Large-scale Solar Farms

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Henderson. I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) on securing what is a very important debate for many counties around the country, not least Buckinghamshire.

Since I was elected in 2019, the threat of large-scale solar developments has caused significant concern for me and my constituents. Across my Buckingham constituency, field after field and farm after farm have already been blanketed by solar panels, to the detriment of the surrounding communities, food security, nature and our beautiful landscape. While we must strive towards a more sustainable and secure energy strategy, that does not and cannot include the huge sacrifice of agricultural land that we have already made and many plan to make in pursuit of that lofty goal.

Within the 335 square miles of rural Buckinghamshire that I am lucky enough to represent, a total of 3,600 acres of land has been either allocated to or planned for solar farms. That is 1.5 times larger than the entirety of Heathrow airport.

The largest proposed industrial solar installation, Rosefield, which sits among the villages known as the Claydons, dwarfs the size of the nearby town of Buckingham —a town of more than 10,000 residents. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Buckinghamshire countryside is slowly being consumed by solar panels. Does it benefit anybody locally? No, it does not—not when we consider the construction impact, the visual impact, the risk to wildlife and the risk to the local economy and our tourism economy.

Buckinghamshire is lucky enough to have stunning, beautiful countryside that people come to walk through; they then spend their money in our cafes, bars, hotels and campsites. I am not sure that they will still want to do that if the landscape is just covered in the glass, metal and plastic of these solar farms. Not that the promoters and developers of such schemes as Rosefield in the Claydons, Callie’s near Owlswick, Bourton in Buckingham, Redborough in Ledburn and many others that I could mention, care about any of those points, of course.

And does it benefit our country? No, not when our food security is at grave risk of being severely compromised, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham has outlined, through the enormous loss of agricultural land that each of these developments represents when taken cumulatively.

No matter how big or small, all agricultural land repurposed is not only food lost, but livelihoods lost. This is land that would have been farmed for generations beforehand, often by tenant farmers, who are given no choice but to leave, without any meaningful say in the process or, indeed, any compensation.

[Sir David Davis]

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech and makes a very good point about tenant farmers. Is not one of the problems the way that we have set up the pricing of these mechanisms, in that it renders tenant farmers completely uneconomical? For some foreign investor with vast investments in the British countryside, it is in their interest to throw tenant farmers out in favour of this policy.

[Greg Smith]

As ever, my right hon. Friend hits the nail precisely on the head. The risk to tenant farmers through the pricing mechanisms that we are seeing—through the sheer plain economics—is severely stacked against their interests. We must look at the volume of farms in this country that are tenanted rather than owned; the more tenant farms we lose, the greater the slide in domestic food security we will see, and the current figure of around 60% of self-sufficiency will drop very rapidly indeed. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right.

To achieve the set target of 75 GW from solar installations by 2035, more than 300,000 acres across the country would be required. It is no secret that the rural economy, under pressure from, for example, rising input prices and many other things, has already faced significant challenges in recent years. Left with no viable options, some people have been forced to sell or leave their land, in the process guaranteeing that it will almost certainly never return to food-producing status. Yet across all of those estates—the farms and all of that land—the barn roofs are empty and blank.

Smaller stand-alone solar is less impactful, quicker and easier to install, does not risk damaging the local infrastructure and provides an additional, reliable source of income for struggling farms. I am in no way saying that farmers with 10, 20 or 30 acres of unproductive land should not, in consultation with their local planning authority and local communities, be able to utilise land that is not useful for producing food any more. They should be able to put solar on their rooftops. But the fundamental point is that no amount of solar will revive the fortunes of some of the farms that are struggling —quite the opposite.

