Onshore Wind Farms

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I am slightly puzzled by the noble Lord’s enunciation of that question, in that renewable wind and overhead power lines go closely together, because the overhead power lines have to deliver the power that is being generated by the renewable power sources. As for the requirement that that variable output be matched by various other sources of energy when, for example, the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, that is well taken care of by the back-up that is already in the system—due, I might add, to a number of renewable sources also being non-variable.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet. Given what the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, in asking this Question, about the increased productivity of onshore wind when it is a replacement for existing infrastructure, is it not time that the Government did as he said and got on with it? I remind the Minister that the urgency of coming to conclusions on repowering existing onshore wind was included in the Private Member’s Bill that I introduced in your Lordships’ House some five years ago.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all her work in this field and for introducing that Bill. As far as getting on with it is concerned, there is nobody who wants to get on with it more than I do. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has drawn attention to the fact that we have probably 10.7 gigawatts or more of onshore wind capacity that could retire between 2027 and 2042, and those onshore farms will be completely lost if they retire without any repowering. So repowering is clearly essential, not only to keep those wind farms going on the same sites but because of the tremendous power gain that could come about by using modern turbine methods and modern blades to increase the output by perhaps up to two-thirds when those existing sites are repowered.

UK Energy Sources and Cost of Energy

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

No, the Energy Secretary does not wish to see drilling for North Sea oil banned. What he is doing, as the noble Lord will know, is developing transitional energy certificates, which will enable tie-backs to take place in existing fields. The noble Lord will know that the existing structure of the North Sea fields largely consists of fields that have not been tapped—small fields that are adjacent to additional fields—and so the tie-back arrangement will ensure both production and drilling for those tie-back fields in association with the existing fields.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of Peers for the Planet. Given what the Minister said about this being, in essence, a price security issue, what progress have the Government made on the issue of decoupling the price of other forms of generation from the price of gas? As we know, that is hugely volatile and has an enormous impact on both domestic and industrial consumers.

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is exactly right. As she will know, part of the price increases that are being suffered at the moment go into the market-making price of gas that secures the general price of electricity, for example, in our markets by marginal cost pricing. Certainly, the renewed and continuing volatility in international markets is likely to be a substantial driver of high price levels and price increases in the future. Therefore, the Government are actively looking at measures that could decouple the UK energy market, where it is green and low carbon, from that marginal cost pricing arrangement, which is still driven by gas in about 65% of settlements at the moment. That will be part of the UK’s drive for clean energy sources for the future.

Energy Prices: Energy-intensive Industries

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we have to look at each country, and some subsidise business costs from the Exchequer. There is no easy way through here; one way or another, there are variations in what Governments do, but we have a very tough public financial situation bequeathed by the last Government, in the form of the black hole they left us, so our options are inevitably constrained. We are not complacent; that is why we have this review of our whole energy pricing structure, and we will look at these matters very carefully. I still maintain, and I think the noble Lord would agree, that the best way to energy security and stable prices is to go towards clean power as quickly as we can.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister was absolutely clear that these are not easy decisions, and I think we all understand that. But the high price of electricity affects not only industries but consumers, so they are decisions, however difficult, that have to be taken. We have been tremendously damaged by the system that we have at the moment, so can the Minister be a little more specific about when we will have the results of the REMA review and when we can change the current perverse system of pricing?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I hesitate to answer the noble Baroness by saying “in due course”. Clearly, these matters are being discussed very fully in my department, and we want to reach a conclusion as quickly as possible, but I cannot give her a date.

Climate Change: Progress

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. The impacts of climate change and the need for adaptation are often seen in terms of physical structures and infrastructure, but would the Minister agree with me that there are important effects on health and that it is very central that his department talks to the Department of Health about the effects of, for example, the heatwaves, to which reference has been made, and the effects of changes in our and other countries’ climates that mean that we may see diseases that we do not think of as being relevant to the UK here in the very near future?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will be aware that the committee’s report refers to heat-related deaths rising in the UK as a result of what is happening to our climate. Since publication of the national adaptation plan 3 in July 2023, we have taken on board that point. The last Government published the fourth Health Effects of Climate Change (HECC) in the UK report in December 2023, detailing the risks. We have updated the NHS Green Plan Guidance in February 2025, setting out key actions each integrated care system and trust should undertake to strengthen their resilience to climate impacts, and we are very much on the case on this.

