not proportionate or sensible that all such objections should be referred to this process.
As noble Lords will be aware, a primary aim of the Scottish consenting reforms is to streamline the process wherever possible, while retaining the right for local communities to have meaningful opportunities to comment on and influence applications. Clause 18(4) retains the right for relevant planning authorities to object to applications for consent, while bringing in a targeted, effective process fit for a modern consenting system. This is essential to end delays in electricity consenting and put in place the infrastructure we need. The policy intent of this clause is to move away from the current prescriptive methods for handling objections by local planning authorities to consent applications, which has resulted in a slow system, with decisions that can be delayed for years.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his response to my amendments and to those of my noble friend Lord Goodman. I am afraid that the track record in Scotland does not inspire confidence in the planning process and the application of those fees, but obviously I will withdraw my amendment today. I will just underline, though, that Amendment 80 is about fairness and accountability: the public must be able to trust that money taken for a specific purpose guarantees that that purpose is delivered. That is what we are trying to achieve with this amendment.
Amendments 81 and 82 are about clarity, co-ordination and respecting local voices. By clarifying jurisdictional processes and ensuring better co-ordination between UK and Scottish systems, we can reduce confusion, avoid unnecessary delay and make sure that communities are not cut out of the conversation.
We share the Government’s aim of speeding up the planning process and the delivery of projects and getting the balance right. These are constructive amendments. I hope the Minister will agree that proper resourcing, clear governance and meaningful local engagement are not obstacles to infrastructure but are essential to getting it right. As I mentioned earlier, we are fully supportive of my noble friend Lord Goodman’s amendments and we would very much like to see the Government make progress with implementing them. But, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 80.
Lord Fuller
“10Q Long duration electricity storage: safety(1) The Authority must ensure that the scheme established by section 10P includes measures to be taken by LDES operators (as defined by that section) to reduce fire risk and protect public safety.(2) The scheme must ensure that before installing long duration electricity storage, LDES operators consult the local fire authority who must assess the fire risk posed by the installation.(3) The LDES operator must pay the local fire authority a reasonable fee for their assessment of the fire risk under subsection (2).(4) The Secretary of State may, by regulations made by statutory instrument, define a “reasonable fee” for the purpose of this section.(5) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that proposals for long duration energy storage systems, which may contain flammable batteries and equipment, are designed in consultation with the local fire authority to minimise fire risk and protect public safety.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I will not detain the Committee greatly with this amendment. It seeks to ensure that, when electricity storage systems are planned, it is with the full knowledge and consent of the local fire authority, so that fire and public safety risks are understood and mitigations are put in. Surprisingly, there is no duty for promoters of these schemes to consult the local fire authority, so my amendment would correct that omission.
As the grid is reinforced, the ability to stabilise and isolate the electricity supply from surges and shocks is essential, and a number of short-term and long-term technologies exist to smooth the path of electricity from the generator to the consumer. The people of the Iberian peninsula will attest to the consequences of failing to have network stabilisation in place, especially when dashing for renewables. Some of these smoothing technologies contain highly flammable materials such as lithium. Hydrogen is another but, given the time constraints today, I will focus on the lithium side for the purposes of proving the point.
Not a day goes by without a fire being caused by a lithium battery. The noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is promoting a Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill; this does not seek to trespass on that, but it demonstrates that fires caused by batteries are a thing. The issue is clear: when a lithium battery, for example, catches fire, huge quantities of water are required to extinguish it. Your Lordships will recall the car-based conflagration at Luton Airport, where the multi-storey car park was totally consumed. Whether or not that fire was started by an electric vehicle, once it took hold the batteries in those cars quickly made the fire unfightable for longer—more so than had petrol or diesel alone been involved.
The dangers are further illustrated by the number of fires in bin lorries. Even a small computer battery can consume an entire refuse freighter. Airline passengers are now routinely warned about the dangers of phone batteries catching fire and imperilling the whole aircraft in an inextinguishable blaze. Imagine the scale of the flames if an entire grid-scale battery storage facility caught alight.
This issue needs to be taken seriously, and the Bill as drafted fails to do so. It just glosses over the consequences of failures in long-term and short-term energy storage, including large-scale battery systems—especially those storing huge electrical capacity and containing flammables. You do not need to be a bright spark to realise that an electrical spark can spell danger.
Many of the proposed LDES and BESS schemes are in the countryside, where the existence of fire hydrants is limited. Rivers and ponds may be far away across the fields or along narrow lanes. Water carriers may be miles away and, during a dry period, deep-seated and hard-to-fight fires can spawn secondary blazes that can run wild across a whole area. In towns, the proximity of businesses, schools, homes and buildings adds a further dimension of public safety to the mix. In both cases, consideration of the leakage of lithium, in particular to the underlying aquifer, from the firefighters’ runoff water is essential.
Of course, there are other risks: the availability of water carriers, of appliances and of specialist equipment in areas which may be staffed by part-time retained firefighters are just a few. This amendment would therefore enforce a duty for an applicant for an energy storage facility and the local fire authority to fully assess the risks, including fire and public safety, and to pay a reasonable fee to do so. If the Government resist this stipulation, we risk damage from uncontrollable fires to people, property, businesses and the environment at significant cost to the wider taxpayer and local government—costs which should be borne by the developer.
I have had representations from councils that the costs of providing water storage lagoons, additional appliances and staffing should be fully borne by the applicant, not the taxpayer. I have not gone that far with this amendment, but I wonder whether the Minister would meet me to explore this if other noble Lords feel that it is a good idea, in which case I would consider bolstering this proposal on Report. For the moment, if we just take the issue of fire safety for these high-value, high-consequence electricity storage systems, we would be doing not just this House but society a favour. I beg to move.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 82B in my name would require the Government to evaluate and report on how this legislation affects the UK’s capacity for long-duration electricity storage. Clause 25 outlines the introduction of a scheme intended to stimulate investment in long-duration electricity storage. Yet, as with any initiative of this scale, we must pair aspiration with scrutiny. It is one thing to launch a scheme, but quite another to ensure that it is fit for purpose.
We hear regularly that storage will solve the challenge of intermittent renewables. It is a reassuring narrative that excess wind and solar can simply be stored away, ready for when needed, but that message risks masking the scale of the task ahead. To get the facts straight, the UK’s average electricity consumption is around 780 gigawatt hours per day. Current grid-scale battery storage stands at roughly 12 gigawatt hours, enough to meet national demand for just 30 minutes. On a global scale, the picture is not much better. All the batteries in the world combined could keep the UK powered for less than a day.
Storage is not futile. However, we must acknowledge that we are starting from a very low base. We must also ensure that any storage added to our energy infrastructure does not undermine grid stability and that it is available to release power in the timeframe needed. This could be seconds for battery through to hours for pump storage. My amendment seeks to ensure transparency. We need regular reporting to Parliament on whether the measures we are introducing are expanding our storage capacity at the pace required.
Moreover, as we look to scale up these technologies, safety must be a central concern. My noble friend Lord Fuller rightly highlights the risks associated with high-capacity storage, particularly lithium-based battery systems. These systems often contain highly flammable materials and, when they fail, the consequences can be catastrophic. Fires involving lithium-ion batteries are notoriously difficult to control and demand vast quantities of water to extinguish. In rural areas, where many of these installations are proposed, access to that water is limited. Climate change and restrictions on the preventive burning of fuel load in wild environments are leading to greater wildfire incidence and severity. In urban settings, proximity to homes, schools and critical infrastructure raises additional risks. We must ensure that local fire services are not only consulted but properly resourced to assess and manage these risks. Any developer seeking to install large-scale storage must be required to engage with emergency services and contribute fairly to risk assessments and preparedness.
We must also consider the environmental impacts. In the event of a fire, runoff containing hazardous materials could seep into groundwater or flow into rivers. This is not just a fire safety issue; it is a matter of public health and environmental protection. We cannot afford to be complacent. As our electricity system becomes more complex and decentralised, so too do the risks. It is the responsibility of this House to ensure that those risks are identified, assessed and addressed. Long-duration energy storage may be a useful addition to our energy mix. However, we cannot rely on this technology alone to support our renewable future.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I will respond briefly to this group of amendments on long-duration energy storage. We thank the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, for bringing forward Amendment 82A. These are important topics. While long-duration energy storage facilities are essential to the energy transition and have a very high safety record, they are still an emerging technology and it is right that we seek to balance planning and safety regulations with the need to build these facilities. To be clear, a number of the fires that he referred to were from individual batteries and not big long-duration energy storage facilities. As far as I am aware, there have been only two such fires in the UK. These big long-duration energy storage facilities have a very strong safety record.
However, it is true that UK fire and rescue services have described BESS and long-duration energy storage facilities as an emerging risk, noting that when these fires occur, they can last for hours or days and produce toxic emissions. I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing forward this amendment, as it rightly highlights the critical importance of the safety of long-duration energy storage as we accelerate towards our energy transition.
The amendment would establish a specific statutory duty requiring operators of long-duration energy storage systems to consult local fire authorities prior to installation, with the authority empowered to assess fire risks and levy a reasonable fee for doing so. On the face of it, I recognise the merits of such an approach. These can pose material risks and it is important that the fire brigade is involved and included in some of these planning decisions. It is also important that our fire services are aware of and prepared for particular hazards and have clear plans to deal with them should anything untoward happen. That being said, there are questions as to whether a statutory provision of this kind is the right or appropriate mechanism at this stage. A number of regulatory avenues already apply, including planning law, the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, and general fire safety legislation. The Government have also indicated their intention to update planning and permitting frameworks, considering the rapid growth of battery storage technologies. It is absolutely right that they do so.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 82B from my noble friends Lord Offord of Garvel and Lord Roborough would require the Secretary of State to report on the impact of this Bill on the UK’s long-duration electricity storage capacity. It is both reasonable and necessary. The new clause in Clause 25 makes reference to a scheme designed to encourage the development and use of long-duration electricity storage installations, but, as with any major intervention in our energy system, it is essential that we couple ambition with accountability. That is precisely what this amendment seeks to ensure.
The case for energy storage is seemingly clear. All sides of this Committee recognise the need to address the intermittency of renewable sources, particularly wind. Storage is seen as part of that solution, but we must be realistic about the scale of the challenge. We are often told that battery storage will save us; that it will plug the gap when the wind does not blow. But let us look at the numbers. The UK’s average daily electricity demand is 780 gigawatt hours. Our current battery storage capacity is roughly 12 gigawatt hours, which would keep the lights on for approximately 30 minutes. Globally, total battery storage is around 369 gigawatt hours—enough to power the UK for barely a day. This is not to dismiss the importance of innovation nor the promise of new technologies but to say we must deal in facts. We must measure progress and we must understand whether the scheme we are legislating for is delivering results. The requirement to report to Parliament on the impact of this Bill in this crucial area is not bureaucracy; it is oversight and it is responsible governance.
I now turn briefly to Amendment 82A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Fuller, which addresses the important and growing issue of fire safety in relation to long-duration electricity storage systems. However, I should say not all long-duration energy storage systems—and I think I can probably justify squeezing in another Welsh reference here to First Hydro’s schemes at Dinorwig and Ffestiniog power stations and the proposed Dorothea pump storage scheme, none of which will cause safety or fire issues.
As we move towards decarbonising our energy grid and increasing our reliance on renewable sources, long-duration energy storage is set to play an increasingly central role in stabilising supply and ensuring resilience. These technologies, whether battery-based, thermal or otherwise, are argued to be essential to the UK’s clean energy future. But with innovation comes responsibility, and we must be alert to the safety implications that accompany some of these new forms of infrastructure.
Amendment 82A rightly recognises that some forms of long-duration energy storage, particularly those involving large-scale batteries or other flammable components, pose inherent risks, especially in the event of fire. These are not theoretical concerns. We have seen incidents, both here and internationally, where energy-storage sites have suffered fires that require significant emergency service intervention and in some cases posed serious threats to nearby communities. This amendment seeks to introduce a sensible precaution that proposals for such technologies should be developed in consultation with the local fire and rescue authority. This would help ensure that any fire risks are assessed and mitigated early in the planning process and that emergency services are properly informed and prepared should an incident occur. As we roll out more of these systems in urban and rural settings alike, that reassurance will be crucial not just for planning authorities and operators but for the public.
This is a pragmatic and proportionate amendment. It reflects legitimate public concern and supports our wider objectives without compromising safety. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and, I hope, his assurance that public safety and fire risk will remain at the forefront of policy and operational planning as we deliver the energy infrastructure of the future.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 82A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, seeks to require long-duration electricity storage—LDES—operators to consult local fire authorities to assess the project’s fire risk before installation. I want to assure the noble Lord that this Government take fire safety extremely seriously, but we do not feel this amendment is necessary or proportionate, and it risks unintended consequences. I personally want to say to the noble Lord that, since fire has come from the Home Office into MHCLG, I have the ministerial responsibility for fire, and the noble Lord is welcome at any time to drop me a line to discuss anything related to this point or any concerns around fire safety.
The Health and Safety Executive regulates battery-energy storage system—BESS—sites within a robust framework that mandates battery designers, installers, and operators to uphold high safety standards. Our planning practice guidance encourages developers of BESS sites to engage with local fire and rescue services prior to the submission of their planning application and to consider the National Fire Chiefs Council’s guidance, so that matters relating to fire safety can be considered at the outset. However, we are going to go further than this. The Government are considering additional measures to enhance the regulation of the environmental and safety risks of BESS. Defra recently published a consultation on proposed reforms to environmental permitting for industry, including the principle of including BESS in scope of the environmental permitting regulations. This would give further safeguards for both people and the environment.
This amendment would add burdens to local fire and rescue services. Further changes to the long-duration electricity storage cap and floor scheme would add complexity to the system, which would lead to increased cost and time for the applicant. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is satisfied with my response, and I kindly request he withdraws his amendment.
Amendment 82B, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Offord of Garvel and Lord Roborough, requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of the Planning and Infrastructure Act on the UK’s long-duration electricity storage capacity within five years of it being passed. I want to assure the noble Lords that this Government are committed to monitoring the development of the UK’s long-duration electricity storage capacity, as well as our wider clean power 2030 ambitions. Ofgem is proceeding at pace with the delivery of the first window of the cap and floor regime, and expects to announce final decisions on successful projects, in both the 2030 and 2033 delivery tracks, in the second quarter of next year. Ofgem will remain closely involved in monitoring delivery of those projects, and information on their features and progress will of course be made public at the appropriate stage, as they would be for any other major generation projects.
The Government publish statistics on the UK’s electricity storage capacity annually in the Digest of UK Energy Statistics—DUKES. This currently includes pumped storage hydro and grid-scale batteries. Other types of LDES will be added to the publication when they become operational. The Government also have a statutory duty to report on their carbon budget progress under the Climate Change Act 2008. For instance, the Act requires the Climate Change Committee to provide an annual report to Parliament on the UK Government’s progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and we would expect future reports to include all relevant and significant developments in this regard, including those on delivery of the LDES cap and floor. The Government have a statutory duty to lay their response to the Climate Change Committee’s progress report before Parliament.
Given these existing monitoring and reporting commitments, this amendment to create additional reporting requirements is not necessary. I trust that the noble Lords, Lord Offord and Lord Roborough, are satisfied with our responses and I therefore kindly ask them not to press their amendments.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, the news that my noble friend has given us about the further checks and balances and reports on fire safety are very encouraging. However, the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, raised the question of the fire on top of the multi-storey carpark in Luton. There was a similar incident—just as bad, if I may say so—on a ship, somewhere between the Netherlands and the UK, which was carrying several hundred cars with these batteries. Apparently, the ship set itself on fire and the cars set each other on fire, and it was very lucky that nobody was hurt, because there was no way to put out the fires. I think the ship sank in the end.
My concern, to which I am sure my noble friend can respond, is that all these new reports are very useful, but what is missing is some transparency as to what actually happened. What happened on the roof of Luton airport carpark? We do not really know. Everybody denies that it was anything to do with lithium ion, but most people think that it probably was and that the then Government said nothing because they did not want to upset people. I hope my noble friend will agree that transparency is a very important part of the ongoing work.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
Let me reassure my noble friend that transparency is absolutely important in this situation. Both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, provided examples; of course, it would be remiss of me to comment on them, but I am sure there will be some investigation and learning from them. If the point is to go away and find out what lessons have been learned, and look at them as part of our transparency, it is a good one and I accept it.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, we have had an interesting, brief debate which actually had a few twists and turns. The Minister asked me whether I was satisfied with his response and I regret to say that I am not satisfied at all, for reasons I will give in a moment. Before that, I will deal with the interventions from the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I was not sure whether he was for or against this amendment, but I regret that he fatally undermined the Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill, brought forward by his noble friend Lord Redesdale, which now must be pointless from the Liberal Democrats’ point of view. I would have thought he would have been standing full square behind my amendment, which highlights the dangers of lithium.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield, quantified the value of battery storage in terms of amp hourage and capacity. However, the value of battery storage is not necessarily purely in the storage capacity; it is in the smoothing of voltages at an aggregate level, across a whole grid, and maintaining the hertz. It is a difference of only 0.2 hertz in the Iberian catastrophe that caused the contagious knock-on effect that brought down the entire grid in Iberia, in Spain and Portugal. So we must not look at battery storage in terms not only of current but of stability.
Baroness Coffey
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and others in the name of Baroness Coffey extend benefits schemes to energy generation infrastructure and requires them to be in place, including for any infrastructure still being under construction at the time of Royal Assent of this Act.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 82C; I have also tabled a number of other amendments in this group. In essence, this amendment considers bill discounts and community benefits.
I think it is fair to say that the Government have recognised the need for some benefits, but they have not been generous enough, in my view. That is why I also strongly support Amendment 83, tabled by my noble friends on the Front Bench, to make sure that we are sufficiently generous. I am convinced that that will go a long way to persuading—or at least giving some comfort to—householders in large parts of our United Kingdom who will suffer some of the consequential impacts of the acceleration of renewable energy involving pylons and similar.
In essence, I am also concerned that we seem to have lost the amount of electricity generation happening around the country. It seemed quite odd to me that people might get compensation for there being a pylon within 500 metres of them, but people living next to the generation of new substations and new nuclear power stations are not, as it stands, intended to receive any community benefit.