Time and again I hear the baseless argument from developers—this point has already been developed in this debate—that anything less than grade 3a land should be given over because they believe it to be incapable of growing food. I disagree. Grade 3b land can be very productive; I know that, because the bulk of my constituency that sits in the vale of Aylesbury sits on blue clay. That means the vast majority of it gets a grade 3b land rating, but it remains perfectly capable in many cases, having been nurtured, loved and looked after for generations, of producing 10-tonne-a-hectare wheat harvests. Many farmers in other parts of the country on grade 2 land or even grade 1 land would bite their right hand off to get such a yield at harvest time.

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time. He makes an extremely important point about the definition of grades 3a and 3b. Most people in the countryside know that one field might be half 3a and half 3b. I am told that Natural England does not have a map. It does not even have a clear definition of what is 3a and 3b. Does he agree with me that the worst outrage of all is that when these speculative solar farm developers come along, it is their surveyor—they pay the surveyor—who decides on the quality of the land? It is hardly surprising that they find in favour of it all being 3b.

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that point. It is almost as if he had been looking over my shoulder and seeing what was on the next page of my speech. I was coming to precisely that. Overpaid surveyors, the so-called experts who come in with a clear mandate of what they have to do, have been hired to test soil quality. They do not even go out into the middle of the field. They do not go to the most versatile part of the farm where the crop actually grows. We have caught them red-handed in Buckinghamshire testing the headland, the very edge of the field, They will always get a lower score from that test if they have not gone to the bit of the field where the crop grows. They deliberately test the edge of fields and the headland to get the poorer quality result. This would not be a speech from me without mentioning this: it is the same tactic that HS2’s contractors use in other parts of my constituency to get similar results to prove similar points. It is not unique to solar developers.

[Dr Johnson]

Has my hon. Friend compared the land results proposed by the surveyors with the maps that DEFRA produces of what it expects the land to be and noticed the differences?

[Greg Smith]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Yes, time and again we see a differential between what the developer’s surveyor and consultant come up with and what we believe the land to be. Much of my constituency sits on a blue clay base, so we expect a lot of it to be 3b. However, I come back to the point that I made: 3b land can be very good productive land producing the sorts of yields that I talked about. It is how that land has been farmed, often for generations, that dictates how good it is for production, not other things.

I made this point earlier: 60% of farms in the UK are tenant farms. However, beyond that, it is not just the farmers, the tenants or those employed on the farms who are hurt when that land is taken away from food production, but the packing plants, the equipment suppliers and the distributors. A huge part of our rural and national economy is hit when food production is diminished.

For the surrounding communities, the loss of farmland by no means starts or ends with solar panels. In the Claydons, for example, my constituents have suffered hugely from large-scale construction already, including a number of big housing estates, East West Rail and the ultimate destroyer, HS2. It is a daily struggle for them to get to work, school, the hospital, the GP or the shops without coming up against the obstacles of endless road closures, broken stretches of road that have become dangerous after the movement of thousands of HGVs, drivers travelling to and from nearby compounds, and severe light pollution during the winter months. That will be the same all over again with the construction of the huge solar farms. A solar farm of 2,100 acres is not built overnight. They are all put on concrete bases. There will be piling in places. The construction impact on local communities is considerable.

After all the disruption that my constituents have already taken—and are still taking—from those big national infrastructure projects, this once quiet corner of Buckinghamshire is now expected to take, in the case of Rosefield, a 2,100 acre development, which would dwarf the amount of land that High Speed 2 has taken in Buckinghamshire. Given the extent of the proposed site, it is not unreasonable to expect to see yet more of the same disruption that has plagued the Claydons for years. All of that comes without any commitment by the promoters to fix any of the damaged roads, which already have to be patched by the council, even though other people have broken them. It is simply not fair for my constituents and areas such as the Claydons to foot all that pain all over again.

It is not just the panels that consume vast amounts of countryside. The infrastructure needed to carry the electricity generated through to the grid swallows up yet more. It is no coincidence that adjacent to the proposed Rosefield site, there is a proposed battery storage facility, with the equivalent of 90 shipping containers of battery storage right next door. That is more food-producing land being sacrificed, and the facility itself poses a major fire risk in an area where the emergency services are already struggling, in the face of such disruptive amounts of construction work, to get to any emergencies that occur.

