(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, can I begin by thanking you—and, through you, Mr Speaker—for granting me this Adjournment debate? It is unusual to allocate Adjournment debates to members of the shadow Cabinet, but I want to raise this important matter on behalf of my constituents. I have written to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on a number of occasions asking him to meet me, but he declined to do so.
I want to speak about the three proposed solar farms in my constituency: the One Earth project, the Great North Road solar farm and the Steeple renewables scheme. Taken together, these projects would be of continental scale. Between them, they would cover at least 10,000 acres of land, making them collectively the largest solar installation in Europe. To put that in perspective, my constituency is a large and rural one that stretches nearly 60 miles from north to south, and at least 9% of its entire land mass would be turned into a single industrial complex—an industrial farm of black glass, metal fencing, substations and, inevitably, vast battery storage plants.
This is not just about Newark. Across the Trent valley, in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, the cumulative impact is immense. In my constituency, the figure is 9%; in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) it is 7%; and in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) it is 5 %. This is not a scattering of panels across this part of the county; it is the concentration of a vast burden on one small corner of England’s countryside.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Jim Shannon to intervene, on large-scale solar development in the Newark constituency.
Jim Shannon
This is not just about Newark; it affects its neighbours as well. It is an issue across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and these large-scale plans will definitely affect us all. I understand the need for renewable energy, but our farmers and their needs, and the food security of this nation, must come first. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, when it comes to ensuring that we have food security, the same rules must apply across the whole of the United Kingdom? On a side note, I see that he has been active in putting flags up. I have some 60 years’ experience of putting flags up and I would be happy to help him.
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Member is always welcome to come up a ladder with me in Newark. Perhaps I will pay him a visit as well to fix some Union flags.
The hon. Member is right to say that these projects affect constituencies the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. Many of them—all three projects I am raising today—are treated as nationally significant infrastructure projects. That means the final decision will land not with local communities or district or county councils, but squarely on the desks of Ministers in Whitehall. It is right that debates like this occur and elected Members such as myself have the opportunity to raise the arguments with Ministers before they ultimately make these crucial decisions.
Let me make one point crystal clear at the outset: this is not about nimbyism. When I was Housing Secretary, I heard Members of this House begin speeches with those words time and again, and my heart used to sink because invariably they would go on to make an argument that was at its heart nimbyism. However, I do not recall ever, in my 11 years in Parliament, raising in this House a campaign against a housing development in my constituency—not once. Newark has accepted thousands of new homes and new estates, and I have supported those developments. We have also accepted our share of energy projects. We host small-scale solar farms, which I have not objected to. We host battery storage facilities and have absorbed significant disruption from new and potentially exciting energy projects, such as the West Burton fusion project on the site of a former coal-fired power station. This is not a constituency that resists change. It is not a part of the country that is immune to energy projects. The entire history of north Nottinghamshire has been one of energy generation—it is in the blood of my constituents. My constituents are pragmatic, reasonable and patriotic people who want to share a part of the nation’s burden in meeting its energy needs, as they have done for generations, but what is being proposed now is on an extraordinary scale. It is disproportionate and damaging and it cannot be justified.
This has become a David and Goliath struggle. On one side are small villages, sometimes not even parish councils but parish meetings, and hamlets where neighbours have had to mobilise and join forces to get their views heard. On the other side are international companies with deep pockets, slick PR machines and armies of consultants. I pay tribute here in the House to those parish councils, parish meetings and campaign groups who have fought with such courage and determination. They have had to master planning law, pore over technical surveys and produce community responses, all with minimal resources. Contrast that with the developers: I have found them at times aggressive, loose with the facts and willing to submit surveys that are frankly absurd, so it is a David and Goliath situation.
Why are we opposing this development? First, I have never known an issue to arouse such opposition in my constituency. I surveyed residents, and 90% say no. The community is speaking with one voice, and let me say why. First, these solar panels are presented as clean and green, but as we all know in this House, the reality is murkier. Most panels sold in the UK contain materials sourced in China, often from regions such as Xinjiang where there is compelling evidence of forced labour. Britain should take a lead against exploitation, not collude with it in our supply chains.
Secondly, there are dangers from flooding and fire. These projects inevitably require vast battery storage installations. Around the world, we have seen that those batteries can ignite and that catastrophic fires can occur, sometimes releasing toxic smoke that is challenging to extinguish. Several such fires have already occurred here in Britain, as they have abroad. In the flood-prone Trent valley, the risks are greater. Putting panels, substations and batteries in areas liable to flooding presents a serious danger to life and property.
