New Pylons: East Anglia

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Alex Burghart

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am not familiar with that issue, but the scientific literature on the health impact of pylons is still contested. There is no doubt, though, that they have a psychological impact, and that the psychological blight on people’s lives can be very serious.

People do not like living near pylons, which is why they tend to favour buying homes that do not have views that are blighted by pylons. It is a very sad development that National Grid is still proceeding in this direction, and I call this overground proposal a continuation of the patch and mend approach, as against the undersea option known as “Sea Link 2”. National Grid says that the “Sea Link 2” scenario would not provide the required capacity and would have required onshore transmission infrastructure as well. It should publish a like-for-like offshore alternative to East Anglia GREEN so that we can see not only what the additional costs would be, but what the additional benefits would be, and we could offset things such as property blight and damage to the environment, which is not costed into the proposal.

It is interesting to note that there is 10 times more total mileage of committed offshore transmission cabling in Scotland and the north of England than in the east of England. A constituent affected by East Anglia GREEN wrote to another National Grid consultation, and the community engagement team explained that the main reason for offshoring infrastructure from County Durham to southern Scotland was to

“significantly reduce its impact on communities.”

National Grid, again informally, now maintains that the reason for offshoring Scottish projects is that the electricity would have to cross multiple load boundaries, which is expensive. Again, it must explain that to the relevant stakeholders in detail. There is a complete lack of transparency about the process, which totally undermines public confidence in the decisions being proposed.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I extend my condolences to my hon. Friend at this time.

My hon. Friend is making an important speech. Does he agree that it is hard for us to explain to our constituents why an offshore route is not being taken when such routes clearly exist in other parts of the country? A number of colleagues in the Chamber today, and my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), who cannot be here, feel that it is difficult for us to make the case to our constituents that the proposals are fair and right when we are not being given the evidence.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

That is absolutely right, but we also need to make the point that even if the evidence is made available and proves the point in favour of the present proposals, it is against benchmarks that are out of date and inadequate for the purpose. That is why I call this a patch and mend approach to the existing infrastructure, when the scale of the extra capacity required to be carried in the East Anglian grid is massive. It is a huge leap, yet there seems to be no strategic or controlling mind behind the planning of the national grid for the next 50 to 100 years. It is all on much shorter-term horizons.