Let that be a warning to any community where solar is coming. It does not end with just the solar panels. Of course, there is no community benefit whatsoever from solar development, whether large or small. As has been said, there is no cheap electricity for local residents or businesses, and no support systems in place for those impacted by construction. There is no recourse for anybody affected.

I have spoken a lot about Rosefield, but I will briefly talk about some other large-scale solar developments in my constituency. In the south, we have seen an equally blatant tactic—admittedly, on a slightly smaller scale—of significant ground-based solar installations being installed or proposed just metres from each other. Let us take the proposed solar installation near the village of Kimblewick on the eastern side of the village of Ford, and Callie’s Solar Farm on the western side of Ford, which combined, would be the second largest land take in my constituency after Rosefield for ground-mounted panels. We have seen that tactic time and again; it puts community and local authority resources under strain, in turn diminishing their influence over the whole planning process. We have to find a way to ensure that the cumulative impact of solar farms is taken into account.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the debate; I was speaking in the Chamber. I will therefore not make a full speech, but I am grateful to be able to comment. My hon. Friend describes the exact situation that my constituents in Rownall face, with multiple applications being made for adjoining pieces of land, all of which are small scale and therefore to be decided by the local district council rather than the Secretary of State. They feel that that is an abusive way of putting in solar farms that will cumulatively be a very large development. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to pause the granting of all applications of this variety and urge district councils to have the appropriate training to identify and measure fully the cumulative impact of these developments?

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree. There should be a fundamental pause on any solar application that would take land used for food production. As the new national planning policy framework was being negotiated concurrent to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, I was pleased to be able to persuade the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to change the NPPF from the old language of “best and most versatile” to a straightforward definition of “land used for food production”. It was hidden in a footnote, but it was still there. If we can leverage that as the test that planning authorities now have through the NPPF, coupled with the sensible points that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) made about going up in a helicopter to review all land being used and pausing any decisions, that would bring a lot of relief to communities—certainly mine in Buckinghamshire, hers in Staffordshire and many others as well.

Solar has its place, but that place is on rooftops and not in fields. Across my constituency are farms and industrial sites where the roofs of barns and warehouses are devoid of solar panels. My constituency adjoins both Bicester to the Oxfordshire side and Milton Keynes to the north-east. There are the rooftops of many thousands of distribution centres and warehouses, and these big sheds that are going up as logistics hubs everywhere, vibrantly adding to our economic development, but with no solar on the roof. If we just got the solar panels on those roofs instead, we would find more than enough space to ensure that we are delivering on the volume of solar-generated energy that we need.

CPRE research found that

“there is potential for…117 gigawatts”

of renewable energy

“to be generated from rooftops and other”

existing “developed spaces” in England alone, which is substantially more than the master target. Rooftop solar systems have to be the priority for Government, and I urge the Minister to find a way of ensuring that our solar strategy is a rooftop strategy, not an agricultural land strategy.

As she opened this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham made a point about small modular reactors. She cited a statistic that I have used, which goes to the nub of this debate; it is the clearest argument I can make about a sensible land use strategy. The small modular reactors that we have seen companies such as Rolls-Royce develop need virtually no land to deliver significantly more power. She was kind to quote me, but I will repeat the statistic because I am quite fond of it: 2,000 acres of solar panels produce, on current usage, before everyone has two Teslas on the drive, 50,000 homes-worth of electricity. A small modular reactor is the size of two football pitches and can power 1 million homes. That surely has to be the more sensible use of land in this country to power people’s homes and businesses. Nuclear can deliver that in a clean and wonderful way while still protecting our national food security. Those numbers must speak volumes to anybody that cares about both the energy security and food security of our wonderful country.