One of the successes of the French Government was to try to reduce the electricity bills of people living close to generation. That has long been considered a sensible way forward for a local community. I am not saying that everybody in those local communities wants to be, to use their words, “bought off” by a reduction on their bill, but it would go a considerable way with some of the frustration in the preparation of those huge construction projects as well as being an ongoing reminder that they are living near a nuclear power station. They may not have realised one was going to be built there—or a substation, or the like—when they moved to that area.
Clause 26 enables the establishment of the energy bill discount scheme. I have tabled a couple of amendments, that it should not be “may” but “must”. I am conscious that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, has also included “must” in Amendment 86. That matters to give absolute certainty to local communities that this will happen and that we will not have to wait for further consultation, commencements and the like, and that it will actually be done.
It is important that we consider not just nuclear, which I have referred to already—I do not think that I would qualify for any of that, by the way; I do not live too far away from Sizewell C, but nevertheless, there are plenty of people who qualify. We should also consider it for other energy projects, including wind farms and the like, especially recognising the Government’s proposals.
The Government’s proposed discount is only 25% of the £1,000 bill discount that the previous Government suggested, which has already been referred to in Amendment 83. However, it is clear that we need to make sure this gets to the households, so there are parts of this clause which are absolutely right to be included by the Government.
On Amendment 86, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I recall that I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to Michael Fallon a long time ago. I think it was back in 2013 that we started discussing what amount of money local communities should get. That reflects quite how long this discussion has been going on for. At one point, it was about business rate revenues: what would be retained, what would be kept by the council and what would be given to bill payers. It is important to make sure that as much of this money goes directly to local people as possible.
In terms of thinking this through, the Ministers may not have the answer today, and I do not expect them to have an answer on every single part of discussions about business rates retentions. However, it would be useful to understand where the Government have ended up on how much of business rates would be retained by local councils for the operation of all these different power plants which are busy being built around the country. I am sure that local government would welcome that clarity. Certainly, if 100% of the business rates of Sizewell C were to be retained in East Suffolk—indeed, by the new unitary authority in due course—they would be very happy indeed. That is not to say that East Suffolk keeps all that money; right now, it participates in pooling. Nevertheless, it is about recognising that this significant infrastructure in a very modest way provides some local community benefit which can be used for a variety of factors. It is for those reasons that generation as well as pylons need to be recognised in any bill discount scheme. I hope that the Government will be generous in that regard.
Forgive me, but there is one other amendment that I have forgotten to speak to. It would make sure that this cost is not borne by other taxpayers or bill payers. This needs to be considered in the cost of the project. We will discuss this more in the Moses Room on Wednesday, but, too often, when it seems that the Government are being very generous about discounts, rebates and similar, it is actually bill payers in other parts of the country who simply pay for that. We need to recognise that we have an electricity system that will of course bring some disruption in certain parts of the country where generation and other aspects of transmission are happening—we all need to pay our energy bills—but, for once, we should see some of the energy companies recognising the significant profits they will be making from those projects and that, for the future, they do not have to rely on bill payers paying for those benefits in the short term. I beg to move.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 85 in my name seeks to explore the extent and purpose of the compensation proposed for new energy infrastructure, particularly with regard to electrical infrastructure that already exists. Can the Minister explain how the clause enhances schemes that currently exist in the form of wayleave arrangements and payments for use of land for pylons, for example? Will the new scheme, for instance, be consistent with current arrangements for compensation?
Clarity about the parameters used to determine those residents who will qualify for compensation for the new infrastructure is important in understanding the scale of the scheme as anticipated by the Government. In a press statement, the Government stated that households within 500 metres of new or upgraded electricity transmission infrastructure will get electricity bill discounts of up to £2,500 over 10 years, and that this will see rural communities receive hundreds of pounds in their pockets for hosting vital infrastructure. It continues:
“Alongside money off bills, separate new guidance will set out how developers should ensure communities hosting transmission infrastructure can benefit by funding projects like sports clubs, educational programmes or leisure facilities”.
That press release sets out the principles behind what the Government are proposing for new electricity infrastructure. As I am sure the Minister will know, there are already over 20,000 pre-existing pylons, which have been associated largely with coalfields. Hence, many of the clusters of pylons are close to those sites; in Yorkshire, for example. For those communities at that time, there was an expectation by the state that electricity transmission was for the common good. The question I want an answer to today is: where has that sense of common purpose gone? Why are we not still considering the idea that for major infrastructure projects where the whole nation will benefit communities will need to accept that for the benefit of everybody, as was done in the past?
In their press release, the Government state categorically that it is rural communities that will see huge financial benefit from the scheme. Obviously, I do not have any argument with that, but I question the argument for compensating residents in those communities now when communities with infrastructure constructed in a different generation were not. Can the Minister explain, for example, whether the compensation will be extended to the Yorkshire GREEN scheme, which is upgrading existing infrastructure down the spine of Yorkshire to enable more green infrastructure to be linked to the grid? It is an upgrade of older infrastructure. Will those communities benefit from this scheme?
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 86 in this group on bill discount schemes and community benefits. It sets out a scheme for providing financial benefits to communities in areas connected with major infrastructure schemes. The amendment proposes a new clause that would establish a statutory scheme to provide community benefit from major energy infrastructure projects, ensuring that those who host the infrastructure necessary for our clean energy transition are directly recognised and rewarded.
Let me begin by acknowledging and welcoming what the Government have already done in this space. The provisions now in the Bill for compensation for households living near transmission lines represent, without question, an important step forward. Households living day in, day out under new pylons or beside substations reasonably expect that there should be some benefit for them and their local communities. I welcome the fact that the Government have done that. I also take on board my noble friend’s point that this stuff is also good for all in our communities and our future.
I welcome the position that the Government have taken in the Bill but, as part of this broader group, it is important that we discuss some areas of how the Government have designed their own compensation; for example, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, clearly mentioned, there is the point about generation not being included, as well as the fact that a fixed 500-metre distance was used in the DESNZ consultation. There are strange situations in which you could get compensation and not have visible sight of pylons, and there are other situations where you could have visible sight of pylons and not receive compensation. All of that needs a bit of working through; I welcome the other amendments in this group that are trying to do that. We should circle back to this on Report, but the important thing is that there is a compensation scheme. We on these Benches welcome that.
My amendment wants to go a bit further; it is additional to what the Government are doing. Although individual compensation is welcome, it has more limited scope and is of more limited benefit than pooling money together and using it to provide community benefits. I fundamentally believe that that is a better way of bringing real transition and change to the lives of the people who are impacted by this stuff.
Crucially, my amendment seeks to tie the benefit directly to the scale of the project, amounting to 5% of annual revenue. This is important because it requires not one or two pieces of infrastructure but lots of the stuff that we will have. As I said at the beginning, in energy terms, this is as big as the Industrial Revolution. Our communities will carry this weight; they should be able to be transformed by, and to get benefits from, it. I believe that pooling those benefits is a better way of helping our communities.
For example, I know that, over the summer, the Labour Party had a real concern about what happens to our coastal communities, which are some of our country’s poorest and most deprived communities. In the GB energy Act, we have community energy. It struck me that we could be doing a lot more if we used this type of money to help build local windmills and provide energy to these people living in poverty; that could be a really good scheme. It is important that this is about not the Government doing things to people but them doing things with people—that is, taking people with them on this journey and allowing them to be included in it, to benefit directly from it and to see it. I want people to go down the pub and say not, “Green energy is going to make my bill more expensive”, but, “We’ve got a local windmill or solar farm and we’re benefiting from it. We’re included in it. We participate and we get something back from it”. That is a very different conversation from the conversations that are happening now.
I recognise that my amendment is not fully workable; there are areas that obviously need reform and change. What I am trying to do is make a point. I am asking the Government to go further and go beyond what they have done already. In this country, there is a lot of conversation about and resentment of the Norwegian sovereign fund. When Norway started developing its oil and gas wells, it had the foresight to create that sovereign wealth fund; it has benefited from it. We did not do that in this country, and we have blown through most of the North Sea oil and gas. We do not have those long-term benefits.
As we start this new energy revolution, there is an opportunity here to make a system that compensates our communities and gets benefits flowing to our communities—indeed, to our whole society—from this new form of energy and transition. We can use that to bring people in and take them with us on this journey in order to make sure that this is about not one Government or one party but all of us working together for our communities, our future and the future of our children. I accept that there is a lot more to do but lots of other countries are doing this stuff, including Denmark, Germany and France, which has been mentioned. I encourage the Government to look at some of the schemes that other countries have, to look at what works and what does not, and to look at this again.
Turning briefly to the other amendments, I fully recognise the purpose of the amendment of my noble friend Lady Pinnock. She said that this is time limited, and I also note that there are over 20,000 pylons. I am interested to know whether the Government could do an assessment on what the cost of that would be; I suspect that it would be quite big and could well be prohibitive. I do not know the answer to that, but it is a question that needs asking and it is good that it is being asked.
I am not certain whether the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, is in his place, but we do not support fracking. It is not appropriate and will not solve our energy problems; it will cause pollution to our groundwater systems as well as earthquakes. It was his own party that decided that fracking was not the answer and, as far as I am aware, the Conservatives have not changed their policy on that part of the energy transition. That is certainly one amendment—unless he is working for Reform, which I doubt—that I cannot see the point in adding to the Bill.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 83, which seeks to introduce a bill discount scheme for eligible households living near major energy infrastructure. This amendment seeks to ensure that those most directly impacted by the presence of new energy developments, especially large-scale infrastructure, receive a tangible, meaningful benefit—namely, a £1,000 annual discount on their electricity bill for 10 years. In contrast to Amendment 86, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, which appears to direct funding to local authorities rather than local consumers, we want to see individuals benefiting directly, not local government.
This proposal stems from a clear and pragmatic principle: if the Government are to meet their national energy and net-zero targets through new infrastructure, they must take the public with them. That includes recognising that hosting such infrastructure in their area has consequences for local communities, whether because of the visual impact or disruption from construction. It is disappointing that the current Government have chosen to step back from the community benefit scheme proposed by our previous Conservative Government. In doing so, they have shown not only a lack of ambition but a fundamental misunderstanding of the impact that these developments can have on communities.
Indeed, in a 2023 paper published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, it was recommended that
“an electricity bill discount for properties located closest to transmission network infrastructure … could offer up to £10,000 per property (£1,000 per year, ~£80 per month, over 10 years)”.
The rationale was simple: communities should be compensated for their proximity to infrastructure that serves the national interest. In achieving this compensation, there is likely to be greater community consent, limiting the length of time for the planning decision to be taken and the cost associated with it. Yet despite this recommendation, the Government have failed to follow through with a credible or generous offer. Amendment 83 seeks to correct that failure.
Amendment 84, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lilley, would provide for the creation of community benefit schemes linked to onshore wind turbines. The amendment again recognises that, while additional energy infrastructure is essential, it is not always welcome, and that community consent is far more likely to be secured when there is tangible benefit for those living nearby. My noble friend’s amendment acknowledges that local communities must be partners in our energy transition, not passive recipients of top-down decisions. It would be helpful to understand the Government’s position on why onshore wind projects—and other energy infrastructure projects, for that matter—are not currently in scope of formalised benefit schemes and whether that could or should be changed.
Similarly, Amendment 94, also from my noble friend Lord Lilley, proposes that individuals should be entitled to financial benefits from shale gas companies. While shale gas remains a contentious issue, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned, the underlying concern remains valid: communities affected by energy extraction and production should not be left behind. I also point out that fracking was pretty much invented in, and is commonly used throughout, the North Sea; it is simply the shale gas issue that we are addressing here.
I also support the sentiment of the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey. These important amendments seek to extend benefit schemes to energy generation infrastructure and network transmission infrastructure and ensure that such schemes are not merely optional but required. They mirror the spirit of the amendment in my name by embedding fairness into our energy transition and making community benefit a standard, not an exception.
What links all speakers and amendments in this group is a shared concern for the people and places that bear the burden of our national energy ambitions. From onshore wind to transmission lines, from shale gas to solar farms, these projects do not exist in a vacuum; they are local and in real communities. These amendments attempt, in different ways, to ensure that the impact is matched by investment and that no community feels exploited in the name of national progress.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 85, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. It is uncosted, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned, and concerns a retrospective scheme. The noble Baroness used the word “fairness”, and I ask: fair to whom? This provision, if implemented, would fall on bill payers and the infrastructure providers that had not anticipated these costs when they developed the infrastructure. I very much remain to be persuaded on the necessity for this amendment.
I look forward to the Minister’s response and urge her to provide clarity and assurance on the Government’s approach to community benefits. The concerns raised by this group of amendments go to the heart of fairness, consent and the long-term credibility of our energy strategy.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken on this group: the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Coffey. Their amendments relate primarily to the bill discount scheme for communities near new and certain significantly upgraded transmission infrastructure, and other community benefit schemes; these are Amendments 82C to 82E, 83, 83A to 83C, 84, 84A to 84C, 85, 86 and 94.
Before I turn to the specific amendments, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, that I will not cover business rates retention in my response. That is a bit above my pay grade, and I am afraid that she will have to wait, as we all will, for the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement to see whether she intends to make any changes to that. That is the responsibility of the Treasury. As the noble Baroness is very well aware, there is a redistribution mechanism in the business rates retention, which enables those areas that are less able to raise business rates to benefit as much as some of those that are more able to raise business rates. I am afraid that any adjustments to that are not in my remit, so I will not cover that.
I turn first to Amendments 82C, 82E and 83A to 83C, which aim to extend the scope of the financial benefit scheme for people living near new and significantly upgraded transmission network infrastructure to those living near energy generation infrastructure. While I believe that the spirit of these amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, is certainly well intended—and the Government are committed to ensuring that communities that host clean energy infrastructure benefit from it, including clean energy generation infrastructure—I must resist these amendments for reasons that I will set out for her.
Clause 26 specifically allows for the creation of a bill discount scheme for those living near new or significantly upgraded transmission network infrastructure, with a minded-to position of offering eligible customers a bill discount of £250 per year over 10 years. This ensures that communities living near this infrastructure are recognised for the service they provide the country in hosting the infrastructure and helping to achieve our clean power goals. The clause has been specifically designed to address transmission which, due to its long, linear nature, impacts communities without necessarily providing further benefits, such as local jobs or investment, that other infrastructure probably will bring. If this clause is amended as suggested, it would require further complex and detailed amendments to ensure that it operates effectively for each type of generation infrastructure, delaying the time that it would take for the scheme to be implemented.
However, I can inform noble Lords that the Government have already presented proposals to expand the delivery of community benefits to other forms of clean energy infrastructure. On 21 May, we published a working paper on community benefits and shared ownership of low-carbon energy infrastructure, the responses to which are currently under review. Our proposals would require developers of low-carbon energy generation and energy storage infrastructure to contribute to community benefit funds to support families, businesses and local community groups living near these projects. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, suggested, the scheme could help regenerate our coastal and rural communities—for example, via new community facilities, apprenticeships and education schemes—boosting local economies and growth as part of the plan for change.
The paper also sets out how communities could own a stake in renewable energy infrastructure through shared ownership, resulting in profits being reinvested in the community. Through these proposals, we aim to provide communities with consistency and certainty that they will benefit from hosting new generation infrastructure. I hope that the noble Baroness accepts these reasons why these amendments would not be appropriate, is reassured that we are looking into ways to ensure that communities hosting new clean energy-generation infrastructure are properly recognised for the service they are providing to the country, and will agree to withdraw Amendment 82C.
Turning now to Amendment 83, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Roborough and Lord Offord, which seeks to set the discount amount for the bill discount scheme at £1,000 a year for 10 years for households living within 500 metres of eligible infrastructure, I really sympathise with the noble Lords’ intention to ensure that households closest to the new transmission infrastructure benefit, but I am going to have to resist the amendment, for reasons which I will set out. The Government’s minded-to position is to provide electricity bill discounts of up to £2,500 over a maximum of 10 years for households living within 500 metres of new and significantly upgraded electricity transmission network infrastructure. This proposal provides a balance between ensuring that communities are recognised for the role they play in hosting the infrastructure and limiting the additional cost to electricity bill payers in Great Britain from the scheme.
We are still conducting final analysis on the overall cost of the scheme. On 8 August, we published a consultation on our current proposals for scheme design, and that consultation is open until 26 September. Final analysis will be published in our impact assessment, alongside secondary legislation. The Government consider that the overall level of benefit ought to be set out at that stage, which will still allow for sufficient parliamentary scrutiny once secondary legislation is laid. I hope noble Lords understand our position on this matter. I look forward to working closely with them at the appropriate time on this important detail of the scheme.
I turn to Amendment 84, which seeks to extend the scope of the financial benefit scheme for people living near new and significantly upgraded transmission network infrastructure to those living near onshore wind turbines. I welcome the intent of the noble Lord’s amendment. The Government are committed to ensuring that communities which host clean energy infrastructure benefit from it. Clause 26 allows for the creation of a bill discount scheme for those living near new or significantly upgraded transmission network infrastructure, with a minded-to position of offering eligible customers a bill discount of £250 a year over 10 years. This ensures that communities living near this infrastructure are recognised for the service they provide to the country. While it may seem logical to extend this scheme to other infrastructure, such as onshore wind, the clause has been designed specifically to address transmission, which, as I said, due to its long linear nature, impacts communities without providing further benefits, such as local jobs or investment, that other infrastructure can bring. If this clause is amended to include onshore wind, it would require further complex and detailed amendments to make sure that it operates effectively, delaying the time it would take for the scheme to be implemented.
However, I am pleased to inform noble Lords that the Government have already presented proposals to expand the delivery of community benefits to other forms of energy infrastructure, including onshore wind. I spoke already about the paper that was produced on 21 May on the community benefits, and we are reviewing the responses to that. The proposals would require developers of low-carbon energy generation and energy storage infrastructure to contribute to community benefit funds—again, to support families, businesses and local community groups who live near these projects. The scheme could definitely help to regenerate those coastal communities. The paper also set out how communities can own a stake in those. Through these proposals, we aim to provide communities with consistency and certainty. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured that we are already looking into ways to ensure that communities living near new onshore wind generation are recognised for their service to the country.