Thirdly, even if one supports solar, it should be put on rooftops and brownfield land first. Across Britain, there are 600,000 acres of south-facing industrial rooftops— warehouses, supermarkets, car parks—yet they stand largely empty. Why are we sacrificing our finest farmland when those spaces are still unused?
Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)
Communities in Newark are affected like communities on Ynys Môn. Productive land on Ynys Môn creates good agricultural outcomes and means a good rural economy. Productivity on Ynys Môn is £4,000 below the Welsh average, and building new large-scale solar will have an impact on that. Does the right hon. Member agree that the Government should reject projects such as Maen Hir and undertake economic impact assessments on such developments to safeguard rural economies?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Lady makes an important point. We should think about the impact on rural communities. Larger projects such as those that I am speaking about will have a profound impact on rural communities.
To go back to the point I was making, why are we not using every incentive possible to ensure that such projects are placed on warehouses or factories rather than on beautiful and important countryside? It makes no sense.
Fourthly, let me address the impact on the countryside itself. These are some of the finest landscapes in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. They will be scarred for generations. Some families will find solar farms just metres from their gardens. Imagine walking the dog not along a hedgerow, but between two 3.5-metre-high metal fences bristling with CCTV cameras. Imagine going for a run, flanked for miles not by rolling British countryside but by 4-metre-high walls of black glass. That is not the rural England that my constituents cherish.
Fifthly, there will be a massive impact on rural life. I believe in house building, but if we encircle villages with solar farms, we will make it nigh-on impossible to have organic housing growth in those villages in the years to come, at a time when our country needs new houses in rural communities.
Richard Fuller (North Bedfordshire) (Con)
I know that there are rules about shadow Ministers speaking in Adjournment debates, but with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make an intervention. My right hon. Friend has made an important point about the impact on the local economy and the options of farming and new housing. If 10% of the land area of Newark is being covered in one thing, that limits lots of other opportunities. Does he feel that the Government have got the right balance in their push for net zero?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The answer is no. If we want to pursue net zero— even with the zealotry of some in the Government—we have to strike a balance. It is not being pursued in a proportionate and sensible way. It is alienating people— thousands of people in my constituency—many of whom feel passionately about this issue but do not want to see their countryside destroyed and their quality of life ruined.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
My constituency has a similar situation to the one the right hon. Gentleman is describing. The village of Scotton, which is home to the house where Guy Fawkes grew up, risks being encircled by a similar sort of development. People on the ground are pragmatic, but the issue comes down to planning rules and laws. It is simply not pragmatic or possible to get emergency vehicles or heavy goods vehicles through those communities. Does he agree that there needs to be a more common-sense approach to tackling these issues in rural communities?
Robert Jenrick
I certainly do. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Imagine the disruption, even just for a couple of years, of constructing 10,000 acres of solar farms in small rural areas with country lanes. It will be absolutely immense.
Sixthly, on food security, the land that I am speaking about is not scrubland, but some of the best and most versatile farmland in England. To take it out of production for 25 years is reckless. A 2023 report for the Welsh Government found that solar farms risk causing soil compaction and permanent damage, reducing yields long after the panels are gone. In Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, 99.1% of solar installations already sit on our best farmland. Developers’ soil tests conveniently downgrade land quality, but those are surveys they commission themselves. Once farmland is lost, we become dependent on imports, which are often produced to lower standards, with greater carbon cost and from countries where we have no control. That undermines not just food security but national security.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
It is a pleasure to come in on the side of David versus Goliath. Is my right hon. Friend aware that the 10,000 acres being proposed in his constituency could be replaced by 5,000 acres of floating solar on the reservoirs of this country? In my constituency, I have 2,000 acres of raised reservoirs. They are all closed sites; we cannot see the top of them. They are twice as efficient as land-based systems, and they reduce evaporation by 70%. Would that not be a better way of striking a balance than plastering them all over Newark?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I know he has spoken about this before. Let us do exactly that—let us have floating solar panels, if there is the appetite for them. Let us have solar panels on our factories and warehouses, above our multi-storey car parks and on homes, frankly, but let us not destroy the countryside for a generation or more.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I should note my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a landowner, and I should also acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman is my Member of Parliament. I will make a helpful contribution in a moment, but I wonder what his views are on landowner choice in this. One of the solar applications he is referencing is from a single landowner who has made the choice to put the land forward for this purpose because he lives a long way away. How does that fit into the arguments he is making as, presumably, a free market economist?