Energy Grid Resilience

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I totally agree with the noble Lord’s substantive point, and these matters are being discussed in government at the moment. On the use of farmland, he knows that if we were to achieve the whole of our solar ambition, we would not use more than 1% of agricultural land. We will continue to see solar projects on agricultural land, but I want to see much greater development on industrial premises and in domestic houses.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I repeat my declaration of interests. Spending the morning with my newly born grandson has left me in the mood to emphasise the positive, so I can say that I did actually agree with one thing that the noble Lord, Lord Offord, said, and that was that we need to be transparent with the public. There will be difficult decisions to be made and balances to be struck when we build the new infrastructure necessary for the grid. What progress is being made in the public engagement strategy the Government have undertaken about achieving net zero? As we heard earlier today, there are many misapprehensions and mistruths being peddled about the situation in regard to renewables.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on being a grandmother—

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

Again.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

—again. I think that is absolutely right. So much misinformation about energy policy appears in social media and in the media generally. We are doing our best; sometimes Governments are not listened to as much as we would wish. There is no question that, for instance, some of the criticism in relation to energy prices is put at the door of net zero when actually it is because of the uncertainty and volatility of international gas markets. There is a lot that we need to do collectively to get over the reality of why climate change presents such a threat, why, unless we can tackle these issues, we will probably continue to have high energy prices, and why we need to adapt and mitigate as fast as we can. I do not have any easy answers, but it is a matter we are giving great consideration to at the moment.

Infrastructure Planning (Onshore Wind and Solar Generation) Order 2025

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the contents and the wishes of the department in this document. Personally, I am very disappointed that we are where we are. I am a veteran of pylon applications; I was fortunate enough to be elected to the Vale of York in 1997, where there was already a long line of pylons going through the heart of the Vale of York to be joined by another, even bigger, line of pylons within a matter of months of my election. We were promised that the original line of pylons would be removed because it was thought that both would not be needed and they are, of course, unsightly.

I prefer the situation we had under the outgoing Conservative Government.There was virtually a moratorium on onshore windfarms for a number of reasons. The Minister is potentially going to see a great deal of discontent from residents and communities along the route of the overhead pylons will inevitably follow, particularly onshore windfarms. To take the example of offshore windfarms, there are three stages to the application process. When there is an application for an offshore windfarm, everyone thinks, “Oh great, that won’t affect me out there at sea”. Then the second stage of the application is for a massive substation to bring the electricity on land. The third, and completely separate, stage of the application is that suddenly—hey presto—we are going to have overhead pylons to feed the electricity into the national grid. How many applications does the Minister think will fall under this new decision-making regime where onshore windfarms will be decided by the Secretary of State? How many lines of pylons does he envisage will follow on from the applications? Will his department come forward and dictate that these overhead wires should be converted to underground wires?

Alternatively, does he accept—he knows that this is a theme I have pursued quite religiously with him over the past few months—that, if an onshore wind farm is built in, say, the north of England, or in Yorkshire more specifically, the electricity generated will serve the local community? It is colder in North Yorkshire than in many parts of the rest of the country, and we have a distinct lack of electric vehicle charging points. If an onshore wind farm will be built, I see absolutely no reason why the electricity generated cannot serve the population living locally.

I regret the statutory instrument in the department’s name that the Government feel is appropriate or necessary. Solar farms of the size that the Minister is talking about—those of 100 megawatts—will take the decision out of local communities. Again, I would be interested to know how many he envisages there will be. His department, DESNZ, will not lead to many des reses. We will not have many desirable residences along the routes of these overhead pylons. In the case of the solar farms, how will the electricity generated—presumably in the gift of the Government—enter the national grid to feed into the hungry south, leaving the rest of us in heat poverty in the north?

With those few remarks, I regret that the statutory instrument was brought before us. If we learn one thing from the massive outage in Spain, Portugal and parts of France last week, it is that we are becoming completely too reliant on very unreliable sources of energy—sunshine and wind—because the sun does not always shine, and the wind does not always blow.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. I, too, am a veteran of this debate, but I take a different view from that of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

In 2020, I first had a Private Member’s Bill on the inequity of how planning applications for onshore wind development were treated compared with all other infrastructure. It was a simple point: the self-imposed moratorium that the previous Government had put on the development of onshore wind was done on a completely blanket basis. They took onshore wind developments out of the normal level playing field of planning applications and treated them as some sort of pariah developments that should not be used. That is completely incorrect. As part of the move towards renewables and safe, clean and cheap power, we should exploit those opportunities.