Amendments 82D, 84A and 84B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, would remove the Secretary of State’s discretion to establish the financial benefit schemes as detailed in Clause 26. They would also ensure that eligible infrastructure projects constructed prior to Royal Assent to this Bill are included within the scope of the scheme. I acknowledge the intention of the amendments: to ensure that the scheme is not confined to those who live near eligible infrastructure built after the Bill is enacted. I must resist this amendment, for the reasons I will set out.
The aim of Clause 26 is to ensure that households that will live close to new electricity transmission infrastructure are appropriately recognised for their service. The Government understand that many of these projects are planned over the next few years. It is our intention that the scheme will run for a set period of time, and the Government require the flexibility to review the effectiveness of the scheme and determine whether it ought to continue for a longer period or come to an end after a certain date. Amendment 82D would remove that flexibility and result in greater time and monetary costs to bring the scheme to a close. Additionally, Amendments 84A and 84B would expand the financial benefit scheme by including works which have already been completed.
Around twice as much new transmission network infrastructure will be required by 2030 as has been constructed over the past decade. We believe it is only right that this unprecedented increase in the pace of construction is appreciated and that communities are recognised for the service to the country. Extending the scheme to historical infrastructure would be moving away from this purpose. We must also consider the substantial additional cost in extending the scheme in this manner. The increased complexity in identifying many more eligible households, as well as the increase in the number of discounts being paid out, would vastly inflate the cost of the scheme, as well as delay current rollout plans, due to the increased administrative challenges. However, although it would not be appropriate to modify the scheme in the manner that these amendments propose, I am happy to inform noble Lords that the Government are currently finalising details on eligibility for infrastructure where construction has recently commenced, as we recognise that there are projects vital to clean power 2030 that will have begun before the commencement of the scheme outlined in Clause 26.
Amendment 84C seeks to prevent the costs of community benefit schemes being borne by energy bill payers. I understand and appreciate the intention of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to protect consumers from rising energy bills. However, I will again set out the reasons why I have to resist this amendment. One of the Government’s five missions is to make Great Britain a clean energy superpower. This will boost our energy independence and reduce electricity bills. Our electricity network is key to achieving this. As we increase low-carbon and renewable energy generation, we will need to increase the scale of the transmission network at pace to keep up with demand. It will not be possible to deliver secure electricity supply vital to growth and prosperity without a transmission network that can transport it. This financial benefit scheme aims to increase community acceptability of electricity infrastructure and, in doing so, has the potential to reduce opposition and associated planning delays.
The Government’s current intention for the scheme, as outlined in Clause 26, is for the cost to be borne by an obligation on electricity suppliers. However, although they are not mandated to do so, it is expected that suppliers will recoup these costs by passing them on to their customers. For example, the warm home discount scheme is funded via an obligation on energy suppliers that is recouped via energy bills. Using alternatives, such as funding the scheme through Exchequer funding, would not be appropriate, as the bill discount scheme forms part of a broader package which has been developed to improve acceptability of transmission infrastructure, which in turn could help reduce constraint costs, if successful in supporting the accelerated delivery of critical transmission infrastructure. Because of this, the Government believe that it is most appropriate that the scheme should be funded through bills.
Preliminary estimates for the cost of both the bill discount scheme and the community funds guidance are around 80p to £1.50 per year per average household electricity bill, although this estimate is subject to change in our future impact assessment, set to be published alongside secondary legislation. Should this community benefit package, alongside our wider package of reforms, succeed in supporting the accelerated delivery of critical transmission network infrastructure, we could avoid up to £4 billion in constraint payments in 2030, compared with the scenario where delays persist. Those costs will be met by the consumers. This is as outlined in analysis from the National Energy System Operator.
I turn to Amendment 85, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. We always enjoy hearing the Yorkshire dimension on our Bills in the House. The amendment seeks to expand the financial benefits scheme from households living near new and significantly upgraded transmission network infrastructure to those living near existing transmission network infrastructure. I acknowledge the good intent behind the amendment in recognising communities that have hosted infrastructure for years. However, for reasons that I will set out, I must resist this amendment.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. She has mentioned the working paper in relation to several amendments, including mine. I welcome the words that she has given and the direction of travel. However, we have the usual phrase, that “in due course” something will come forward. The Minister may not have the answer to hand, but if there is a possibility of bringing forward those proposals in time for Report in relation to this group of amendments, it would be welcomed across the House.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I accept the noble Earl’s point. I am not fond of “in due course”, as he well knows—he has heard me say that many times. I will endeavour to find out what the timescales are likely to be. It usually depends on the level of responses that have been received and the complexity of dealing with them, but I will respond in due course.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive answer on the variety of schemes and community benefits, bill discounts and similar. I am disappointed that she does not think that it is necessary to talk about generation. Not all projects are like Sizewell. Not all these potential new projects generate local jobs, although I am sure that the community will be very grateful for the ones that will be generated by Sizewell. Nevertheless, conscious of the time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Teverson
“(1A) For renewable energy produced from biomass, the forestry authority may only supply or use forestry materials that are deemed to be waste.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment prevents public forestry resources being used for the establishment of large scale biomass operations.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, I declare a couple of interests that are relevant to this Bill. I chair the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership and Aldustria Limited, a company which is into grid battery storage. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for adding their names to Amendment 87.
When I first read through this Bill before Second Reading, I went through all the big things in Part 3 and all the stuff that we have been debating. Hiding in plain sight was Clause 28 on forestry authorities—primarily one thinks of the Forestry Commission here in England—and how their land should be used. It is entitled in such a way, with renewable energy, that you think, “Oh, that sounds good: more renewable energy and forestry. What could possibly go wrong?” Then you look down this clause and think, “Hang on a minute: what goes together most with renewable energy and forestry?” Of course, the answer that springs out is biomass; what else can you do with trees for renewable energy than to produce biomass? I am not totally against biomass for renewable energy, but it is an area about which we have to be very careful.
If we read through the rest of Clause 28 to see the definitions of renewable energy, interestingly we find that it does not actually say what they are but what they are not. It goes through nuclear energy, so we are not likely to have any small modular reactors on Forestry Commission sites in the near future, and it goes through all the fossil fuels and peat, all of which is good. However, it does not mention biomass within those definitions. As we know, biomass has its issues. It is interesting that we are debating this clause at a point when the Financial Conduct Authority has looked at the behaviour of Drax over something of a completely different scale and in a different place. It shows that one of the difficult areas with biomass is how you manage it, have accountability and make sure that, if it is used, it is managed in the right way. So there are a number of issues around biomass, all of which we know. The forestry authorities have a number of ancient woodlands, which certainly should not be touched, and there are issues around clear-cutting and soil quality, particularly if we were to take away all the cuttings—the branches and fallen trees—in that natural forestry.
I am aware that the Minister will say to me—it is a positive part of this clause—that activities carried out under this clause would have to have an environmental benefit. It goes on to mention those environmental benefits to nature and other areas, and I welcome that. However, my concern—hence why I have pursued this amendment—is that it could be said that all those things would be helped if we moved more quickly towards net zero. That is true, and so you could construct an argument that having renewable energy through biomass would reduce climate change, which is positive for all those other natural environment considerations.
I am really trying to find out from the Minister—she gave part of this answer in writing after Second Reading but I want to investigate it further—what exactly was in the Government’s mind when they wrote this. Are they going to cover Forestry Commission land with solar panels or wind turbines? I am trying to understand what this allows and what those organisations’ management plans for renewable energy are likely to be. I can accept, as I put in the amendment, that waste product is acceptable. Having said that, even residual and dead timber can itself be a good springboard for biodiversity. I am really trying to find out the intent behind this, because it is one area that could go very wrong if we are not careful. I beg to move.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, I am very pleased to support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. There is widespread concern about the sustainable sourcing of all Drax wood pellets, and it is incredibly important that we ensure there are safeguards in place around the potential for the wrongful use of forestry land. As the noble Lord said, we learned just last week that Drax is now under investigation by the financial watchdog. In the past, it has been fined £25 million for supplying inaccurate data. So while the Government’s decision to reduce the subsidies for Drax is welcome, it will remain the UK’s largest emitting power station, whatever we do. We have to be watchful.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report in May, covering DESNZ’s draft regulations to extend the regime for Drax, highlighted concerns about the ability of Ofgem and DESNZ to hold Drax to account on the sustainability question and the enforcement of environmental compliance. It noted that “key documents” relating to
“Drax’s supply chain processes and reporting practices have not been published”.
A lot of this comes from whistleblowers within the company. The Public Accounts Committee has also criticised the weaknesses in the current assurances and enforcement processes.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 93 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, who, alas, cannot be with us today. I declare my interest as chair the Labour Climate and Environment Forum. The noble Lord’s amendment would insert into the Bill a new duty for the Forestry Commission to take all reasonable steps to contribute to the Government’s statutory climate and nature targets under the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Environment Act 2021 in exercising its functions related to planning, development and infrastructure.
The Forestry Commission is a really important player in the delivery of these statutory targets and, for that reason, was listed as one of the public authorities in the original Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. His Private Member’s Bill sought to apply these duties to a whole range of public authorities. During the debate on that Bill, the Government said that they were sympathetic to its aims. This would be a real opportunity for the Government to put that sympathy into legislation.
The Forestry Commission is really important to the achievement of the Government’s targets for three reasons. First, it is the single largest landowner and manager of land in the country, with 750,000 hectares under its control. Secondly, it impacts, to a much bigger extent, on other woodland and associated land in its permitting and regulatory role for other landowners. That covers in excess of 3 million hectares of land. So we are talking about an organisation that, if it does the right thing, can have a huge impact and, if it does the wrong thing, can have a huge impact. Thirdly, this amendment would simply be a natural evolution of the development of the Forestry Commission’s role.
The Forestry Commission was invented in 1919, originally with a sole focus on producing timber and encouraging the replanting of Britain’s depleted timber-producing land. This depletion had become incredibly apparent during the First World War. In 1968—we do not move very quickly when it comes to dealing with forestry—the Countryside Act extended its role to include the provision of public amenities, such as footpaths and open spaces. In 1985, the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act extended the Forestry Commission’s role to include conservation. This amendment is simply another step on that road. It would complete the extension and modernising of the Forestry Commission’s duties to include the delivery of the climate and nature targets that have been invented over the last 15 years.
I am sure the Minister will say that the Forestry Commission has already got conservation duties and is already asked to deliver for climate change. Indeed, the biomass issue that has just been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, raises some considerable questions about the way in which that extension is happening. It is messy and piecemeal. The amendment would provide an unambiguous and up-to-date duty, without which the Government will very likely not deliver their statutory nature and climate targets. We cannot simply depend on some very piecemeal roles for the Forestry Commission to deliver the right thing on that extent of land.
Noble Lords will understand from this introduction that I do not support Amendments 87A and 87B in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. The spirit of the land use framework, which is under preparation by government at the moment, is that our scarce land supply has to work in a multifunctional way, delivering multiple benefits. Timber production is important because we are a massive net importer of timber, but so are climate change, biodiversity, flood risk management and access for health and well-being. They are also things that the Forestry Commission needs to deliver in the way it manages land and encourages other landowners to deal with their land. The Forestry Commission is absolutely fundamental in that as the biggest landowner in the country.
To revert to the primary purpose of the Forestry Commission being timber production risks going back to the bad old days of regular ranks of subsidised Sitka spruce—I caricature—marching across the countryside on inappropriate sites with poor outcomes for biodiversity and much subsidised by taxpayers. We simply cannot go back there. We need a modern Forestry Commission that delivers those multiple outcomes that the land use framework requires.
I also express agreement with some of Amendment 88 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I am not sure if the percentage ceilings that he gives for land to be used for energy infrastructure are the right ones in percentage terms, but there certainly needs to be an appropriate balance between the requirements of timber production, biodiversity, access, recreation and energy infrastructure. His proposed new paragraphs (c) and (d), which would protect against the adverse effects on sites protected for nature conservation and irreplaceable habitats such as ancient woodland, are absolutely spot on.
I also look forward to the Minister’s response to the very real and important inquiry from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, into what is intended in the Government’s mind for the Forestry Commission and its role in biomass. I am concerned already at some of the species that the Forestry Commission is permitting at the moment—novel species, very fast growing, with as yet untested uses. I would be concerned if we lost sight of the fact that the vast majority of Forestry Commission land, particularly in England, is in fact moving towards being a mixed woodland mix that can do all these other duties like biodiversity, access and public health, rather than simply being species that are aimed at commercial return.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow all the noble Lords who have spoken in this group, and as has already been said, I attach my name to Amendment 87 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and to Amendment 93.
I will seek to add to, rather than repeat, what has already been said, but I just follow the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, in addressing Amendment 88 and agree that I am also not sure about the percentages. I would particularly highlight the ancient woodland, how terribly important and terribly rare that is, and so, as per paragraph (d) in that amendment, there is no way we should be doing anything to damage ancient woodland for energy—it is such a precious resource. Noble Lords have heard me go on before about looking at the trees, but let us also see how incredibly precious the biodiversity in soil in ancient woodland is.
On Amendment 87, I think biomass is now a very dirty word, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, rhetorically asked, “What could possibly go wrong?”. Of course, that has already been answered with the single word, “Drax”. The energy think tank Ember said Drax is “the UK’s largest emitter” and that the power
“is more expensive than … gas, it’s more polluting than coal, and more dependent on imports than oil”.
There should be no future biomass at Drax; that is my position and the Green Party’s position. It really is a tragedy that we did not get to that point when we recently had the opportunity.
The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, picked this point up. I signed this amendment, but I am almost tempted towards saying simply that there should be no biomass from forests, because as the noble Baroness asked, what does “waste material” really mean? We are thinking about biodiversity and about organic material that is a resource. If you leave it on the forest floor, it contributes to the generation of soil and provides habitat for a huge variety of organisms. Is that really waste at all? Is there any such thing in a forest? That really is the question. We need to be thinking about having a war on tidiness and the idea that for any sort of planting, we want these nice, neat rows with clean bare soil in between—we need to think about what kind of damage that does.
Particularly in addressing Amendment 93, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to a study that was out last year funded by the Forestry Commission. It was entitled Rapid review of evidence on biodiversity in Great Britain’s commercial forests. It found that there is in fact a huge shortage of data and information about what is happening in the biodiversity, specifically in commercial high forests. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, raised the issue of the land use strategy. How can we be making the plans within this Bill, or indeed for the land use strategy, if we do not have the data about the biodiversity, which this study, funded by the Forestry Commission, identified? I also point to another Forestry Commission study from late 2023, which warned of the risk of catastrophic ecosystem collapse in our forests. This was signed—the work of 42 experts—and pointed out all the risks that our forests face from wind, fire, pests and diseases, and it said there are already forests in continental Europe and North America where we have seen this kind of biological collapse. We need to be thinking about making sure that the Forestry Commission is given the statutory duty, which Amendment 93 would give it, to ensure that it looks after biodiversity as well as, of course, the crucial issue of the climate emergency.
It is worth repeating again that we are incredibly forest and woodland-deprived in the UK by international comparisons. We have to look after what is there for human health, for well-being, for the climate and for nature.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I speak particularly to the amendments that I have tabled in this group. It is fair to say that the Forestry Commission is quite an unusual organisation—it is a non-ministerial department for a start. I was the Minister and then the Secretary of State with the relationship with the Forestry Commission and my experience was that, frankly, I used to get somewhat frustrated, thinking that it should get on and plant some trees. It almost seemed very reluctant to just get on and plant trees. The reason it matters—the clue is in the name, but perhaps the organisation literally cannot see the wood for the trees—is that trying to give the extra targets is important for the Forestry Commission to make sure it is on track in doing what it is supposed to do.
One of those aims is to help achieve the 16% woodland cover target by 2050, which we are at risk of missing. The Forestry Commission should have at the forefront of its mind that its role is about trees, woodland and forests. I am conscious that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, was concerned about single species, or perhaps only certain species being granted in commercial estates. It is vital that we have mixed forests. One of my concerns was that it seemed like, for any tree that was not a broadleaf, it was almost like it was automatically bad and we should not be touching it. Actually, we need that mix for a combination of factors. There is no question that a broadleaf tree will bring absolutely better biodiversity overall, but so do the pines and, critically, the pines will grow a lot more quickly and contribute far more quickly to issues involving climate and emissions. That is why having a combination tree estate under the UK forestry guidance really matters.
Earl Russell (LD)
In this group on the Forestry Commission’s actions and duties, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 88 and in support of Amendment 93, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Young. I support pretty much all of the amendments in this group. This has been an interesting conversation on not only the role and development of the Forestry Commission but its relationship with hosting energy, including what safeguards and protections need to happen as we go down that road and what our forests will look like in the future under climate change.
My amendment is designed to put in place some safeguards on the new powers granted to the appropriate forestry authorities for energy generation, transmission and storage on public forestry land. At the heart of all this is a balance between what we do to hit our climate and nature change duties and what we must do not to further damage our ecology and biodiversity. It is fine to make use of our forests for these things, but it must not have detrimental impacts. That is what I have tried to balance in my amendment.
The commission gains unprecedented powers to host and sell energy from renewable installations on land under its management. Yet, when I looked at Clause 28, there were no clear legal protections for most precious habitats. My worry is that, without such safeguards, we will see renewable energy infrastructure sited in ways that harm our ancient woodlands, our carbon rich peatlands and other priority habitats that the Government have a duty to protect, particularly under our 30 by 30 biodiversity targets.
I am looking for a reasonable balance between timber production and nature conservation. That reasonable balance is in the Bill, but what does it mean? It is not purely defined in the Bill, which was also a worry for me. In response to that, my amendment tries to take a pragmatic way forward. I note the issue raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Young and Lady Bennett, about the percentages. My amendment says that no more than 2% of all Forestry Commission land and no more than 5% of any individual site could be given to energy storage and development. I will go away and look at that. At the moment, there is no cap on that at all. Noble Lords may not agree with my percentages but putting a percentage in the amendment is a whole lot better than having no percentages in there at all; however, I will go away and look at whether there is another way in which that might be done.