Robert Jenrick
I am not clear from the hon. Gentleman’s comments whether he supports or opposes the vast number of solar farms being built in Nottinghamshire. Of course, it is a free market in which landowners can choose to do as they wish. I personally would not do it, because I care more about food security and the countryside and would hope to be more concerned for my neighbours than some of these large landowners are, but what is driving this are the economics of it. The economics are set by Government policy, and the Government have the ability to change the economics and change the planning rules, so that this becomes difficult, if not impossible.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Sir Christopher Chope
One way of dealing with that would be for the Government to prohibit the import of solar panels and insist that, as a condition of such solar farms, panels must be produced within the United Kingdom. Would that not be a sensible policy?
Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend makes a very good point indeed. The suggestion we have heard over a generation that green jobs will come to the UK has turned out to largely be a mirage, because so much green technology is, in fact, produced overseas. Solar panels are almost exclusively made overseas, often in China, and that is a grave mistake.
Let me close by making two final points. The first is on the cumulative impact. As I said in my opening remarks, this is not about a small solar farm of 100 or 200 acres. This is about almost 10% of the entire land mass of my constituency being covered in solar panels. If these applications are nodded through by the Secretary of State, more will follow. Where does this end? Will we have a situation in five, 10 or 15 years where 20% or a third of the countryside in my constituency is covered in solar panels? That does not seem in any way impossible to me. Enough is enough, and my constituents are sick to death of it. We have to ensure that their concerns are heard and the cumulative effect is taken into account.
This matters not just to my constituents; it matters to the country, because the loss of food security in places like Nottinghamshire or Lincolnshire will affect all of us. Let me give an example. The three Newark projects covering 10,000 acres amount to land that could support more than 73,000 sheep, or produce 20 million loaves of bread or 700 million Weetabix. That is food production on a massive scale that we cannot afford to sacrifice. Every solar farm will beget more: a new substation leads to more applications; then come the battery storage plants; and soon the cumulative effect is devastating.
That is why my constituents oppose the three schemes with such passion. That is why I am in the Chamber this evening, to ask the Minister to give the applications due consideration when they land on her desk, or that of the Secretary of State, in time. I appreciate that she may be limited in what she can say, because of the planning process, but in due course I ask her to put herself in the shoes of my constituents, to think how she would feel if a 3.5-metre solar panel was built next to her house or if the village that she loved was ruined, and how she feels about the future of our country if our food security is to be sacrificed in this way.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Kerry McCarthy)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) on securing a debate on this important issue on behalf of his constituents. As he has acknowledged, I am limited in what I can say about specific projects within the planning system, but before I move on to address some of the detail that he has mentioned in his speech, I will explain why solar is so important to our energy security, to lower bills, and for climate action.
More than three years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our energy system remains at the mercy of price fluctuations on the international fossil fuel markets. Wholesale gas prices remain high—75% higher than before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The simple fact is that the only way to get energy bills down for good is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. That is why one of the Government’s guiding missions is to achieve clean power by 2030. Solar, as the cheapest and most easily deployable renewable energy source, is right at the heart of that mission.
Our clean power action plan, published last December, set out that 45 GW to 47 GW of solar power are required by 2030, up from about 19 GW at present. Thankfully, our vastly experienced UK solar sector stands ready to deploy at pace and at scale. One of the first things that we did on getting into government last year was to consent to several major solar projects that had been stuck in the in-tray. Solar is overwhelmingly popular with the British public. Our recent public attitudes survey found that solar energy is supported by 86% of the public—that figure has never dropped below 80%.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Newark, however, that if we want to keep support for solar that high, it must be rolled out in a way that provides communities with a say and with a direct benefit if they host clean power projects. First, that means protecting local communities and ensuring that only the right projects get the green light from the planning system. All projects are subject to a rigorous planning process in which the views and interests of local communities are considered. That includes things such as the potential impact on biodiversity, the local economy, visual amenity, protected landscapes and land use.
Secondly, it is essential that communities feel involved in the decision making on projects. Developers of projects larger than 50 MW, which qualify as nationally significant infrastructure, must complete considerable community engagement before any decision is taken. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that we are about to return control over a greater number of those projects to local authorities by doubling the threshold to 100 MW. That will come into force at the end of this year. For projects of all sizes, however, the level and quality of community engagement by developers is taken into account by decision makers.