We all know that the wind does not always blow and that the sun does not always shine. After six years on this topic, I do not need to be told that any more. We all know that we have to have base capacity, that we need variety and that you cannot transition overnight, but that does not take away the argument that there was a basic inequity in how these developments were treated.

I tabled the original Bill that I mentioned. I then had another Bill the next year. We then put in amendments on a number of pieces of legislation that were going through. We even won one of them; the noble Lords, Lord Teverson and Lord Deben, and the then Opposition Front Bench supported an amendment that had remarkably similar language to this statutory instrument. We won it on the Floor of your Lordships’ House, but it was reversed in the House of Commons, so it is an enormous pleasure to welcome this SI as an example of common sense breaking out on the issue of onshore wind developmentand of the benefit and reward of not taking “no” for an answer in politics.

Grangemouth Oil Refinery

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord is being unfair. Of course we want to see workers who are being displaced by changes in the industrial sector being helped and supported as much as possible, with additional training to enable them to accept good jobs in other sectors. At Grangemouth, a support facility is being made available, with training need analysts for each worker, and I gather that 300 such employees have already requested to take advantage of that. There are open evenings, career fairs and direct engagement with local employers.

As for the North Sea, I just make the point to the noble Lord that, although he has an obsession with gas, the fact is, as he knows, that the UK continental shelf is a declining basin. In the last 10 years, 70,000 people lost their jobs under the stewardship of the Government he served. I did not see much effort there by that Government to establish programmes to provide good jobs. We are at the early stages. We are working very hard. The green energy sector, including nuclear, has huge opportunities and we need to do everything we can to ensure that skilled workers being displaced in some areas of the energy sector are given every opportunity to take up new roles.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Given what the Minister has just said, is it not important that the sorts of skills, advice, training and support that he has described for Grangemouth are available much more widely if the transition is to take place effectively—and justly—in other areas? What plans are there to bring in the skills passporting programme that we have argued for for many years, as well as the specific training that will be needed?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I take the point, although I think it is right that we have some specific measures in relation to Grangemouth. I also think it is right to refer to a 2023 report by the CBI, which showed that there was a 9% increase in the green economy that year compared with 1% overall, and 950,000 people are now working in what could be described as a net-zero green economy. These are often very good, very well-paid jobs. We have a number of regional skills hubs. In the nuclear sector, we have a separate nuclear task force taking work forward in relation to this. The challenge we face is that, over the next few years, we need thousands more people to come into the low-carbon energy sector. We are doing everything we can, working with industry and with further education, to ensure that that happens.

Energy Prices

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. The market for electricity in this country is obviously a very complicated one, but Ofgem made it clear in the announcement of the recent price increases that the link with international gas prices is influencing the current rise in the cost to consumers. Can the Minister assure me that, as we move to that clean power system, the REMA review that he mentioned will look at whether delinking the overall UK market from the price of natural gas internationally would be in the best interests of consumers?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, that is an interesting comment, and the noble Baroness is of course absolutely right. Our problem is that we are tied to international gas prices, and noble Lords who are fixated on our using even more gas need to consider the implications of that. We are looking at how future gas market networks would work in a situation where gas is used much more infrequently. On marginal pricing, the more we use renewables, the less we are concerned about the international market. The contract for difference limits enable us to pay the renewable developers at a price that has already been agreed, rather than worrying about what the international price market will be.

Licensed Oil and Gas Fields: Emissions

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I join the noble Baroness in expressing my sympathy to all concerned in the tragic events that have taken place in the North Sea. I also agree with her that we should pay tribute to the emergency services—and, of course, we are very concerned about the environmental impact.

I ought to explain to the House that scope 1 emissions are direct company emissions that occur from sources owned or controlled by the company. Scope 2 are indirect emissions resulting from generation of purchased energy, typically electricity, or purchased heat. Scope 3 are all indirect emissions not included in scope 2 that occur in the value chain of the reporting company and include downstream and upstream emissions—if noble Lords wished to know what those scopes were.