My asks are clear. First, we simply must diversify our national energy security strategy to promote less land-intensive schemes, which come at the expense of our food security, and promote the development of more reliable, sustainable and less impactful schemes that we can actually deliver every day of the year. Secondly, we must put in practice the provision of the new language in the NPPF and encourage local authorities to use it. Thirdly, we must incentivise the use of existing rooftop space for stand-alone solar installations on sites that already have a grid connection and reform the grid to ensure that many more can as well. Let us get this right and stop the solar destruction, build our energy security on nuclear, protect our food security and save the great British countryside.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend has a long-standing record of making powerful suggestions on behalf of his constituents and neighbouring constituencies on this important issue. The ESO’s recent study considered a total of a nine alternative options for transmission routes in East Anglia, including three predominantly offshore options and two hybrid onshore and offshore options. It is important that we try to work with communities.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Claire Coutinho)]

I would first like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who served this Government for eight years, including as Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero since 2022. He will be missed in the role for his expertise. He attended his first COP in 2005 and was instrumental in our achievements at COP28 last year. He helped the UK to halve its emissions, which is an extraordinary achievement. We are the first major economy to do so. He also worked with the Net Zero Council, protecting families through the global energy crisis and backing 200,000 British oil and gas workers. He leaves a legacy of which he can be very proud. I would also like to welcome the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), a tireless campaigner who I know will continue this Government’s world-leading work.

Since I last updated the House, families are benefiting from a drop in the energy price cap worth almost £250 a year to the average household. I have set out plans to reform tariffs, saving bill payers up to £900 a year, and invested £750 million in nuclear skills as part of my plans for the largest expansion of nuclear in 70 years.

[Greg Smith]

The consultation on renewable liquid fuels from September is welcome, but the recent survey by the Future Ready Fuel campaign showed that 88% of respondents from off-grid households actively want the option of switching to a renewable liquid fuel. Will my right hon. Friend work with me to ensure that we can get consumers the choices that they actually want, and not the heat pumps that many do not?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank my hon. Friend. I know that he is a fantastic champion for people living off the gas grid. We are supporting off-grid homes to transition to heat pumps or biomass boilers through the boiler upgrade scheme, with grants of up to £7,500. Renewable fuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil have the potential to play an important role in heating off-grid buildings, and we will be issuing a consultation on that role by September, in line with commitments made by Ministers during the passage of the Energy Act 2023.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

I have never been accused of propagandising before. It is a matter of pride on the Conservative Benches that every single nuclear project that has ever been completed in this country has been completed under a Conservative Government—it does not look as though that is likely to change any time soon, despite the protestations and near-Damascene conversion of Labour Front Benchers on nuclear over the past few years. We are carrying on with our nuclear revival; we have set out our nuclear road map; and we are encouraging, enthusing and investing in our civil nuclear sector. I am very excited about the progress that we have made and what will take place in the sector over the next few years.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

4. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that land used for food production is not used for solar installations.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Andrew Bowie)]

The planning policy priority is the effective use of land by directing solar projects to locate on previously developed low-grade land, and it is designed to avoid, mitigate and, where necessary, compensate for impacts on the best agricultural land.

[Greg Smith]

The Prime Minister was very clear that vast swathes of agricultural land would not be lost to solar on his watch, yet I am seeing thousands of acres across my constituency being built out or proposed for solar—from Kimble Wick to Dinton, Ford to Beachampton, and more—including the latest 2,100 acre abomination in the Claydons known as Rosefield. Good agricultural land that regularly produces wheat harvests of 10 tonnes per hectare, for example, is often falsely graded as 3b because the readings are taken from the headland, not the field. When will my hon. Friend ensure that energy policy does not trump food security, and stop the mass proliferation of agricultural land being used for inefficient solar?

[Andrew Bowie]

I understand the concern and frustration of my hon. Friend and his constituents. That particular project is at the pre-application planning stage. The application is expected to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate between January and March 2025. However, as I know he understands, owing to the quasi-judicial role of Ministers in determining applications, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on any specific matters in relation to that project, but I can reassure him that all applications are judged on their individual merits, and I encourage him and all his affected constituents to engage with the planning process at every stage as it continues.