The right hon. Member for Newark expressed concern about the use of agricultural land. The planning guidance makes it clear that, whenever 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, but it is important that we do not overstate the amount of land that is used for solar developments. In the solar road map, which was published in June, we set out our expectation that, even in the most ambitious scenarios, only up to 0.4% of UK land would be devoted to solar—significantly less, as Members may be aware, than is currently covered by golf courses. I will come on to the issue of clustering and concentration in a moment.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned food security. We do not accept that there is a trade-off between solar deployment and food security. In fact, the chief climate adviser to the National Farmers Union stated recently that there is no threat to national food security from solar.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned biodiversity. There is evidence that solar can improve biodiversity when it is installed on agricultural land—he talked about sheep and mentioned sheep grazing under solar panels. Under biodiversity net gain, projects smaller than 50 MW are required to increase biodiversity by 10%, and we are investigating the possibility of extended BNG to nationally significant projects as well. I do not know if he has read the recent study by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the University of Cambridge that found that solar farms in East Anglia have up to three times more birds than surrounding arable farmland.
When local communities do their country a great service, as the right hon. Gentleman said, by hosting solar farms, it is important that they enjoy a share of the benefits. In a recent working paper, we proposed that it should be mandatory for developers to provide community benefit funds. The working paper included a call for evidence seeking views on facilitating shared ownership and on whether the Government should consider expanding shared ownership, and we are currently working to get that framework right.
James Naish
Having worked in the energy industry, I am a strong proponent of local area energy plans that would empower communities to plan their energy needs. One of the big issues for constituents is that energy planning feels very reactive and is based on what landowners choose to do. It would be far more empowering to encourage communities to look at the land within their local authority or a bigger area and to proactively plan, just as we do with housing. Will the Minister consider thinking about how she can work with other Departments to encourage local area energy plans to have a statutory basis?
Kerry McCarthy
I am pretty sure that my hon. Friend has raised that issue at Energy Security and Net Zero questions before. I will remind the Minister for Energy, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), to engage further with him about that.
On clustering, and coming to the nub of the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, some communities feel that what they are being asked to host is excessive. I have a few responses to that issue. First, the planning system includes provisions to assess cumulative impacts under such circumstances, so that should be a part of the process. Secondly, we will be changing the way that we allocate energy infrastructure around the country. To date, developers have been incentivised to build projects where there is spare grid capacity and in industrial areas, such as the midlands. That is why there is that attraction and that can lead to clustering.
In the future, we will take a completely different approach to the one that we inherited from the right hon. Gentleman’s Government. We have commissioned the National Energy System Operator to create a strategic spatial energy plan that will set out a strategy for how new infrastructure should be spread across the country. By investing in our electricity networks and our grid, we can ensure that the grid will go where the projects are, rather than the other way around.
I wish I had time to answer all the other points that the right hon. Gentleman raised about storage and safety, but I will be happy to do so in writing. Finally, I want to focus on what we are doing to accelerate solar deployment on rooftops. We will encourage the installation of solar on new-build housing and on commercial buildings through new building standards. The vast majority of new homes built under these standards will have rooftop solar fitted. We have permitted development rights to allow most rooftop projects to proceed without an application for planning permission, and we have just conducted a call for evidence about adding solar canopies in car parks.
Great British Energy is putting solar on 200 schools and on 200 NHS sites to bring down bills and build more local clean power. Next month, we will launch our ambitious warm homes plan, with £13.2 billion available to support people with the upfront costs of installing green technology, including rooftop solar, insulation of homes, heat pumps and so on. We are unleashing a rooftop revolution because we think that rooftop is so important, but the scale of the challenge facing us, to get to clean power by 2030 and to ramp up renewables, means that ground-mounted solar and floating solar, which the Government also support, have to be a part of the plan.
To sum up, we take the concerns raised by the right hon. Gentleman very seriously. We want to take people with us on our clean power mission, which will work only if we do so. We are putting measures in place to get the planning process right, to ensure that communities benefit from hosting clean energy, and to support the strategic spread of projects across the country, including in urban areas, through our rooftop revolution. I am glad that the British people agree with us that solar is a vital part of our future energy mix, but we are never complacent about retaining that support. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to set out—in brief, at least—our position, and he will appreciate why we cannot be too specific about some of the points he raises.
Question put and agreed to.