The point here is that we would be double-counting the emissions—or that is the risk—if we went down the route that the noble Baroness suggests. We had this consultation in the light of the Finch judgment, because we needed to revise the environmental impact assessment to take account of scope 3 emissions. We are carefully considering the consultation at the moment, and it would be premature for me to say anything more at this stage.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. Did the consultation involve—I do not think that it did—the issue of ending venting and flaring, which is not essential, from oil and gas fields in the North Sea? We know how damaging that is, and the Minister will recollect that during debates on the Energy Bill noble Lords across the House took a view that it was a dangerous practice that needed ending. What are the Government doing about ending it?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I believe that the noble Baroness is right that venting and flaring are not covered in the EIA consultation, which is about scope 3, and I think they would come into scope 1. We are, of course, concerned about this and are considering the matter. My understanding is that the upstream oil and gas sector overall makes up to 3% of total net territorial greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, we are committed to meeting carbon budgets 4, 5 and 6, and we have just received advice from the Climate Change Committee in relation to carbon budget 7—all those things come into the mix as well—but I certainly take seriously the point that the noble Baroness raises.

Great British Energy Bill

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I totally accept that fact, and people have certainly got used to having much bigger reactors on those sites and so will not worry about it. I have ambitions, though, for SMRs that go way beyond existing sites. There are not that many of them in this country, and I hope that we will have an awful lot more. When I come to move my amendment later on in the evening, I will be making reference to the fact that we might have a small modular reactor for specific purposes.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I will intervene very briefly on this debate, and I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. I have just a couple of points on the issues that have been raised. First, to follow up on what the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, said, the idea of ensuring that communities gain the benefits of infrastructure that is near to them applies not only to small modular reactors but to many other things. In particular, the House knows of my concern for onshore wind and an increase in onshore wind developments. We have to do that in a way so the community, first, understands why we are doing it, and secondly, sees some benefit from those projects, whether on an individual or community level.

The other thing—and I of course welcome the government amendment on community energy—is that I very much agree with the spirit of what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. Some of us get very weary trying to inject the same issues of principle into legislation after legislation. Skills and the needs of the workforce, and the way we practically turn aspirations for green growth and green jobs into satisfying, well-paid, sustainable jobs, has to be done through the nitty-gritty of skills training, passporting and making sure that the opportunities are there for transition and for young people. It is enormously important that the Government and GBE do not lose sight of that.

In exactly the same spirit, we have banged on—if that is a parliamentary phrase—about home insulation and energy efficiency on any number of Bills. If I may say so to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, it is probably slightly inelegant to put that in the Bill as a hypothetical for what GBE might want to do, but the spirit of what he is saying, and the fact that this has been such a recurring theme, is absolutely central: it has so many benefits in saving money, saving emissions, increasing health and ensuring that we lift people out of the poverty that is occasioned by the housing in which they live. I hope that the Minister can give us some encouragement that the warm homes strategy, or whatever we are calling it this time—we have called it lots of different things over the years but have not been very successful in delivering it—will be a high priority for the Government.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 22, in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I congratulate the Government on bringing forward their Amendment 8. I imagine that it will find favour with the House rather than Amendment 22, but I will take the opportunity to press the Minister on a couple of aspects, just to give me reassurance that he means more than the warm words that we see expressed in his amendment.

In particular, how do the Government intend to deal with the current uncertainty over the community energy fund’s future? Is the Minister able to give us a guarantee of how that will pan out? Also, does he intend to take, or encourage GB Energy to take, early action to ensure that the fund will be matched by other funds, as I understand needs to be done, and that clear instructions on the above will indeed be set out in the strategic priorities for Great British Energy, as required by Clause 5?

I am not that familiar with community energy schemes, but I have seen how they operate in Denmark—I declare my interest, being half Danish and taking a great interest in Danish matters. I understand that they are so successful in Denmark because there is a system where local citizens, often organised in co-operatives, which again is very Danish—Arla is a co-operative in the milk industry that many here are familiar with—own a significant portion of renewable energy sources, such as wind farms and heat networks. Does the Minister agree that community ownership is part of the success of these schemes and that that is a path down which he would seek to go?