Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

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[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger]

89: After Clause 28, insert the following new Clause—
“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.

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[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.

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[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.

Amendment 89 withdrawn.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a director of a family company that holds a little farmland and has occasionally done small-scale development. I am also the recipient of three party wall notices in the past three years.

We all recognise the need for more homes. While the Bill aims to speed up the process for building houses, like other noble Lords, I am concerned about the damage that it may do. The Bill flouts Labour’s manifesto promises to uphold local communities’ ability to shape housebuilding in their area and its pledge to preserve environmental protection, as well as being an attack on human rights. There are other ways to do this.

As other noble Lords have said, there are some half a million land-bank plots currently being held by the big house developers, with eight of the major companies holding land of a value in excess of £198 billion. The Government state that they want to build 1.5 million homes, so will they please refuse to give the big companies more planning permission until they develop what they already have?

The Government’s steps to weaken the green belt are very concerning; surely we must use brownfield sites first. The CPRE briefing said that existing brownfield sites can deliver 1.2 million houses, but allowances need to be given for cleaning up these sites over building on the green belt.

Once our lovely countryside has been concreted over, we will never get it back. Green spaces are so important for good mental health. We are the custodians of a beautiful country, and we must preserve it. Demolishing buildings leads to further climate insult, so can we give tax breaks for repurposing buildings for housing and stop councils allowing so many buildings to be torn down?

As we have already heard, this is not just about quantity but quality. I welcome the good intentions to build better, smarter and in a more environmentally friendly way, but I worry that the Bill will, in reality, help build the slums of the future. I agree with the discussions in the other place that sought to ensure we preserve the setting and special character of historical villages, rather than losing them in an unchecked sprawl. We need smaller developments with local designs using local fabrics that are in keeping with their areas. This would help boost local business by allowing small developments with local builders.

One of the advantages of living in a democracy is that we have property rights, and we must resist at all costs authoritarian tendencies to wish to remove them. In the Bill are provisions to make compulsory purchase easier and for local authorities to be able to seize land more cheaply where it is “required” for new development. Compulsory purchase—seizing someone’s property—is against human rights and should be used in only the most extreme circumstances. Also, in building and developing, no one should be allowed to interfere with existing housing or to undermine the foundations of a private property without the owner’s permission. People need to be reassured that their home is safe in line with the ECHR.

Government needs to be joined up, so I turn to wider issues around infrastructure. In the current climate of growing uncertainty, we see our defence policy pivoting to deterrence against possible war. Although defence is the first priority of a Government, surely our second, as an island nation, should be food security. I know my husband, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, has already made this point, but plastering our countryside—and, more importantly, our productive agricultural land—with plastic solar panels is a terrible mistake. As he said, the national security strategy tells us that we must actively prepare for war, and our land is needed for food production. We currently import more than 40% of our food; we need to be more self-sufficient and resilient. Instead, let us insist that all new houses should have electricity-generating panels and roll them out on commercial and industrial buildings. Will the Government commit to put solar panels on all their buildings?

I will share one example of land under threat from such a solar farm development: Lime Down, a massive project in beautiful Wiltshire countryside, mostly on good agricultural land. Lime Down threatens 2,200 acres with solar panels, 45 acres of batteries, three new electricity substations, approximately 1 million panels and a two-year construction period involving thousands of lorries thundering up tiny lanes. It takes in six villages and stretches eight by three miles, with compulsory purchase being threatened to access the site at East Pye. The proposed installation will be in place for 60 years.

I would be interested if the Minister could clarify if and why a non-UK firm can have the right to compulsorily purchase UK land. Projects such as this not only cause misery to those affected but erode our food security. In war, they will make easy targets in this era of cyber conflict and drones. We have seen what can happen with the recent electricity outage in Spain and Portugal.

To conclude, we need to use existing buildings, brownfield sites and existing planning permissions before we start eating into our beautiful countryside. Solar panels should be on roofs not agricultural land, and, most of all, as a democracy, we need to preserve our property rights.