Civil Nuclear Road Map

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

Absolutely. Lancashire, like Cumbria, is at the heart of the vision we are announcing today. The £300 million investment in new nuclear fuels means that the United Kingdom will remain among a handful of nations committed and able to work across the entire fuel supply chain. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is visiting Springfields as I speak, demonstrating our commitment to that plant and its people. Moving forward, we will be central to our allies and partners around the world being able to move away from and wean themselves off relying on hostile foreign actors like Vladimir Putin for their energy baseload. Lancashire will be key to doing that.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Nuclear is hugely important for our energy security, so I welcome today’s statement. Missing from my atomic Friend’s extensive list of the benefits of nuclear is how much kinder nuclear is on land use, with a small modular reactor needing just two football pitches to produce enough power for around 1 million homes, compared to 2,000 acres of solar that will power only 50,000 homes. Does the Minister agree that nuclear is so much kinder and does not involve destroying vast swathes of the British countryside and impacting our food security?

[Andrew Bowie]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the footprint and the comparable impact on land of nuclear compared to other technologies, but it is very important that we have a wide range of energy technologies moving forward. We will benefit from investment in wind, solar, hydrogen, CCUS and the nuclear we are announcing today, but I welcome his support for what we are announcing.

Net Zero by 2050

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to articulate the potential of carbon capture and storage. Earlier in the year, we set out the £20 billion package—a large package by international standards. We have set out some progress, and we are working at pace to ensure that we can set out more later in the year. He talks about lack of clarity; if he is worried about that, I gently say that he might want to look at his own party’s position.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), synthetic fuels—by that, I mean genuinely synthetic fuels made from green hydrogen and atmospheric carbon capture, rather than biofuels or fuels from waste—are net zero, because the amount of carbon at the tailpipe is the same volume recaptured to make the next lot of fuel, yet the myopic zero-emission vehicle mandate prevents the UK from benefiting from synthetic fuels for our road vehicles. Will my right hon. Friend show the same welcome pragmatism she has shown to the rest of the agenda and revisit the zero-emission vehicle mandate?

[Claire Coutinho]

We have set out our position on the zero-emission mandate. However, we are also looking at synthetic fuels. As I said, we are consulting on them for aviation, and we can look at them more broadly. However, we have set out the position on the ZEV mandate, which has been widely welcomed.

Heating Rural Homes

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

My hon. Friend is a rural champion, like myself. With his background in animal welfare, he feels the beat of the countryside in his veins. He is absolutely right about having that rural priority for vital things such as climate change, where we all want the right things. We all want to do the best we can for our constituents, but what works in inner London is so different from that which would affect his constituents, those in Brecon and Radnorshire, or the wonderful people of North Herefordshire.

As I said, the fuel price hit an unprecedented 110 pence per litre, double the regular cost, or even more. The Government moved commendably quickly to help secure our energy supply and to protect consumers through the energy price guarantee. However, for those off grid, that support was not forthcoming. The energy price guarantee ensured that gas and electricity bills were capped at about half of what they could have been, but those using alternative fuels received a £200 payment and there was no cap on the price. As a result, they were subjected to massive price increases, with little to safeguard them from factors completely out of their control. During this period, I received emails from people in Herefordshire whose houses are off the mains grid and who were deeply concerned by the rapidly increasing price of alternative fuel.