This issue is particularly acute in our national parks and where our national parks and Forestry Commission land co-exist; in the New Forest, that is 47%, while, in Northumberland, it is 15%. These are treasured landscapes. Energy development must be proportionate, consistent with statutory park purposes, subject to democratic oversight, not impacting on leisure facilities and making sure that our national parks authorities have some say in and control over these things. These are important matters.
My amendment does not seek to reject the role of using Forestry Commission land to help with our energy; it just seeks to put some safeguards on that. I will go away and consider my amendment. This debate has been useful for me, and I will reflect on this, but there need to be more safeguards in the Bill—of that I am still certain. I would be very happy to work with the Minister between now and Report to see whether there are ways in which we could do that together; that would be welcome.
This has already been discussed in detail but, turning briefly to Amendment 93, I have supported the Private Member’s Bill brought forward by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, at every stage of its passage through the House. It is absolutely essential that we update our climate change legislation. In the last debate on his Bill, I said that it was the equivalent to the Government being the general and knowing what the military strategy was but failing to tell any of their own troops. The Government need to work with all these public bodies. These things are so pressing and so complicated. The Government are holding on to all this stuff and not passing the orders down and empowering others, including the public bodies. The Forestry Commission owns 5% of all public land. It needs a duty to enhance and meet our climate change and biodiversity targets; it is silly that it does not have that.
I am sorry. I am a little buoyed up having come through the Crown Estate Bill and the Great British Energy Bill, where we managed to work with Ministers and get such provisions added to the Bills. It is on my agenda to do that in this Bill; that makes sense. I would like to work with the Minister, but it is a minimum for me that a similar amendment to the ones in those Bills is added to this Bill. If the Government want to make use of forestry land for energy generation, that is fine, but with that comes some responsibilities; those responsibilities include that this duty should added.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I very much approve of what the Government are doing in this clause. I think they should go a bit further. I want to illustrate this in the context of the challenges faced by southern broadleaved woodlands, which existed for many centuries as places of industry. People made things there; a lot of products came out of it. The whole biodiversity of that ecosystem comes out of a continuous pattern of use. It is interesting to see, for instance with NEP, how little biodiversity is left in the woodland when the woodland ceases to be of value. All the biodiversity there, which is considerable, has moved outside. Our woodland biodiversity is important.
The Government should be organising themselves, and the Forestry Commission, so that we can see a restoration of a commercial purpose to the southern broadleaved woodlands, particularly in England. We cannot at the moment rely on forestry. All the species that we used to grow in profusion have no big current use. Our neighbouring forest in Eastbourne was planted to beech 100 years ago. When they are felling it now, 100 year-old trees are going to firewood. There is no market now for really high-quality beech.
In the small wood that I own, oak is the main crop. We have acute oak decline coming in now. You are asked to wait 100 years for oak. If it is all going to rot away before then, there is no outlet. We really need a system that can take general wood output—branches, brash, thinnings, uneconomic trees—and turn it into something useful. The outlet available at the moment is energy.
The Forestry Commission is hugely important in this as it has a breadth of organisation and understanding, whereas the ownership of woodland tends to be extremely fragmented in the south. It can bring a lot in motivating, organising, inspiring and controlling when it comes to looking after biodiversity principles.
I am very pleased to see the direction in which the Government are moving here. My understanding is that this clause is written in a way that allows the Forestry Commission to work with partners in achieving its objectives; it does not have to do everything itself. However, I urge the Government to make one change to this: not just to look at renewable power but to look at renewable feedstocks for industry.
If we are to replace oil as the feedstock for our chemical industry, we need to go after every available source of concentrated carbon, and woods produce quite a lot of that. In looking at the powers that Forestry Commission has under the Bill—there are already young British companies using wood products to produce jet fuel and similar things—we need to add that extra aspect: not just renewable energy, but renewable feedstocks for industry.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, the amendments in this group speak to the vital role of our nation’s forests in delivering both environmental and societal benefits. As I begin, I refer the Committee to my registered interests, in particular as a forest owner and as a developer of new forestry and woodlands.
Turning first to Amendment 87, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, I recognise its thoughtful intent. It seeks to ensure that public forestry resources are not disproportionately used to supply large-scale biomass operations. We are sympathetic to the amendment’s aims and to many of the comments made in this short debate. The responsible management of public woodland must prioritise environmental protection and long-term sustainability, but the picture is complex. Biomass plays a role in our renewable energy mix, and there may be cases, such as thinning or disease control, where repurposing woodland material is practical and sustainable.
This is ultimately a question of balance. I ask the Minister to outline how existing safeguards ensure that public forestry will not be placed under undue pressure from commercial biomass demand. I also note, as my noble friend Lord Lucas pointed out, that the overwhelming use of felled broadleaves is currently for home heating. Without the wood-burning market, mature forestry economics are undermined in these situations. It would be a shame to lose that incentive for managing our native broadleaf plantations and natural woodland.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I do not have the hands-on experience of managing forestry that the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, does. My mother’s family home was in the middle of Savernake Forest, so it is very close to my heart, and the three elderly uncles who lived there when I was growing up worked in the forest in exactly the way described by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. They did active work for the Forestry Commission: the kind of work that the noble Lord was describing.
Clause 28 sets out to amend the Forestry Act 1967 to grant the forestry authorities powers to pursue electricity generation from renewable sources within the public forest estate. Amendment 87, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and signed by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, seeks to restrict forestry authorities to supplying or using only waste materials in the context of renewable electricity generation from biomass. I completely understand that the intention behind the amendment is to prevent large-scale biomass operations on forest estate and inappropriate harvesting practices in the name of renewable energy, but I suggest that the concern is already addressed in statute by the balancing duty laid out in the Forestry Act 1967.
Clause 28 of the Bill applies the balancing duty specifically to renewable electricity, which means that forestry authorities are required to balance their renewable electricity functions with their forestry responsibilities and the conservation of natural beauty and flora and fauna of special interest. If the noble Lord is concerned that, without his amendment, the Forestry Commission would be able to engage in large-scale deforestation for the purpose of biomass, the Government’s categorical view is that that would not be consistent with the commission’s statutory duties.
Furthermore, I believe that the amendment would have unintended consequences that could constrain routine woodland management practices, including existing operations that contribute to the health of existing woodlands and the sustainable supply of biomass. Forestry authorities are committed to delivering the sustainable management of our forests and meeting the requirements set out in the UK forestry standards. These standards are upheld through processes such as thinning, where selected young trees are removed to enhance the quality and health of the broader woodland area—I think the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, referred to this. Through that process, all the material produced could be used for biomass. The proposed amendment could have the unintended effect of producing a narrow interpretation of “waste” that could exclude material most suitable for energy generation, such as material produced through the thinning process. This would limit the uses of forest materials and ultimately would be wasteful in itself.
Finally, it is important to note that sustainably sourced biomass can play an important role in our renewable energy systems, in transitioning away from fossil fuels and in meeting our net zero targets. Existing frameworks and duties provide a high bar for the Forestry Commission’s role as manager of the nation’s forests. These existing statutory duties underpin the commission’s current practices, including the sustainable supply of biomass, already operating at a smaller scale, as part of routine and acceptable day-to-day woodland management practices. The Forestry Commission has no plans to engage in the development of large-scale biomass technologies in the forests that it manages. It is for these reasons that I kindly ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
I will consider Amendments 97A, 87B and 88A together. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for her amendments, which aim to protect the forest estate from adverse impacts as a result of renewable electricity activities. I reiterate that our public forests are a precious national asset providing vital environmental, social and economic benefits, and this legislation will not change that fact.
The noble Baroness mentioned using wood in construction. Just before Recess, I visited an office building just across the Thames from here that was constructed using timber. It is a fantastic building. It looks out onto a small woodland as well, which makes it even better. So that is an important factor.
The forestry authorities’ key statutory duties remain to promote the interests of forestry, the development of afforestation, the management of forests and the production and supply of timber and other forest products. The additional revenue stream produced from the sale of electricity from renewable energy developments will enhance their ability to deliver their existing objectives.
Amendments 87A and 87B would require the forestry authorities to replace any woodland lost to renewable electricity development by double, with this being planted as near as possible to the original site. I reassure the noble Baroness that the size of the public forest estate will not reduce as a result of renewable energy developments. The estimated footprint of renewable electricity projects will be relatively small and there will be no net loss of woodland area. Renewable energy installations are successfully integrated into woodlands in many areas of Scotland. Scottish officials explained to mine that, generally speaking, where trees might be felled for, say, access purposes during the construction phase, they can be replanted once the access is no longer required.
It is the Government’s view that the amendment is unnecessary as there is already existing statutory provision to ensure that impact is mitigated in both the Forestry Act and the planning and development process. Therefore, permanent deforestation at concerning scale for the purpose of renewable electricity development would not be consistent with the Forestry Commission’s existing statutory duties.
Furthermore, I believe the amendments could have the unintended effect of limiting the ability to utilise new and potentially more suitable land to create new woodland habitats when undertaking compensatory tree planting. Some locations are less suitable for woodland creation, and replanting woodland as close as possible to the installation may not align with ecological and other environmental and timber-supply priorities.
The amendment may also limit the ability to pursue restoration measures beyond compensatory tree planting that could deliver greater environmental value. The Forestry Commission will ensure that compensatory planting takes place where woodland is permanently lost to renewable energy projects, but the planning process can often identify more effective ways of enhancing ecology and biodiversity. We would not want these alternative approaches to be constrained as a result of this legislation.
Amendment 88A specifically requests that Clause 28(6) is removed completely. The intended effect of this is to prevent regulations being made for purposes beyond those explicitly set out in the Bill. Many examples of the provisions set out in subsection (6) can be found in any large Bill. They are technical provisions that do not affect the fundamental purpose for which regulations can be made. In this case, that fundamental purpose is determined by subsection (5). I reassure the noble Baroness that, if regulations were to be made in reliance on the power in subsection (6) to make, for example, incidental or supplementary provisions, the scope of those regulations could not be broadened in the way that her amendment appears to be concerned about.
Further, the reference in subsection (6) to the ability to make different provisions for different purposes does not mean that any of those purposes can go beyond the general purpose set out in subsection (5). They cannot.
I note for completeness that the Government are currently reviewing subsection (5) in response to recommendations made in the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s report on the Bill. I therefore do not believe that the amendment is necessary for the intended effect. Given the existing provisions and the reasons I have set out, I hope the noble Baroness is reassured and I hope she will agree to withdraw her amendment.
Amendment 88, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, would place a limit on the amount of the public forest estate that forestry authorities may use for renewable electricity projects. I recognise that our public forests are a national asset and that this amendment has been made in the spirit of protecting them. However, the existing statutory duties and regulatory frameworks will prevent excessive development of the forest estate. The estimated footprint of these renewable electricity projects will be relatively small. There will be no net loss to woodland area or the size of the public forest estate as a result of the renewable electricity projects. Furthermore, any renewable electricity developments will be subject to the relevant planning process and considered against the forestry authorities’ existing statutory balancing duty set out in the Forestry Act 1967.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
The Minister gave a very impressive list of different pieces of statute, guidance and legislation from right across the spectrum that guides the Forestry Commission in its work. I just want to plant the idea in her head that perhaps the time has come for some legislation that consolidates all of those requirements. It is now nearly 60 years since we last had a forestry Bill.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I will pass my noble friend’s comments on to the Defra Minister.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, if this was not the House of Lords, I think I would ask for a round of applause for the Minister. That was very concentrated information over about 15 minutes without even a breath, so my congratulations to her.
Clearly, there is another debate that needs to happen. I am absolutely fascinated by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, that the Forestry Commission is not too strongly into planting trees. That could just explain the fact that we are rather behind on our tree planting targets in this country. I really welcomed the in-depth, practical view of how the Forestry Commission worked from the noble Lord, Lord Roborough.
As far as my amendment is concerned, I can see from what the Minister said in answer to one of the other amendments that the role model here may be what is happening in Scotland. I will look at that further and try to understand further what the Government are trying to achieve in terms of the Forestry Commission and renewable energy. I may or may not come back to this on Report, but at this point I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Middle East
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Statement is as follows:
“On the ground, it is unimaginably bleak. Horrifying images and accounts will be seared into the minds of colleagues across this House. They are almost impossible to put into words but we can and must be precise with our language because, on 22 August, the UN-backed IPC mechanism confirmed what we are witnessing: famine—famine in Gaza City and famine in its surrounding neighbourhoods, now spreading across the wider territory; famine which, unchecked, will spiral into widespread starvation.
This was foreseen: it is the terrible conclusion of the obstacles we have warned about for over six months. Since 1 July, over 300 people have died from malnutrition, including 119 children. More than 132,000 children under the age of five are at risk of dying from hunger by June 2026. This is not a natural disaster; it is a man-made famine in the 21st century. I am outraged by the Israeli Government’s refusal to allow in sufficient aid. We need a massive humanitarian response to prevent more deaths, with crucial NGOs, humanitarians and health workers allowed to operate and stockpiles of aid on Gaza’s borders released. In the past three months, more than 2,000 Gazans have been killed trying to feed their families, and Hamas itself is exploiting the chaos and deliberately starving Israeli hostages for abhorrent political purposes.
I know that these words of condemnation, echoed across legislatures all over the world, are not enough, but be in no doubt that we have acted where we can. We have restored funding to the UNRWA; we suspended arms exports that could be used in Gaza; we signed a landmark agreement with the Palestinian Authority; we stood up for the independence of international courts; and we have delivered three sanctions packages on violent settlers and far-right Israeli Ministers for incitement. We have suspended trade negotiations with the Israeli Government, and we are at the forefront of the international community’s work to plan for a stable, post-conflict peace. We have provided over £250 million in development assistance over the past two years.
Today we are going further. I can announce an additional £15 million of aid and medical care for Gaza and the region. We continue to work alongside regional partners, including Egypt and Jordan, to enable the UN and NGOs to ensure that aid reaches those most in need. Brave medics in Gaza tell us that essential medicines are running out and they cannot operate safely; that is why we are funding UK-Med, whose field hospitals have treated more than 600,000 Gazans, and that is why we are funding the World Health Organization in Egypt to treat thousands of evacuated Gazans.
Meanwhile, as my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said earlier, we are working with the World Health Organization to get critically ill and injured children into the UK, where they will receive specialist NHS treatment. The first patients are expected to arrive in the UK in the coming weeks. Extracting people from a war zone is complex and dangerous, and it relies entirely on Israeli permissions. I am pressing for that to happen as quickly as possible. We are also supporting brilliant students granted FCDO Chevening and other scholarships to escape Gaza so that they can take up their places for the coming academic year.
I recognise that this touches only the edges of this catastrophe. We all know that there is only one way out: an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release by Hamas of all hostages, and a transformation in the delivery of aid. We know it, our US and European allies know it, and our Gulf partners know it. I am working night and day with them to deliver a ceasefire and a wider political process to deliver long-term peace. To make a ceasefire last, we need a monitoring mechanism, the disarmament of Hamas and a new governance framework for Gaza. That is the focus of our intense diplomacy in the region.
In contrast, further Israeli military operations in Gaza City will only prolong and deepen the crisis. Together with our partners, we demand an immediate halt to this operation. Each week brings new horrors. Last week’s double strike on Nasser Hospital—one of Gaza’s last remaining major health facilities—killed 20 people, including five journalists. I remind Israel once again that international law requires the protection of healthcare workers, journalists and civilians. These actions will not end the war and they will not bring the hostages home, let alone make them safer, as hostage families have recognised. They will sow despair and anger across the region for generations.
In the West Bank, the Israeli Government are tightening their stranglehold on the Palestinian Authority and continue to approve illegal settlement construction, just recently in the E1 area east of Jerusalem. That would erect a physical barrier to a contiguous Palestinian state, and it must not happen.
In July, I described before the UN General Assembly our intention to recognise the state of Palestine later this month unless the Israeli Government take substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza and commit to a long-term sustainable peace. This commitment responds to the current crisis but stems also from our historic responsibility to the region’s security, reaching back over a century to the Balfour Declaration. As I said last month in New York, I am deeply proud that it was a British Foreign Secretary who helped establish a homeland for the Jewish people, but the same declaration promised that
‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights’
of the Palestinian people. Those rights are more under threat than at any point in the past century.
To those who say that recognition rewards Hamas or threatens Israeli security, it does neither. Recognition is rooted in the principle of a two-state solution, which Hamas rejects. We have been clear that any Palestinian state should be demilitarised. Indeed, President Abbas has confirmed that in writing to President Macron. We see no contradiction between the two-state solution and our deep commitment to Israeli security because security comes from stable borders, not indefinite occupation.
Before I finish, I would also like to update the House on Iran. On 28 August, the UK, along with France and Germany, triggered the snapback mechanism under UN Security Council Resolution 2231. This means that, if no new agreement is reached within 30 days, the sanctions that were lifted under the Iran nuclear deal—the JCPOA—will come back into force. These wide-ranging sanctions include a full arms embargo and restrictions on its nuclear, missile and drone programme. This was not a decision that we took lightly. For years, we have worked with international partners to stop Iran developing a nuclear weapon. The 2015 deal was meant to do just that, but Iran has repeatedly undermined the agreement. Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium is now 45 times over the limit set by the JCPOA. Despite this clear escalation, we have made every effort over years of negotiations to bring Iran back to compliance; those efforts have continued in recent months. I have urged Foreign Minister Araghchi to de-escalate and choose diplomacy.
In July, we offered Iran more time if it agreed to return to negotiations with the US and restore full access to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Last month, I warned Iran that time was short and we would have little choice but to trigger snapback. I regret to inform the House that Iran has not complied with its legal obligations, nor chosen the path of diplomacy, so we had no choice but to act. I have long been clear that I will not allow snapback to expire without a durable and comprehensive deal. It would be unacceptable to allow the issue to fall off the UN Security Council agenda, despite the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme. But Snapback is not the end of diplomacy, as Secretary Rubio has also recently underlined. Iran can still meet our conditions. It can restore full IAEA access, address our concerns about its stockpile and enrichment, and return to negotiations. Alongside our partners, I will continue to urge Iran to choose this path.
In the worst of times, this Government will continue to take all the steps we can to alleviate suffering, to help bring regional conflict to an end, and to create the conditions for long-term peace and security. We will not rest until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, the hostages are returned and a flood of aid reaches those in desperate need. Despite the obstacles before us, we will work with partners to preserve the two-state solution. I commend this Statement to the House”.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much indeed for repeating that extremely important Statement. I want to start by expressing my sympathy for the people of Afghanistan, much benighted over the years, who have now been affected by last night’s earthquake; I am sure we are all thinking of them.
I agree with the Minister that the ongoing conflict in Gaza is awful. It has claimed too many lives already, and I know that noble Lords across the House share our desire to see a peaceful resolution to the conflict and the resumption of work towards a sustainable peace based on a two-state solution. Hamas is still refusing to release the hostages, who have been in captivity in Gaza now for coming up to 700 days. This is an appalling situation and the Government must redouble their calls for the release of the hostages, which I know they did again today. Will the Minister please update the House on the Government’s work to influence that situation and help to secure both the release of the 48 hostages who remain in captivity and the urgent delivery of more aid into Gaza? Hamas is a terrorist organisation and we must all work together with our international partners to prevent it having any role in the future governance of Palestine. As the Government embark on the path to recognition, will the Minister tell us what engagement Ministers have had with international partners on a plan to end Hamas’s role?
Turning to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, again I think all noble Lords will agree that the situation is dire. We all want to see a sustainable resolution of the conflict as soon as practically possible. We also need to see more humanitarian aid delivered to innocent civilians in Gaza. Can the Minister confirm what practical steps the Government have taken to help unblock the situation so that more aid can get into Gaza?
On Palestinian recognition, it is disappointing that Ministers conveniently chose to announce this major change to UK foreign policy shortly after the House broke for the Summer Recess, meaning that we did not have the opportunity to ask immediate questions of Ministers at the time. This afternoon at Oral Questions, the noble Baroness refused to answer my question on the Montevideo convention, so let me give her another opportunity. This sets out the international law criteria for state recognition, which include a defined territory, a permanent population, a functioning Government and the capacity to enter into international relations. I ask her again, specifically, which of these Montevideo criteria are fulfilled by the state of Palestine that the Government are about to recognise? Will this recognition apply just to the West Bank, under the control of the Palestinian Authority, or will it also apply to Gaza, nominally, of course, still under the control of Hamas? The Government often tell us that they are bound by international law, so it would be very useful to know what work the Government have done to establish whether Palestine meets these criteria under international law.
There is an unfathomable asymmetry in the demands being made by the Government. Will the Minister please give the House total clarity on this point? Will the Government proceed with the recognition of Palestine while hostages are still being held by Hamas? Bizarrely, the Government’s current recognition plan seems to be being pursued purely as some sort of punishment of Israel. The PM has made lots of demands of Israel but none of Hamas, which has predictably welcomed Labour’s plans and the actions of which, of course, were the cause of the current conflict. Recognition must not happen while hostages remain in captivity. The Government’s current plans will neither secure the release of the hostages nor increase the amount of aid getting into Gaza. It seems to be pure gesture politics designed to appease Labour Back-Benchers in the other place.
Earlier today, in a response at Oral Questions, the Minister quoted a figure of 2,000 Gazans being killed while queuing for food aid at GHF distribution points. Will she please clarify the source of that number? I hope that she has a more reliable source of information than relying purely on Hamas.
Finally, I would like to raise the conduct of the Iranian regime. Tehran must never obtain a nuclear weapon. Can the Minister provide an update on the Government’s current assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities?
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Since this is my first occasion to speak in the Chamber since my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Newby, retired as leader of our group, I put on record my appreciation to him and express how much all of us on these Benches admired how, in tumultuous and ultimately successful times, he led us for the most recent nine years.
While this Statement is justifiably focused on the terrible humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the inhumane treatment of the Israeli hostages, I put on record my dismay that the world’s worst humanitarian crisis—worse than Ukraine and Gaza combined—carries on in Sudan. One hundred Sudanese civilians have died today of hunger. I hope the Government will bring forward a Statement, as penholder in the Security Council for Sudan, with an update soon.
Now there is famine in Gaza too. Avoidable, manmade famine should have been an impossibility in 2025. Manmade means deliberate. It means that women and children are dying of hunger primarily as a result of the political and military decisions of men, increasingly detached from the humanitarian needs of civilians. In Gaza, the provision of wholly inadequate supplies of food from the GHF has become a killing zone, and the IDF operations in Gaza now mean that there is no safe area. Indeed, the most dangerous areas are those that have been defined as safe. The casualty levels pay testament to this. The images of the emaciated hostages treated so brutally by Hamas terrorists were responded to by the families of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum so powerfully and movingly, as they also speak of their opposition to the continuation of the violence and the tactics of the Netanyahu Government.
The Minister knows, because I have stated it on many occasions, that these Benches have called for the recognition of Palestine as a state for 45 years—17 years before Hamas was formed, so it cannot possibly be close to being seen as a reward for its actions. We welcome the position of the Government but did not share the conditionality, which was out of the hands of the Palestinians. That said, recognition could come in less than three weeks, but the Government must now indicate that the conditions they have set are not being met.
Indeed, the recent statements by Netanyahu mean that it is impossible they will be met. He and the extreme Ministers in his Government are moving to expand military campaigns in civilian areas, illegally expand territory and widen the area for settlements in the West Bank. If the UK recognises Palestine, as we hope it will, it must surely be honoured as an act that is vital, urgent and needed to prevent the 1967 borders from being reduced and removed altogether. Bulldozing and occupying civilian areas in that border area is a war crime. Collective punishment is a war crime. Weaponising food and medicines is a war crime.
That is why we believe that the UK should sanction these extreme Ministers and Netanyahu, that there should be no arms sales to the Israeli Government at all and that the Government should now conduct and publish an urgent human rights assessment, as allowed for in the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement. The grim reality is that, unless there are specific, deliberate and measurable interventions, eloquent statements and diplomacy will not be an effective means to end the suffering and it will continue. The civilians who are starving should not have to wait.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I thank both noble Lords for their contributions. I thank particularly the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, for reminding us of the situation in Afghanistan. He is right about the plight of people there, and I expect we will make further comments on this in the next few days. As he asked me to do, I am very happy to redouble and never stop calling for the immediate release of those hostages, who should be returned today and who were so cruelly and barbarically removed from their families, as well as for the return, tragically, of the bodies of some of those who were taken. I met the hostage families and made them a promise that I would continue to do that. I am very happy to do so until the day that they are all home, where they belong.
Hamas’s role should end. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It should have no role in the future administration of Palestine. When we are asked our view on this and about why we are working with the Palestinian Authority, our view very strongly is that it is essential that there is a group of leaders able to administer and lead responsibly in a Palestinian state. If you do not believe that, you do not truly believe in the viability of a two-state solution, and this Government do believe in that.
When it comes to aid, we have spent just over £200 million in the last period on aid. We will continue to do that. We made more announcements over the weekend of some specific commitments on maternity care. I remind noble Lords there are still 120 babies being born each day in Gaza. I cannot imagine the difficulty of giving birth in such circumstances, particularly without medical assistance, including anaesthetics. That is the situation we are in, and we will continue to provide aid for as long as that is necessary. The difficulty, as noble Lords understand, I think, is that there remain obstacles to getting aid to where it is so desperately needed. We continue to call for and encourage the movement of that aid.
On the timing of the announcement on recognition, yes, that did happen once we had risen for Summer Recess, but it was an announcement not of recognition itself but of an intention to recognise in a certain situation at the end of September. So it was known that there would be opportunity for us to debate that. I regret that we have had to get to this position at all. I have stood here many times and said that recognition should be part of the peace process. I had hoped that recognition could take place in far more positive circumstances, as part of a negotiation, perhaps. That is not where we are; recognition is not taking place against that backdrop. We will make an announcement on the basis of international law if the time comes, as seems increasingly likely. But Hamas does not want a two-state solution. It is not going to want to listen to our conditions; it is not interested in peace; it is a terrorist organisation. Our recognition of that is something that I know the noble Lord shares, so it seems a little odd to ask us why we are not having some sort of dialogue with Hamas.
On the source of data, I accept we do not have sufficient data to be able to make the kinds of assessments that we would want to in other circumstances. It is not good enough that we are relying on the information that we are; it should be better. But the ability to have more accurate information, to have third-party corroboration and to have journalists able to report is prevented by the decision of the Government of Israel. It leads us to rely on the information that I know the noble Lord finds so unsatisfactory. This could be remedied and I only wish that it could be.
I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said about the noble Lord, Lord Newby. It was good to hear him make those remarks, and obviously we wish him well in his new role, with his new look, I see, this evening. I am glad too that he talked about Sudan because, as he rightly says, that is by far the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet at the moment and shows little sign of improvement. I was on the border there myself earlier this year, and the situation there and the accounts that we are hearing are desperate. We have taken the decision to protect our aid to Sudan and his suggestion that we should make some sort of statement as to our assessment of the current situation is very helpful. I will take that back.
We have long said that we believe that we ought to recognise the state of Palestine. The noble Lord asked why it is happening now and about conditionality. As I say, we feel that if we do not do this now, the whole concept of a two-state solution becomes jeopardised, given the situation on the ground.
I agree as well that the futility of these statements is becoming increasingly sickening and I only wish that there was more that we could do that would have an effect on the ground. I deeply regret that our words are not heeded or listened to sufficiently by the Government of Israel, but that does not mean that we do not use our voice when we can to say what we think is right, and that is what this Government intend to continue to do.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, I too welcome the proposed actions of His Majesty’s Government. I know that many other noble Lords will wish to intervene in this; I will keep my questions very brief.
There are two areas that the Minister has not touched on. The first is with respect to the denial of visas to the Palestinian delegation, who now do not have the possibility of attending the UN session when the state of Palestine is recognised. Have HMG thought of any alternatives? Canada is a country that is about to recognise Palestinian statehood and perhaps one alternative would be for the countries that propose to do so to convene in Canada with the Palestinian delegates to assure them of support.
My second point is about the Government’s assessment of when the International Court of Justice is likely to rule on the case on genocide initiated by South Africa and heard last year. It seems to me it is sitting on its hands a little bit and I wondered whether the Government could suggest that some kind of expedited procedure might be necessary when we have so much at stake in terms of the number of deaths on both sides of that equation.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
On the issue of attendance at the UN General Assembly, it is obviously an issue for the US to decide who enters the country, but it is not right to deny Mr Abbas the ability to take part in the event in New York. We will make that clear, but ultimately it is up to the US to make that decision.
I note what the noble Baroness says about Canada; it is an interesting suggestion which I had not previously heard. I know the Canadians have the G7 as well, so I do not know what consideration they may have given to that.
As to the timing of the ICJ, I am not aware that we are able to speed that up in any way, but I hear what the noble Baroness says about her desire to see progress.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I am appalled by the policies of Mr Netanyahu and his coalition partners. I used to know Mr Netanyahu when I worked in the Foreign Office and I am in no way surprised that he is acting in the way that he is. That said, if the Government recognise Palestine as a sovereign state—territories which have none of the usual characteristics of a sovereign state—surely Hamas and associated terrorist organisations will claim the credit for such recognition. Are the Government comfortable with that prospect?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Hamas should not claim the credit, but what it claims and what is true will be very different. It may well make statements to that effect, but they are not true. We are being as clear as we possibly can be that this is about protecting the viability of a two-state solution; that is our sole motivation here. Hamas is an appalling organisation; it has no role in the future administration of any state, and it should release the hostages immediately. Until that happens, it is very difficult to see how we get any sustained peace.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I welcome what the Minister said about Sudan, because over the last two years, Israel and Gaza have been mentioned in Parliament 10 times more than Sudan, where famine has killed more than 500,000 children. Israel, unbelievably, has even been discussed more than twice as much as Russia and Ukraine and almost twice as much as the NHS, immigration and asylum, issues for which our Parliament and the Government are actually responsible. This is a terrible situation, but what does the Minister think explains this? Does she agree with me that people should be very careful about singling out Israel at a time when hatred against Jewish people is running at record levels?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I do not know why Sudan does not get the attention that it should. It is a problem. Perhaps it has to do with media access and presence in that region, or perhaps there are other reasons. I do not know, but I regret it and wish we could spend more time considering Sudan. We held a conference earlier this year with the desire to see progress there. It is incredibly difficult, but we are doing everything we can and I thank the noble Lord for making that point.
People are rightly concerned about what they see. It feels very close to home. There are many people in this country who have family connections to Israel and to Gaza specifically, and I do not in any way ascribe any kind of other motive to those raising these concerns. I note the concern in the noble Lord’s question about antisemitism here in the UK. It is possible, and it is our responsibility, to show that we can have concerns and that we can criticise and be appalled by some of the actions of the Government of Israel, but vehemently protect, in the strongest possible terms, the necessity of Israel—an ally of ours—to succeed, to be safe and to be a prosperous country long into the future. That is what we want to see.
I regret that, too often in this debate, you are forced to pick a side. You either believe in the viability of Israel or in the Palestinian cause. I do not feel like that. If you say you support a two-state solution, you have to mean it. That is, two states living safely, securely and prosperously, side by side.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, there is a reason Sudan is not mentioned as much and the horrors taking place there are not given the attention they deserve. It is because Sudan is in Africa—that is why—and Africa is not seen as having the same strategic importance as the Middle East.
However, Africa—southern Africa in particular—can teach us one very important thing. At the height of the struggle in southern Africa, when white people and black people seemed to be at loggerheads in a way that would never be resolved, there was active promotion by successive British Governments of dialogue between all the communities in southern Africa. What more action can His Majesty’s Government take to promote dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims in that region, and between Palestinians and Israelis? It must be possible to be both a friend of Israel and a friend of Palestine.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I think it is. I was in South Africa in 1994, just before the elections. I remember that time of huge optimism but also of great fear in certain parts of the population. I recognise completely what my noble friend says. Sometimes, we look back and forget just how desperate things got in South Africa at various points and the things that were done.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to feel that sense of optimism now, either about Sudan or the situation in Gaza. I fear that there is a Government who are deliberately acting in a way that they know is leading to enormous suffering and death in Gaza. This can be prevented very quickly. If dialogue is needed, dialogue is what we should have. It would be very good to move forward in a way that takes us to a place where there is a process and a structure to negotiations, and where the UK—or any country that is able to—is able to bring parties together. Perhaps that means our friends in the region; it does not have to be some of the usual partners who lead this, but dialogue is the only way, ultimately, that this will be resolved. The problem today is one of desperate need and starvation in that population.
Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)
My Lords, I would like to follow the remark just made by my noble friend about the lessons from southern Africa; I would not presume to be any more expert than he is on that matter. Of course there was a place for promoting reconciliation and dialogue, but there was also a place for sanctions against a pariah regime, and that brings me to my question for my noble friend the Minister.
I want to focus on what is excluded from this Statement. The Minister helpfully told us that this is “a man-made famine” and that she is
“outraged by the Israeli Government’s refusal to allow in sufficient aid”.
In the light of the Government’s outrage at man-made famine, why are they not including any new sanctions against the Israeli Government or their members, who have promulgated the terrible acts that we have seen over recent weeks? Given that there are no new sanctions in today’s Statement, can we be reassured that further sanctions remain under active consideration as a response to the humanitarian outrage and man-made famine that this Statement identifies?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
As the noble Baroness should know, we do not comment on future sanction designations.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, I totally endorse what has been said about Sudan. I was there a year ago and am in almost weekly contact with people there at the moment. But I am slightly worried about the terms in which we debate some of these matters, such as Gaza and Ukraine. The crisis in Ukraine did not begin on 24 February 2023; the crisis in Gaza and the Middle East did not begin on 7 October 2023. Our attempts to simplify the conflict, perhaps for conceptual reasons, do not always help us. It is immensely complex, it goes back a long way and 7 October cannot be the justification for everything that follows. Does the Minister agree?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I agree in that, obviously, the situations that the right reverend Prelate refers to are deeply rooted in history. Many of us understand and study this and appreciate what he is saying, but I cannot respond to anything that mentions 7 October without saying that that most hideous of attacks changed the nature of that conflict. It was always going to lead to a response from Israel. What is happening now, though, is beyond what anybody anticipated would happen as a consequence of that heinous attack, but nothing should diminish the appalling events of that day. The accounts and footage from that day that many of us have seen will haunt us forever. Perhaps if there were similar accounts and footage from Sudan that were as visible to us all now, we would at least be having a different set of conversations. But I agree with the right reverend Prelate about complexity and the need to understand the historical origins of these conflicts.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, I think we all see the appalling humanitarian crisis. I welcome the Government’s intervention in terms of the medical support they are providing and propose to provide via this Statement. However, I wish to go back to the issue of recognition and an earlier point made about why there are no conditions or prerequisites on the Palestinian Authority—and not simply regarding a level of balance on the release of hostages being a precondition, which has been highlighted.
We have seen, for example, that the Canadian Government—with which our Government have often been in lockstep—have made a number of preconditions on the Palestinian Authority around democratic reforms before they will consider recognition. Why have the UK Government not made that a precondition of recognition?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
For the Palestinian Authority, it is not a condition of recognition, as the noble Lord knows, but we are working with the Palestinian Authority to bring about the reforms that we think are necessary to enable it to administer a state in the future. We do not claim that it is ready to do that now. However, as I have made clear, the decision around talking about recognising Palestine at the UN General Assembly is around preserving the viability of the two-state solution. People can disagree about whether that was the right or wrong thing to do. We feel that this is not the circumstance in which we wanted to recognise Palestine; we wanted it to be part of a much more positive process and to have included the negotiations that noble Lords have said that they want to see leading towards a lasting settlement. That is not where we are, as we all know. We have taken the decision now, because we felt that unless we did, the prospects of the future state would be further jeopardised —and look at what is happening with E1 too. We have not done this in the circumstances that we would have wished, but I agree with the noble Lord on the need to see further reform of the Palestinian Authority.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, the head of the World Health Organization has said that July was the worst month for cases of acute malnutrition in children in Gaza, affecting nearly 12,000 children under the age of five, all as a result of a manmade famine. In the light of this and the further bombardments of Gaza City, is it not time the UK took firmer action through the maximum licensing of sanctions, including on Netanyahu; ending all exports of arms, including surveillance support; and withdrawing conditions on the recognition of the Palestinian state?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We are only, I think, three weeks away from the UN General Assembly, when the decision on recognition will be communicated. As I have said before, I cannot comment on the designation of future sanctions, but I observe how extraordinary it is to impose sanctions on individual members of the cabinet of a country with which we have such long, close historic ties.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, as my noble friend has said, since late May 2025, Israeli forces have reportedly killed some 2,000 Palestinians and injured more than 15,000 at or near aid distribution centres in Gaza, where women, men and children are compelled to seek minimal provisions for their families as a result of Israel’s policy of failing to allow aid in properly and creating, as we have heard, a famine. Despite the export of arms suspension, can my noble friend the Minister say why the Government are still permitting the transfer of F35 components to Israel through the international pool, knowing that these aircraft may be used in operations causing significant civilian casualties?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
The issue with F35s is that their components are provided on a pooled basis. My understanding is that, if we stopped their provision, there are other situations in which there would be an outcome that we would not want to see.
I really agree with my noble friend on the issue of the provision of aid and the way that the Israeli Government have chosen to go about it. When this idea was first suggested, we expressed our concerns. We said that we did not believe that aid could be distributed safely or at sufficient scale to meet the need—and it has not. This was foreseeable; it was predicted; it was avoidable. It is fixable. We could get the aid in very quickly now, but we need the Government of Israel to agree to that. I think there is more aid getting in than there had been at various points, but still nowhere near enough. Once you have famine starting, it is not simply a case of “Get some more aid in and all will be well”. The effects take some time, and given the medical attention that is now needed, I fear that we are about to see the cascade effect that happens when you enter famine. As others have said, you also see the increased prevalence of diseases, which are no respecters of borders. This is a dire situation, where we need the food and medical supplies to enter Gaza as quickly as possible.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
Monday 1st September 2025
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
Lords ChamberPlanning and Infrastructure Bill 2024-26 View all Planning and Infrastructure Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 110-III(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Third Marshalled List) - (1 Sep 2025)
“Prohibition of solar power development on higher-quality agricultural landNo permission may be granted for the building or installation of provision for solar power generation where the development would involve—(a) the building on or development of agricultural land at grade 1, 2, or 3a, and(b) building or installation at ground level.”Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause would prohibit the development of solar power generation on higher-quality agricultural land.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 89 in my name. This amendment would insert a new clause after Clause 28 which would prohibit the development of solar power generation on high-quality agricultural land, in particular, as set out in paragraph (a),
“agricultural land at grade 1, 2, or 3a”.
As many know, agricultural land is classified into five grades based on various physical and chemical characteristics that affect its long-term agricultural use, grade 1 being the highest and grade 5 the lowest. Grade 3 covers good to moderate-quality land and is divided into two sub-grades, with 3a defined as land capable of consistently producing moderate to high yields of a wide range of crops. I excluded sub-grade 3b, which is more limited in its agricultural use, often suited only to grassland and extensive grazing. Paragraph (b) in Amendment 89 then prevents solar power generation development, which would involve building or installation at ground level.
As I and others argued at Second Reading, the Government need to be joined up when considering infrastructure. Despite the high-level meetings over the summer in Alaska, the current situation in Ukraine remains significantly worrying, and the threat will remain even when the war in Ukraine has been resolved. Our defence policy has pivoted to deterrence against possible war: that we should be war ready. Although defence is the first priority of the Government, surely our second, as an island nation, should be food security.
Solar farms will take up large areas of land that should be used for food production. The Minister has suggested that these concerns are not proportionate, as it is estimated to impact only 1% of agricultural land. According to the Government’s own statistics released in March this year, covering the UK up to 1 June 2024, utilised agricultural land accounts for some 16.8 million hectares in 2024. One per cent of that is the equivalent of 105,000 football pitches, around four-and-a-half times as big as the Isle of Wight. That is not something to be just brushed aside.
We have already had clear examples of impact estimates being widely out, from those leaving the private school sector to the impact of job taxes on enterprise and business. The Government’s own national security strategy tells us that we must actively prepare for war. Currently, we import more than 40% of our food. This Bill would see badly needed productive land lost to solar farms. Our agricultural land is needed for food production. It is vital that we become more self-sufficient and resilient. Producing more food in the UK is an essential part of that. Regarding resilience, solar farms are easily identifiable, hard to guard and therefore could be so easily disabled by drone strikes. This amendment seems fundamental to safeguard future need regarding food production.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 92 in my name. The amendment is simple and straightforward: it recognises that solar farms have a role to play in our energy security, but that that must be balanced with an effective use of our best farmland for food security. I observe that the lack of Labour Party Back-Benchers here says more than we need to about their views on farm and food security.
This amendment would not prevent or fetter the development of solar farms on the poorest quality land or restrain smaller proposals on the best land which command the support of the local planning authority. However, where large-scale solar proposals come forward that include the best and most versatile land, my amendment would mean that the nationally significant infrastructure project—NSIP—process would not and could be engaged. To be clear, this would not be an absolute ban on large-scale solar farms on the best land; it is just that, if those proposals were to come forward, they would need to be determined locally by the planning authority.
It is said that modern society is no more than three meals away from breakdown. In the hierarchy of needs, food in the belly is the number one priority. When the chips are down, you cannot eat a solar panel. Last year, the national wheat yield was down by 20% on account of wet weather. This year, the yield impairment is similar but because of dry weather. Just as there are no guarantees about the weather, we cannot be careless with our food supply.
I have recently heard encouraging noises from Defra Ministers who belatedly realise that the risks of food security are greater than they have ever been and that the best land should be reserved for food production, where inputs can be used most productively. The poorest and least productive land can be harnessed for other uses—environmental, amenity or economic. I welcome this sinner that hath repenteth and I venture that there is now common ground between people like me, who appreciate and value food security, and the Government. That should make acceptance of my amendment easy to achieve, so that the right balance is struck between heating and eating.
I will not go into quite so much detail as my noble friend, but let us talk about what I mean by the best and most versatile land. The Library tells me that, under the 1966 agricultural land classification process, grade 1, 2 and 3a land comprises 42% of the cultivated area of Great Britain; by difference, therefore, the substantial majority, 58% of the agricultural land, is in the poorer grades 3b, 4 and 5. Now, this would still be available for large-scale solar energy under my amendment, and there are millions of poor hectares to go at. That is land the size of 12 Norfolks or two and half times the size of Wales—noble Lords will note that I do not use the football pitch analogy.
Last year at the Dispatch Box, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, explained that, in the case of a recently approved Sunnica proposal in Suffolk, the proposal did not include some of the best and most versatile land. I will not criticise her for an honest mistake, but I regret to tell the Committee that there was plenty of the best land, including grade 2 land, in that proposal—land that is now lost to food production for a generation. On so many levels, the Government’s rhetoric is at odds with the reality. They have lost control of the numbers, and in so doing are imperilling our food security, which is national security.
In Lincolnshire, the county that more than any other puts bread on our tables, already 2% of that county is under threat from solar. Worse, thanks to my noble friend Lord Frost we learn that the majority of the Heckingham proposal is predominantly the best grade 1 land under the 1966 rules.
In an Answer to a Written Question last November, the Government reported that 1,400 hectares of land in Norfolk were currently under NSIP applications. But the reality was that it was 7,500 hectares, and now the number is greater still. We know from Great British Energy—I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his place—that there just is not the grid capacity to accept all the solar that is being promoted.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, surely the point about the Bill is that it is enabling us to put the structures in place to actually get the grid capacity up and running.
Lord Fuller (Con)
True. The noble Lord makes a good point, and so I sense even further a degree of consensus on both sides of the Committee on this matter. If we take the fact that the grid capacity is not there to accept all the solar that has been promoted, because it is diurnal and seasonal and comes in very big flashes which can overwhelm the grid, and that capacity to absorb is limited, only a fool would disagree with limiting the proposals to the poorest land first.
I have heard it said that we need not worry about this and that only the amount of land currently used for golf courses is being used for solar—something like 0.5% of all land—but that is simply not true. It is the 19th hole tale that has grown with the telling. The Government’s land use framework contemplates that 9% of all land will be used for environmental and energy schemes. Let me say straight away that agri-solar is starry-eyed, greenwashed fantasy. The solar panels are taller, so they are even more visually intrusive, with even more chemicals used to bash the weeds so that they do not shade the panels or wrap their tendrils around the steel stanchions.
The principle of controlling solar development aside, this amendment is important because it seeks to remove the loopholes and abuses that we have seen flow from the misuse of the NSIP regime for solar applications, including artificially stringing together many disparate smaller schemes, some miles apart, to get over a hurdle threshold. Where I live, a local proposal comprises a dozen different blocks of land spread out over a canvas more than 15 miles wide and eight miles tall as a device to get over that NSIP threshold. That is an abuse.
I can see that it is in the farmer’s private interests to sign up for solar. On normal arable economics, a farmer would do well to earn £200 an acre from the fruits of his labours, having investing millions in plant and equipment and subjecting himself to the risks of weather and the market. By contrast, solar developers are offering him the chance to sit on the beach with an index-linked £900 or more. Landowners of really quite small holdings which have been aggregated together have given tenant farmers notice to quit so that they can enjoy those inflation-linked payments of over 40 years at many times the rent. But our tenant farmers are among the most entrepreneurial growers, not having had the benefit of inheriting land, and we cannot afford to lose their dynamism.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 94B regarding permission for energy substations on higher quality agricultural land, I will also speak to Amendment 94A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, which according to the Herald is pronounced “drum-lang”. The amendments reflect the concerns that I and my noble friends have about what is happening on higher quality agricultural land, which, as we have heard eloquently described, is critical to food security.
My noble friend’s amendment reflects quite a lot of the concerns expressed in the House of Commons. I am thinking of my right honourable friend Wendy Morton, my honourable friends Sarah Bool and Mike Wood, and a number of other people who have spoken in debates in the House of Commons who are concerned for a couple of reasons about why battery energy storage systems seem to be not exploding —well, some of them are—but certainly expanding.
There is an important point to understand. We have seen, progressively, the previous Administration and this Government trying to get a grip on managing energy production and to get a proper strategy going. Meanwhile, in the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, the proposal is that we need about 27 gigawatts by 2030, 29 gigawatts by 2035, and a broader estimate—although the Government have not set a formal target—of 50 gigawatts by 2050. But where are we right now?
Figures from a paper from RenewableUK published in December 2024 suggested that there were 5 gigawatts of total operational capacity and 127 gigawatts in the pipeline. You do not need an A-level in maths to add up and find that that comes to 132 gigawatts. Of those, I think it is fair to say that 40 gigawatts have already been consented, 30 gigawatts are in the planning process and a further 48 gigawatts are being developed to go into the planning system.
My concern and that of my honourable friends and right honourable friends in the other place is that, in our process, we have already approved pretty much all that has been wanted by our energy operator. So why is it that, in effect, we seem to be encouraging even more to come through?
I am conscious that not every application will necessarily produce the outcome that is desired—we have seen that with other things—but, frankly, for those who have got the planning consent, we should make sure that they deliver what they say they are going to do. We should do that instead of, yet again, building up, and potentially blocking, land being used for food production to perhaps become an area for battery energy storage in the future, when we will have already achieved our outcome.
We discussed a lot about safety earlier; the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, spoke to that. He spoke comprehensively, but I point out to him there have been some instances where, for example, chemical interactions meant that hydrofluoric acid was produced. I did my PhD in chemistry a long time ago, but HF is one of the chemicals that I used. I can honestly say that, if you get it on your skin, although you will not realise it for a couple of days, your bones are basically crumbling right inside your skeleton. If you get it in your eyes, it is game over, frankly. On a very serious note, it is fair to say that there are significant risks. While the HSE has been cited as having a framework in place and similar, the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, referred to the Defra consultation about bringing these regimes into the EPR. It was published only last week. This is no criticism of the Minister, but what is noteworthy is that it said—I am quoting word for word—that
“it is not the role of the planning system to regulate fire risk and there is limited provision through the planning scheme to ensure that measures are maintained”.
I am sorry, but one of the key features of the planning system is to consider fire and fire risk and the like, so it will be worth the Minister looking at that element again; I am sure his officials will be keen to do so as well. We need to make sure that these things are safe. I shall give way.
Lord Fuller (Con)
I am reminded to reprise what the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said earlier about the need to have pre-scrutiny and the fact that a national organisation, the HSE, was the competent body. As my noble friend has been speaking, I have been reminded that it is for local organisations, the local fire authority and the local planning authority to make those determinations. National bodies such as the HSE do not have the capacity or the local knowledge to comment appropriately.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I think that is right. The HSE, on its own website, refers to the fact that it cannot comment on every application and, in effect, needs to be proactively contacted only if there is considered to be a major risk.
I am also conscious that the River Test is considered by my honourable friend Caroline Nokes to be under threat. For people who are interested in these things, I commend the speech of my right honourable friend Sir Alec Shelbrooke, who talked about dendrites. It was a very knowledgeable, well-researched speech about fire risk, including thermal runaway and the like.
Coming back to the fundamental proposal of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, he specifically asked me to talk about safety. There is a concern about overdevelopment and the loss of food for agricultural production. We will keep coming back to this on this side of the House, recognising the importance of food security alongside the other elements of national security.
On the amendment that I have tabled, perhaps I should declare an interest as this is about a subject that I have referred to a few times before: energy substations. Again, I am worried. There is an element here of thinking about where we do energy generation or other aspects of interconnection. Frankly, if the Government think the only way they can get these things done is by ripping apart environmental protection law and reducing food production land, they should not connect at those areas that already have these environmental designations or are key producers of food in this country.
My amendment refers specifically to 1, 2 or 3. I am conscious that the best and most versatile land is traditionally grades 1, 2 and 3a. However, Defra, through Natural England, does not publish where grades 3a and 3b are, because apparently that is too difficult to do, as it requires individual local site surveys on determining whether a particular field is grade 3a or 3b, so for comprehensiveness I have put in grades 1, 2 and 3.
However, as my noble friend Lord Fuller has pointed out, there is an element here about the fact that, frankly, a lot of this stuff was—in effect, with a light touch—reconsidered only in 2010. Fundamental parts of our land have not been assessed in terms of their contribution towards food production or food security for probably the best part of 40 to 50 years. As a consequence, recognising the targets set by the Government and the challenges that we face, I am conscious of the land use framework. Admittedly, I did a draft of that nearly three years ago, and I am sure everyone is frustrated that we still have not seen it yet. One of the challenges is this competing element of what we do with the land that we have.
Let us be straightforward about this: once agricultural land is gone, it is gone for good. I am not blaming farmers or landowners, who, candidly, the policies of the last 12 months have given even more reason to get a secured income on the basis of the value or use of their land. One of the foibles, in a way, of doing things such as leasing out land for solar is that it does not adjust in terms of the agricultural elements of inheritance tax. However, when farmers can get a guaranteed income for a proportion of their land, while other things are so uncertain, I do not blame them for wanting to make that choice.
My honourable friends—apologies, I am still earning about this place; I should have said my noble friends—have eloquently put some of the issues around solar. There definitely has to be a place for solar across our country, but one final point that I want to make on battery energy systems is that we really need to target where they are going to be. There is no point in having batteries in parts of the country that are nowhere near the grid or near where most of the energy is going to be used. That is why I have proposed the amendments I have today.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I simply want to agree with Amendment 89 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger. I prefer it to the amendments from my noble friends Lord Fuller, Lord Forsyth and Lady Coffey, although they all have merit. We have heard from my noble friend Lady Coffey that we may already have enough solar farms under consent already, although I am not sure what the Minister thinks of that.
As the House of Lords, we can take a longer-term view and, unfashionable though it may be, I believe we should protect the highest-quality agricultural land for farming and food and prohibit solar farms on that land. It is of course less costly for the developers, who want flat sites, but that is not a good reason to sacrifice the best land needed for food security.
Government is about balance. Our population is growing. We live in a dangerous world that could one day jeopardise imports of food, and the most productive land should be devoted to growing crops.
Lord Roborough (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 89 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger, Amendment 92 in the name of my noble friend Lord Fuller, Amendment 94A in the name of my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Amendment 94B in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey. These amendments focus on a matter of strategic and national importance: the protection of prime agricultural land in the face of increasing pressure from non-agricultural development, particularly the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure. The arguments have been well made already in this short debate, so I can be brief.
In bringing these amendments, my noble friends rightly highlight the wider context in which we debate this issue. The agricultural sector has been under immense pressure from market volatility, environmental challenges and, regrettably, punitive tax measures such as the family farms tax raid. Against that backdrop, it is more important than ever that we protect our best and most versatile land, not just for farmers but for the long-term food security of our nation. The Government must support an approach that balances the need to scale up renewable energy with the critical need to maintain our ability to feed ourselves.
These amendments make a strong case for preventing the unnecessary loss of high-quality agricultural land. As I and other noble Lords have previously highlighted Committee, some of the largest solar developments are being approved without proper regard for the grade or quality of the land being sacrificed. Every one of the large-scale solar farms approved under NSIP that I have looked at has been materially located on best and most versatile land. That is not just a matter for the farming community; it is a matter of national food security. We cannot create a future in which we can switch on our lights and heat our homes but are unable to feed ourselves. We must not let the pursuit of energy security come at the expense of food security.
As others have highlighted, a disproportionate percentage of our best and most versatile land is going to solar. This is madness when 58% of our farmed land is not in the BMV category and there is also a significant amount of unclassified and unfarmed land that could be used for renewable development. With the Government’s ambition to triple solar capacity by 2030, the pressure on land is only going to intensify. Unless active steps are taken now to guide that development sensibly and strategically, we will continue to see the erosion of our agricultural capacity and, with it, increased dependence on imported food.
These amendments are both timely and necessary. They would ensure that solar and other non-agricultural developments are directed towards less productive land or even non-productive land, leaving our best farmland for the essential job of feeding our population. I urge the Minister to take these amendments seriously and offer clear assurances that under no circumstances will the Secretary of State approve developments that compromise the UK’s food security.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, Amendments 89, 92, 94A and 94B relate to Clause 28 and the protection of agricultural land. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hodgson and Lady Coffey, and the noble Lords, Lord Fuller and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, for tabling these amendments. Is that the right pronunciation of Drumlean? I am glad he is not here, because I know he would shout at me if I got it wrong.
Amendment 89, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, seeks to prohibit the construction of ground-mounted solar farms on land of grades 1, 2 and 3A. The Government view food security as national security and champion British farming and environmental protection. All solar projects undergo a rigorous planning process, considering environmental impacts, local community views and any impact on food production. The Government believe that solar generation does not threaten food security. As of the end of September 2024, ground-mounted solar PV panels covered an estimated 21,200 hectares, which is only around 0.1%—not 1%—of the total land area of the UK. Even in the most ambitious scenarios, only up to 0.4% of UK land will be devoted to solar in 2030.
The Government are in total agreement with the noble Baroness in that we want to get the balance right between protecting fertile agricultural land and facilitating renewable energy. The Government agree that protecting food security should always be a priority. That is why land use and food production are already material considerations in planning. Planning guidance makes it clear that, wherever possible, developers should utilise brownfield, industrial, contaminated or previously developed land. Where the development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, lower-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land. However, we do not believe the accelerated rollout of solar power under present planning arrangements poses a threat to food security.
The government consultation on the land use framework sought feedback on what improvements are needed to the agricultural land classification system to support effective land use decisions. The land use framework, to be published later this year, will set out the evidence, data and tools needed to help safeguard our most productive agricultural land. It will also lay out how government intends to align the different incentives on land; ensure that joined-up decisions are made at national and local levels; and make accessible and high-quality data available.
As such, we believe that this amendment is not necessary to protect agricultural land. Moreover, a total ban on the use of higher-quality land may have several deleterious consequences. Quite often, a site suitable for solar development will contain soil of varying quality. At the moment, the amount of high-quality land proposed to be developed is examined by planning officers. This is a consideration in planning decisions. Were this amendment to be incorporated into the Bill, large projects could be rejected for the sake of a small area of higher-quality soil that constitutes a small fraction of the overall site.
This amendment would reduce the number of economically viable sites for solar generation, which would increase costs for developers. They may seek to recoup these by placing higher bids in the contracts for difference scheme. That cost is ultimately borne by bill payers. In short, banning all solar development on higher-quality land may endanger the Government’s mission to achieve clean power by 2030, increasing the exposure of British consumers to volatile imported fossil fuels.
I shall touch on the noble Baroness’s point about solar on domestic and non-domestic buildings. Deploying rooftop solar remains a key priority for the Government and we will publish the future homes standard this autumn. The new standard will ensure that solar panels are installed on the vast majority of new-build homes once it comes into force, saving households hundreds of pounds a year on their energy bills. That will support our ambition that the 1.5 million homes we will build over the course of this Parliament will be high-quality, well designed and sustainable.
Additionally, the recently published Solar Roadmap contained several actions for both government and industry to support the deployment of solar PV in the commercial sector. These included unpicking the complex landlord/tenant considerations in the sector by developing and distributing a toolkit for owners and occupiers. The Government set out that rooftop solar on new non-domestic buildings will, where appropriate, play an important role in the future buildings standard, due to be introduced later this year.
The Government have also announced £180 million of funding for Great British Energy to help around 200 schools and 200 NHS sites to install rooftop solar. We expect the first of these installations to be complete by the end of the summer—summer being a flexible concept, so whenever that comes. The Government are assessing the potential to drive the construction of solar canopies on outdoor car parks over a certain size through a call for evidence, which closed on 18 June. We will publish the government response to that consultation. I trust that the noble Baroness will be satisfied with that response and I kindly ask her not to press her amendment.
Amendment 92, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, seeks to remove solar projects on high-quality land from the nationally significant infrastructure project regime. I thank the noble Lord for his engagement on this subject. I know that he has spent many years serving in local government and has considerable expertise. However, I hope that he recognises the contradiction in his argument. At the same time as he argues about the very difficult conditions that farmers face in growing food, these are brought about by climate change, but he is using them as arguments not to tackle it by moving to clean energy—so there is a bit of a contradiction in the argument there.
It is vitally important that every project is submitted to the planning process that best suits its impact, scale, and complexity.
Lord Fuller (Con)
The point is that the difficulty that farmers are under may be aggravated by poor weather, either too wet or too cold, but the real problem is that this Government are engaged in a war on the countryside by undermining the finances of every family farm and damaging food production, even with the stuff on bioethanol, taking 1 million tonnes of wheat out of the market. That is the reason why farms are doing so badly—it is not to do with climate change.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The noble Lord was referring specifically to climate impacts on food growing, which I felt was a bit ironic as we are trying to tackle the climate change that is bringing them about with exactly these measures to use clean energy.
The Government recognise the benefit of returning control over decisions to local planning authorities. As of 31 December 2025, we will double the NSIP threshold for solar projects from 50 megawatts to 100 megawatts. However, the Government believe that large solar farms, even when they propose to use higher-quality agricultural land, are best dealt with under the NSIP process.
The NSIP regime is rigorous. Although the decision is not taken locally, local engagement is still at the heart of the process. Under the current legislative framework, developers taking projects through the NSIP regime are required to undertake community consultation as part of the preparation for the application. This gives communities ample opportunity to feed in their views and shape the project. Currently, the level and quality of community consultation, among other factors, is taken into account by decision-makers. I am glad the noble Lord made a protest about the one that he was subject to; I hope communities will do that if they feel that those consultation processes are not being carried out in good faith.
Moreover, considerations under the NSIP regime include any impact on land use and food production. Planning guidance is clear that poorer-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land, avoiding the use of best and most versatile agricultural land where possible. This is in line with the policy governing decision-making by local planning authorities. Even if there were a marginal gain in public confidence from returning the decision to local authorities, we would not expect the outcomes to change.
This marginal gain must be weighed against the likely costs of this proposal. First, a proper examination of the potential impacts of a large-scale solar farm is a major and lengthy undertaking. Giving this responsibility to local planning departments may place an untenable burden on resources which are already under pressure.
Secondly, it is right that projects of such scale, size or complexity as to be nationally significant should be considered through the NSIP process. These proposals are of strategic importance to the country as a whole, and as such central government is the most appropriate decision-maker. Changing policy to allow decisions about these projects to be taken by local authorities may increase investor uncertainty at a pivotal moment for the Government’s 2030 clean power mission. This may jeopardise our work to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels, increase energy security and protect consumers from global price shocks, just at the very time when Members have raised the issue of security.
Lord Fuller (Con)
I am prompted to intervene only because the head of the noble Lord, Lord Khan, nearly seems to be falling off with nodding. The point is that the NSIP regime is combining schemes which, frankly, should normally go through the local planning authority. These are disparate, small, stand-alone schemes which fall under NSIP only because the system is being abused to string them all together quite artificially. There are no capacity constraints in local government planning to do with these smaller schemes; we know where they are and we know the issues. To suggest that stringing together a dozen different small schemes is nationally significant demonstrates the falsehood and the paucity behind the argument that NSIP should be engaged in this manner.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
These are geographical schemes. As I said, we are increasing the size of schemes that will go to NSIP.
Lastly, I am concerned that accepting this amendment would imply that there are some issues on which the NSIP regime is either not competent or not qualified to adjudicate. This is simply not the case. Setting this precedent may reduce public confidence in the NSIP planning system as it applies to other types of infrastructure. It may undermine trust in decisions which have already been taken. For all the reasons I have outlined—although it sounds as though I have not convinced the noble Lord—I hope he will not press his amendment and will continue to work with us on this issue.
Amendment 94A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to prohibit battery developments on best and most versatile agricultural land. The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan set out an expansion of renewable technologies required to achieve the 2030 ambition, including the acceleration of grid-scale battery development from around 5 gigawatts at present to at least 23 to 27 gigawatts by 2030. Grid-scale batteries, which are rapidly falling in cost and increasing in scale, allow the power system to store cheap excess renewable energy and use this, rather than expensive polluting gas, at times of need.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
Can the Minister not deal with the problem of patches of best-quality land on a site with a classic de minimis rule of, say, 5%? That would still allow us to protect the best land without needless delay and Defra—or the new framework that the Minister mentioned—could easily provide the data for that purpose.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am sure that if the noble Baroness wished to put that forward in the land use framework it would be considered. I always worry about de minimis rules because there will always be the exception to the rule that goes slightly over it, and then you end up with a big problem sorting that out. However, if she wishes to feed that into Defra’s part of the land use framework consultation, I am sure it will take account of it.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
I thank the Minister for her extensive response and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, especially those who have given support. Many interesting points have been raised, and some very worrying statistics. I simply repeat that, especially given the international situation, we really need to think about national food security and resilience. We import 40% of our food and, if we got into a war situation, we would need to grow more than we are at the moment. It seems counterintuitive to be allowing good agricultural land to be used to generate electricity when this can be done elsewhere.
I will not repeat all the points previously made, except to say that we also need the good will of the British people. We need to ensure that local people can have their views heard. I was heartened when the Minister said that there would be community consultation, but too often these consultations are binned and not acted on—people listen and then some other outcome happens. I hope that community consultation in which local people expressed that they really did not want solar farms would be respected and the schemes would be turned down.
I was slightly disappointed that the Minister did not address the points about foreign investors leasing this land long term. I imagine that we do not know who they are and we are not checking on who is buying what. I am very disappointed to hear that the Minister is not prepared to recognise the depth of feeling on this issue. I withdraw the amendment now, but hope that we can have further consultations and some movement can be made to address what all of us have tried to say about making sure that prime agricultural land does not have solar farms on it. I reserve the right to bring this back at the next stage of the Bill.
Earl Russell
“Local Area Energy Plans(1) All local authorities and combined authorities must create a Local Area Energy Plan in order to inform their decisions about local electricity infrastructure requirements.(2) For the purposes of this section, a “Local Area Energy Plan” means an outline of how the relevant authority proposes to transition its area’s energy system to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require all local and combined authorities to develop Local Area Energy Plans which set out how they will meet their Net Zero goals.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I open this group of amendments, which are all on local energy plans; my amendment proposes to insert a crucial new clause after Clause 28 of the Bill. It would mandate that all local authorities and combined authorities must create a local area energy plan.
Considering the late hour, I will give a slightly condensed version of my original speech. I also express my strong support for the other amendment in this group, Amendment 177, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to publish vital guidance for local authorities on local area energy plans within 12 months of the Act being passed. To my mind, that is almost like the flipside of the same coin to what I am asking. The amendment that I have tabled and this amendment would work well together, complement each other and make each stronger than they would be without the other. From my point of view, it would be good if it was possible to progress both of the amendments in this group.
I do not really want to go into too much detail. Everybody knows what local area energy plans are. They are vital to devolving these tasks down to local authorities, including local people. They work really well; they are powerful. It is really good that we speak to and include local people and that they have a say, and it is good that we take account of local peoples’ needs and what is happening in local areas. It is good that we do this level of granular work on the ground and talk to local people. These plans are happening in some places: obviously in Wales, and there are some other places where councils are voluntarily doing these things, whether that is in London or other metropolitan authorities.
What does not exist in legislation is a mandated requirement for these things to be done or a mandated support to help local authorities to do these things. Were that to happen, it would help this Government to meet their environment and climate change targets. Frankly, I do not know how we got to where we are without having it in this Bill. I wonder whether that is purely just an oversight.
From my point of view, I stand ready to work with the Minister alongside the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. We would like to include this in the Bill. We feel that this would fit within the Bill, help to deliver targets, help us to get to where we need to be and help to empower our local authorities. I will leave it at that considering the late hour that we are sitting, but I genuinely think that this would help all round. I beg to move.
Lord Ravensdale (CB)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 177 in my name and declare my interests as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis and as a director of Peers for the Planet. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for his support for the amendment.
I start by saying that I completely agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Russell, just said. I view these amendments as very complementary in terms of local area energy planning. This has to be a staged approach. We first need that guidance set out for local authorities, so that we have a consistent approach to planning but, ultimately, we need a funded programme with funding available to local authorities to enable them to undertake these plans and get to the place where we need to be with the noble Earl’s amendment. Therefore, they are very complementary in that sense.
To add to what the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, I put this amendment forward to the then Energy Bill a couple of years ago. It is worth reflecting on what we have seen so far in terms of the energy transition, which is a very top-down driven approach. However, we have seen some really good progress since the Energy Act. We have had the formation of the National Energy System Operator, the NESO. We have started to see that thinking about flow-down to regions and local areas, with the formation of the regional energy strategic planner role, the RESP.
However, there is a missing piece of the puzzle in terms of the flow-down to local areas: the bottom tier, which is what the local area energy plan fulfils. In terms of spearheading the transition, it is really important that we get this joined-up view of the governance system and that we have some guidance for local area energy plans. As the Minister knows, this is not a conceptual approach—it is a well-tested road. In fact, since the end of last year, these have now been rolled out and completed for all 22 Welsh councils. There is a funded programme, a technical adviser to ensure coherence in the Energy Systems Catapult and there is that guidance to ensure a systems approach. Now that they have that basis, there is then flow-up to their own national plan as well, which offers great benefits.
This amendment would put a duty on the Secretary of State to publish guidance for local authorities on local area energy planning and to clarify some of the criteria that should be included with any guidance. This is based on the Energy Systems Catapult guidance and includes how local area energy plans can contribute to meeting our net-zero environmental and adaptation targets.
I will briefly illustrate one of the reasons we need this. The pilots undertaken in the UK, in Newcastle, Bridgend and Bury in Manchester, divided each area into zones suitable for different types of heating technologies. The balance of technologies across the three areas shows how different areas can be. In Newcastle, the plan found that roughly half the homes could be heated by a heat network, in Bury it was less than 30% and in Bridgend it was 15%. In Bridgend, a far higher proportion of homes would need to be heated with high-temperature heat pumps to save on the extra expense of retrofitting insulation in its poorer-quality housing stock.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I offer my strongest possible support for Amendment 90 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to which I have attached my name, and some slightly qualified support for Amendment 177, which we have just heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale.
Coincidentally, and entirely without prompting from me, I started the day—rather a long time ago now—speaking to a senior civil servant. They said to me that they thought the great malaise of the UK was people’s lack of a sense of agency—a lack of ability to step up, take control and change what is around them and the direction of the country. This amendment, starting with the local and saying, “Here in your community you can democratically work through your council, local authority and combined authority to decide how to deliver your energy” is the perfect way to start to address those issues.
We are the most centralised polity in western Europe: power and resources are overwhelmingly concentrated here in Westminster. We have almost universal agreement that we have to have an energy transition. This is a major infrastructure element in all our lives, as we have been discussing this evening. We also must have a just transition, so that no community is left behind. Every community needs the opportunity to make plans for its energy future, and that is exactly what Amendment 90 seeks to achieve.
I note that a great deal of work and resources have been put into this over a long period of time. The Centre for Climate Engagement at the University of Cambridge, funded by Innovate UK under the Net Zero Living programme, is building on the work of the Skidmore review—we are talking about cross-party approaches across all Benches—which emphasised the importance of local government, leadership and place-based actions in dealing with the climate emergency.
This goes back a very long way. Green councillor Andrew Cooper, who was working through the European Committee of the Regions, got the UN COP process to acknowledge locally determined contributions. Everyone has heard of nationally determined contributions, but that was about locally determined contributions. Of course, the energy system is only part of this, but it is a very crucial part that impacts people’s lives and communities and on what they look like.
Your Lordships’ House has, in a very long wrestle with two successive Governments, finally got an acknowledgement of the importance of community energy. What I think we would see going forward is local authorities and combined authorities being very keen to encourage and support community energy. That of course is where we can see public support and financial returns growing. This is not about some giant multinational company coming and landing on your community, but about your community saying, “Right, how do we want to generate our energy?” That has to be the foundation.
I am broadly in favour of Amendment 177, but my question is around the weight and shape of the word “guidance”. We are talking about local energy plans, and anything provided from the centre should be support and not—as we see, for example, in planning and with housing allocations—direction. If it is indeed guidance, Amendment 177 is pointing us in the right direction. Together, these two amendments are crucial and I can see no reason for the Government not to accept them.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, to which I have added my name. I am also very sympathetic to the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised a very interesting question about the centralisation of this country. In one sense, this Bill is about further centralisation when it comes to major infrastructure projects, which are so crucial to our growth. In essence, in the housing agenda, as well as with a lot of energy infrastructure projects, local government has not been very helpful and has been obstructive. If we believe that growth is a strategic aim of government, as I believe it to be, stronger central direction is vital. The question, however, is whether it can be complemented by local initiatives, which do indeed give local people ownership. That is where I agree with noble Baroness, Lady Bennett: community energy schemes are a fantastic way to leverage support from local people for the kinds of changes that we want to make to our energy infrastructure.
The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, obviously speaks with great authority as an energy expert, but he has also played a hugely important leading role in the Midlands Engine. He chaired the Midlands Energy Security Taskforce, which of course strongly supports local area energy plans.
When I was a Minister at DESNZ, I became very much aware of the potential of local community-based energy projects. I remember one visit to my own city of Birmingham, under the auspices of Footsteps: Faiths for a Low Carbon Future, when I met a number of local groups that were dedicated to community green energy projects but were seeking support from agencies at the centre to deliver something tangible. Interestingly, the MECC Trust, based in Balsall Heath, is hosting the launch by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, in a couple of weeks’ time, of Birmingham’s first net-zero retrofit demonstrator community hub. The potential of hundreds of projects such as this, up and down the country, is very clear.
The amendment that the Government brought to the then Great British Energy Bill, which added projects involving or benefiting local communities to the crucial objective section, was very important. Great British Energy has made it clear that it will work with local energy groups, councils and mayors to fund and support community-led energy projects.
Noble Lords will be aware of recent decisions by some local authorities to roll back commitments in relation to net zero. Ironically, this is taking place as the scientific evidence of the impact of climate change becomes ever clearer. I do not think we can let this go by default. In essence, the noble Baroness asked: what does guidance mean? I think you really have to put the two together. I take the amendment of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, to be a statutory requirement on local authorities to encourage and develop local energy plans. I think that is really important now, in the light of some decisions being made by local authorities. Then, it seems to me, the guidance that we are suggesting fits into that structure.
I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the need to make sure that local authorities do not pass up the opportunity to support local community energy groups.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, this group of amendments relates to the development and implementation of local area energy plans. The proposals raise important questions about the role of local authorities in our transition to a decarbonised, secure and efficient energy system. We have heard some thoughtful contributions about the tensions between local and central government, but also of the enormous potential when the right balance can be struck between the two.
Let me begin with Amendment 90, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, which would require all local authorities to prepare and publish local area energy plans. These plans would outline current and future energy needs and the decarbonisation pathways to meet them. The underlying intent here is one we can all recognise. The energy transition cannot be delivered only centrally; local authorities must have a clear understanding of their energy demands and the means to meet them sustainably. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, made a number of good points, reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, on which we might all agree in principle.
However, while we acknowledge the ambition behind this amendment, we would caution against placing an additional statutory duty on all local authorities, particularly at a time when many face stretched resources and competing priorities. A blanket requirement risks creating a burden of compliance that may prove challenging for councils already struggling with core service delivery. We must ensure that our expectations of local government are realistic, proportionate and backed with adequate support.
Amendment 177, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, seeks to define the consultation and approval process for local area energy plans and mandates the provision of guidance to assist local authorities in their preparation. We recognise the positive intention here to provide clarity, consistency and technical support to authorities seeking to engage with this important agenda. This amendment also aims to widen the uptake of such planning and to define better the role of local authorities in delivering the future energy system. Those are commendable aims. While we must avoid onerous procedural hurdles or risk diverting local effort away from practical delivery into process-heavy reporting, we hope the Minister will consider this amendment carefully.
In conclusion, these amendments rightly draw attention to the importance of empowering local authorities in the energy transition. I welcome the debate and the ideas put forward, but urge a cautious, pragmatic approach. I look forward to the Minister’s response and any reassurances he can give on the Government’s direction in this space.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
My Lords, I start with Amendments 90 and 177, which relate to local area energy plans. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lords, Ravensdale and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, for tabling these amendments.
Amendment 90, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, seeks to require all local authorities and combined authorities to produce a local area energy plan. The Government are committed to working in partnership with local government, in recognition of the essential role that local places play in accelerating to net zero and supercharging our mission to deliver clean power by 2030. We recognise that, in support of this role, some local authorities have already produced local area energy plans and have used them to plan for the investment they need to support the energy transition and deliver net zero in their areas. We welcome the work that many local authorities have undertaken to develop and deliver their local energy plans. Local authorities may well be considering how planning their future energy needs may form part of their local growth plans or help contribute to Ofgem and NESO’s work on regional energy strategic plans.
However, this is not the right time to place further burdens on local authorities, while the approach to energy planning is still under development. We are considering how these plans might align with a range of regional and national plans, including the regional energy strategic plans, the warm homes plan, heat network zoning and Great British Energy’s local work. With that in mind, we continue to consider the potential benefit of local net-zero plans, working with partners across central and local government such as the local net-zero hubs, Great British Energy, NESO, Ofgem and Innovate UK.
We are also learning from the work of several local authorities in England which have already undertaken to develop their own plans, in recognition of the important lessons that can be learned from local authorities. In the meantime, local authorities that wish to assess whether energy planning fits with their wider strategic plans can access a range of support to help them develop local plans, including the tools and advice available on the Net Zero Go digital platform, supported by the department and the advice and support available to them from their local net-zero hubs.
Earl Russell (LD)
I welcome the Minister’s response to my amendment and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. However, I am hearing from the Minister that this is not the right time to do this stuff. I understand that the Government are actively drawing up different strings and bits of policy and bringing them together. However, if now is not the right time, when might be the right time?
The Minister says that the Government are drawing together policy but also that there are loads of policy guidance available for local authorities that want to do this. The two statements are almost contradictory. Now is not the right time for the Government to give guidance, but guidance is available to any local authorities that want it. My worry is that this leads to guidance that is much more open to interpretation, which the Government do not have proper control of and which could be followed in multiple different ways without the Government having control over it. I strongly ask the Minister to think again on these matters. These are really important issues. I recognise that the Government are forming policy, but forming policy and working with local authorities are not contradictory things. These are everyday matters of government.
I thank the Minister for his response but call on the Government to think again.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I appreciate the noble Earl’s contribution, but I politely disagree in that there is a lot of advice and support from local net-zero hubs funded by DESNZ. I understand and sympathise with what he is saying. We have all said today that we want to get moving as fast as we can, in a speedy manner, and to grow. This is all part of the agenda. We want to make sure that we get things right, be concise and have the right level of engagement and consultation, to ensure that when we have the clear plan moving forward it is well understood and implemented and does not have unintended implications or consequences.
Lord Ravensdale (CB)
I want to complement what the noble Earl just said. A couple of years back, when I raised this as part of the Energy Act 2023, I remember being given a similar response: this was still being considered by the Government as part of how it would fit into the bigger picture. But I think the Government need to recognise the real importance of that governance-level flow-down from national to regional to local, the importance of local understanding in this picture and the real priority that needs to be placed on developing this guidance and strategy for local areas to take it forward. I hope the Minister will reflect on that.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I take note of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, complementing the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and I recognise that there is a lot of work to do. I appreciate that the noble Lord has raised this before, but now we actually have a Planning and Infrastructure Bill which will very much fix the foundations of the whole growth to net zero and clean energy 2030.
My final and important point on this is that now is not the right time because we do not want to put further burdens on local authorities while we are still developing and finalising our energy planning. That is still under development, but I reassure the noble Lord that we are on it. We want to make sure that this happens as fast as possible, and this Bill will help us to change a lot of the infrastructure, thinking and systems in place in order for our country to grow.
Baroness Coffey
“Electricity infrastructure: consentConsent may only be granted for any electricity infrastructure, including generation, transmission through interconnectors, and any associated infrastructure including substations, within a 50 square mile area where the cumulative capacity is less than 10% of the country’s total electricity capacity.”
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, we are in the final stretch, and I will not be at all insulted if people choose to vacate at this stage of proceedings, recognising that we are past the usual hour. But the future of energy infrastructure matters. It matters where it is in the country; it matters for national security. That is why I have tabled Amendment 94C.
It is no secret to those people who have been in this Chamber or the Moses Room when I have talked about energy that I have recognised that part of Suffolk has a huge number of NSIPs relating to energy. I will talk about various issues in the three different groups; I have done this somewhat deliberately to try to make sure that Ministers and officials from each of the different departments really consider what they are signing up to and what is happening with the progress of electricity infrastructure across this country.
I am not in any denial that we need to consider carefully the transition to a different sort of grid. This needs to be considered carefully in recognising what is happening on concentration. In about 10 years’ time, it may have gone down a little, but about 30% of the country’s electricity will be generated in quite a small part of the country or it will act as the host point for interconnection from the continent. That will be concentrated in an area not of 50 square miles, as I referred to in my amendment, but considerably smaller. That is happening through the continuing generation of Sizewell B, the future generation of Sizewell C and interconnectors coming in at various points along the Suffolk coast—interconnectors to the continent and to the offshore wind farms that are already operational and currently being expanded.
One of my concerns—I appreciate that this is another issue of which I never managed to persuade my former colleagues, but I am hoping that the Government will listen—is that it is a huge matter of national security that we are concentrating so much of the energy in this country in a very small part geographically. I will not call that overemphasis a sitting duck, because I am very conscious of all the security that goes into nuclear power stations and the like, but it is an overconcentration. We think about the impact that a breakdown of resilience can have, and it could end up depriving the rest of the country of desperately needed energy.
It is for that reason I genuinely believe that, strategically, the Government should be thinking about spreading our principal electricity generation around the country. I will come to other reasons why I think the cumulation does not help, but it is that sort of threat which we should be considering right now. I am aware of the concerns in continental Europe about the deployment of certain grades of weapons by foreign actors. I am aware of the risk that has to be monitored and assessed, and we should be doing that in this country as well. That is why I genuinely believe the Government should reconsider their accumulation of projects and be far more strategic in where all these different energy sources are being placed in the country.
To that end, I believe that we should be looking to reflect the fact that we have opportunities in different parts of the country where, by the way, the Government already have land—they do not need to acquire more land. Too often, it is the Ministry of Defence refusing to take on some of these projects, because it wants to do various practices and different things like that. At the same time, plenty of agriculture is being sacrificed, but I am conscious we have already had that debate, so I do not want to dwell on it.
It is for those reasons I hoped that, by tabling this simple amendment, DESNZ would consider, with other parts of government, whether it is really treading down the right path in concentrating energy production and whether it should be more strategic in its thinking. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for bringing this matter to the attention of the Committee, in particular the issue of concentration of power supply and potential implications. This amendment would limit the consent for electricity infrastructure within a 50-square mile area where the cumulative capacity is more than 10% of the country’s total. This raises several important questions for the Government. What assessment has been made of the cumulative impacts on a local area already hosting significant infrastructure? Additionally, how will fairness between different regions be measured and maintained? What mechanisms are in place to prevent overconcentration in certain areas at the expense of others, given, as my noble friend mentioned, the potential strategic risks to the country? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 94C, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, would create a new local area test, designed to limit the consenting of electricity infrastructure by reference to a percentage of the national total. In other words, it is addressed at the overconcentration of infrastructure in particular places.
The Government agree with the noble Baroness that the siting of electricity infrastructure should be considered carefully. While the Government are taking a strategic view, they are doing so via the strategic spatial energy plan and the centralised strategic network plan, due for publication by the end of 2026 and 2027 respectively.
It is unclear how exactly the amendment is intended to work in practice, given the complications of concepts such as cumulative capacity. It is not in the national interest for individual applications to be assessed or prevented by reference to a subjective threshold. They must be judged on the need case for the infrastructure weighed against local impacts, and that is precisely what the current system achieves. For projects designated as nationally significant, known as NSIPs, there is already a national policy statement, approved by Parliament, which sets out in detail the need case for this infrastructure and all the considerations that must be applied when consenting it.
This amendment would add further complexity to the consenting system, which could lead to a slowing down of the decision-making process for low-carbon and electricity infrastructure projects, which are crucial for this country—although, in practice, the threshold of 10% of the entire country’s electricity capacity is so high that it is highly unlikely that any project would in fact reach such a threshold.
The Government agree that infrastructure planning should have a special element. The strategic special energy plan will support a more actively planned approach to energy infrastructure across England, Scotland and Wales, land and sea, between 2030 and 2050. It will do this by assessing and identifying the optimal locations, quantities and types of energy infrastructure required for generation and storage to meet our future energy demand with the clean, affordable and secure supply that we need.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, with respect to the Minister—I appreciate the answer he has given me— there is one point that perhaps it would be worthwhile DESNZ genuinely looking at. There is no doubt that there is a small part of Suffolk that will be responsible for more than 10% of the capacity in the future. But I appreciate that is not the remit of the Minister speaking tonight.
Of course I am disappointed. I am concerned. But, recognising the late hour, which is why I have truncated my comments, I will withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Coffey
“GEMA: funding constraints based on planning consentIf an electricity project has not received planning consent, the GEMA must not grant or consider any grant—(a) of Early Construction Funding, or(b) relating to Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment.”
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I specifically wanted to speak to the funding of issues such as energy projects. This issue, probably more than anything else—perhaps the fact that the national grid is part-owned by American private equity owners may wind people up a little bit more—is the one that, fundamentally, makes communities around the country, and I have seen it much more locally, consider the planning system, when it comes to energy projects, a complete and utter joke.
It is already decided, regardless of what happens in the planning system, that these projects will go ahead. It does not matter if they do not quite fit the planning law, because a few tweaks could potentially be made. It does not matter what the community thinks. It does not matter what Parliament thinks, because Ofgem has already made the decisions and determinations that these projects can go ahead and money can start being spent on them before planning has even started.
I give your Lordships the example of Norwich to Tilbury. Ofgem came up with its early construction funding in April 2025. Its planning submission was submitted only on Friday. Sea Link, a project that I will continue to fight for as long as I can, had its ECF announcement made. Normally, Ofgem’s policy is that only 20% of the funding can be granted, in effect, through early construction funding. Ofgem has given 48% to the national grid—NGET—to proceed with Sea Link. Planning had to be delayed because there was an error in the planning process, so that got going only last month as well. This is what the people in communities in various parts of the country see. What is the point?
That is my huge frustration: in effect, there is a predetermination that planning applications are going to be made. I am still slightly surprised that people have not been successful in certain aspects of getting this JR-ed at some point. So here we are. We have projects going when they have barely started, or in some cases have not even started, the planning process.
I have proposed this new clause to restore some credibility to planning, to restore some credibility to the idea that it is not just a commercial deal or a done deal. Ofgem should be restrained from granting this sort of funding process until at least the planning document has been submitted and ideally been given consent. For what it is worth, a lot of this kind of scepticism would go away if there was a genuine belief that the planning system meant anything at all.
I am conscious that, to try to get to 2030 on this accelerated timetable, we need to get on with these projects. I have already referred to previous ones where planning processes are still under way when we have already reached the consented capacity for a series of energy projects, and yet they keep coming.
No wonder people are desperate and tabling JRs, or pre-action protocols and the like. They are so frustrated with a machinery that says, “Yeah, we’ll sort of do the basics, but it is done”. This is the reason that I felt particularly strongly and wanted to table Amendment 94D: just to be a voice for people who want to believe that our country respects law and respects that there is not a predetermination. God alone knows how many consultations I went through as a Secretary of State when I was told, “Be very careful, you can’t come to a predetermination in all of this”. Yet Ofgem, of course, gives the game away.
I will not say any more. To be candid, I do not expect a huge response from the Minister. I am not trying to be rude in advance; perhaps I am predetermining what I am expecting to hear. Nevertheless, I am saying this for people right across the country: let us do the right thing; let us make sure that we are not allowing money to be printed for developers who have not even started the actual planning process. I beg to move.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
My Lords, I rise briefly to talk to Amendment 94D, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey. This amendment concerns constraints on grants delivered by the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority. I simply ask the Minister whether he can clarify how the Government intend to ensure that such grants are awarded in a way that is both transparent and consistent across different technologies. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 94D tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to prohibit the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority—GEMA—from granting or considering early construction funding or accelerated strategic transmission investment unless planning consent has already been secured.
While I understand that network companies should not be given excessive funding for projects where procurement or construction costs are not yet incurred, I must urge noble Lords to consider the unintended consequences that this amendment would have for our energy infrastructure and our collective ambition to deliver a net zero-ready grid.
Let us be clear: the mechanisms in question, early construction funding and ASTI, are not blank cheques. They are carefully staged investments, including stages designed precisely to support the preparatory work that enables planning consent to be sought in the first place. This includes environmental assessments, route design, stakeholder engagement and technical feasibility studies. These are not luxuries; they are prerequisites for any responsible and successful planning application.
To deny access to funding before planning consent is granted creates a paradox. Planning consent cannot be obtained without preparatory work, and preparatory work cannot be funded without planning consent. This amendment risks trapping vital transmission projects in a bureaucratic cul-de-sac.
We are not debating theoretical infrastructure; we are talking about the backbone of our future clean energy system—projects that will connect offshore wind, solar and other renewables to homes and businesses across the country. These are the arteries of our economy. Delaying them risks not only our clean energy mission and net-zero commitment but the security and affordability of our energy and wider economic growth as grid capacity is needed to power new investments.
Moreover, GEMA already operates under a rigorous framework of accountability and oversight. Funding decisions are not made lightly; they are subject to scrutiny, cost-benefit analysis and alignment with strategic national priorities. To impose a statutory constraint at this stage would not enhance that process but hinder it. I therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Coffey
“Energy infrastructure projects: publication of environmental principles duty assessmentWhere an energy infrastructure project requires assessment by either—(a) the Secretary of State, or(b) the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority,the individual or body making that assessment must publish its assessment of the environmental principles duty in full, including advice provided and considered.”
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, again, I have split this amendment off from the other consideration of energy infrastructure projects. To cut to the chase, we need to make sure, bearing on some of the debate that we have had earlier about how we are going to achieve joint objectives, not only that we have a fit-for-purpose grid but about how we move the transition along. I have consistently tried to make the case that that cannot be done at the expense of the natural environment.
Arising from the Environment Act 2021 is a duty on Ministers specifically to consider policy in terms of environmental principles, but I think I am right in saying there is also a requirement to consider the genuine impact of projects when a Minister is giving consent to them. One element will be thinking about biodiversity as well as considering the natural capital accounts of the country—on which we do annual balance sheets which are put forward by the Treasury—and a key consideration should be what is happening as a consequence of the environment to any particular project. One of the things that I am afraid is somewhat shrouded in mystery here is that normally there is just the response, “Yes, we have considered this”, and nothing is shared with the country. My amendment is intended to ensure transparency.
I am conscious that the sub judice rule might apply, and there is already a legal case against the Deputy Prime Minister over her Section 20 statement regarding the Bill—I am assuming that, by extension, that applies to the Minister as well. However, it is important that not only Ministers but the wider country understand quite what is happening in this balance. The reason I say that is that primary legislation is already in place where the primary indicator is about the recovery of aspects of nature, particularly thinking of species. As a consequence, transparency is vital, and the OEP has been regularly pushing for a lot more transparency on exactly this sort of information so we have a sense of whether we are going to be anywhere close to hitting the targets that this Parliament has already agreed to in both primary and secondary legislation. On that basis, given the time of the evening, I simply beg to move.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for bringing Amendment 94F to the attention of your Lordships. It would ensure that the duty relating to environmental principles was published in full. I ask the Minister: how are the Government going to monitor compliance in relation to environmental principles? As importantly, how will Parliament be kept informed of progress in this area? I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for tabling her amendment and allowing us to ask those questions, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I was beginning to feel a bit of déjà vu before the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, spoke in place of the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson.
Amendment 94F, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to ensure that where an energy infrastructure project requires an assessment in relation to the environmental principles policy statement by the Secretary of State or the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority, this assessment and any advice provided and considered as part of that assessment is published.
As highlighted throughout today’s debate and in earlier discussions on the Bill, it is essential that we press ahead and deliver the critical infrastructure that we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and to achieve a clean power system by 2030. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling this amendment and for the opportunity to set out both how the environmental principles policy statement and the environmental principles more broadly are given due regard by this Government.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, we will return to a lot of this in Part 3 of the Bill, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.