With the UK target of reaching net zero by 2050 in mind, the Government are pursuing a heat pump-led approach to secure energy independence for the UK. Their well-meaning boiler ban, set to take effect in 2026, will force homeowners to replace their gas and oil boilers with low-carbon alternatives. Although that ban may be well-intentioned and appears to align with the target of reaching net zero by 2050, we have forgotten the impracticality of such a ban for those people living off grid. With 75% of rural properties off the gas grid, these homeowners rely on alternative heating methods. Of all the off-grid homes in the UK, 55% are heated with heating oil, just 18% with electricity, 11% with solid fuel and 10% with liquid petroleum gas. That means that 76% of off-grid households will soon have to replace their heating systems.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate for the 15% of households in my constituency who are off the gas grid. Does he agree that the best way the Government could rise to the challenge he is powerfully making is to adopt the proposal from my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) to permit the use of hydrotreated vegetable oil and other sustainable fuels in existing oil burners and indeed new oil-burning boilers, so that customers and residents of all our constituencies are not forced to spend tens of thousands of pounds on a technology that may not actually work?

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

All I can say is that those 15% of my hon. Friend’s constituents are lucky to have such a champion in their MP—what a hero for rural sensibility. We are truly blessed to have an intervention such as that. Later in my speech, I may touch on the subject of HVO. What he is saying is absolutely right. We need to be much broader in our outlook about what works for people, not through force, but through choice, so that the people who want to do the right thing can do so, rather than being curmudgeonly bullied—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I saw you thinking that that was perhaps a bit of a long intervention, but it was pure gold. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: these energy performance certificates are not just stupid and useless, but absolutely evil when it comes to the fundamental right of people to want to own their own homes—something in which we on the Conservative Benches believe passionately. Worse than that, if someone cannot get an EPC rating of C, they cannot rent a house either. All of this will be no different from the land clearances, when people were shipped off into the cities because they simply could not or were not allowed to live in the countryside. It is an appalling situation and my right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight it. I hope the Minister is trembling on the Front Bench at the vehemence of loathing that I have for EPCs, not least because, when I last got one, it said that we should have built a windmill in the garden. How stupid can you get when it comes to really mindless environmental legislation. I care very much about this because, if we are going to do a good job of saving the planet, we cannot be handicapped by cretinous legislation such as EPCs. I ask the Minister to please fix it.

To go back to the speech in hand, we have covered traditional features in old homes. Indeed, it is even more troublesome and expensive to retrofit a listed building, of which there are around 500,000 in England. They have solid floors and walls and are much more difficult to rectify. The House will be aware of the debates I have held on environmental standards for listed buildings and the most welcome progress that was made to allow double glazing by Historic England—a small step, one might think, but to have 500,000 houses in this country banned from having double glazing just reinforces why I rage at EPCs. There are all the other environmental steps that we want to take but are banned from taking.

[Greg Smith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I would be delighted to give way to my hon. Friend; I have hardly started.

[Greg Smith]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way twice. Does he agree that many of the houses that are challenged by the EPC regime simply cannot have the retrofitting he talks about, such as those built out of cob or witchert, a form of cob unique to the Vale of Aylesbury—to declare an interest, my own house is partially made out of witchert—where the walls need to breathe? Therefore, people cannot put in place the measures that would allow a higher EPC rating or allow a heat pump to work in the first place.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

I feel for my hon. Friend. When we buy a washing machine or dishwasher and look at the energy rating on it, it is a helpful guide to what we should expect our fuel bills to be. However, the EPCs for houses are off the scale in their inability to provide anything useful and I am mustard-keen for the Minister to tackle them.

My fear is that Historic England, that wonderful body that has been trying to make Leominster a nicer place, may go back on its guidance on double glazing and on the curtilage of listed buildings. That would be a shame because, while there is an industry built up with secondary glazing, it is really important that as a Government we help people to do the right thing. Something that saves energy, improves fuel efficiency and makes houses nicer places to live in is obviously a sensible step.

I am sure the Minister does not find it hard to see why the boiler upgrade scheme has been such a disappointment. Tragically, £90 million-worth of subsidy is being given back to the Treasury due to the difficulty of uptake. The Government’s latest scheme offers households grants of between £5,000 and £6,000 for low-carbon heating systems such as heat pumps—kind, well-meaning and hopelessly inappropriate. Ofgem figures show that fewer than 10,000 installations were completed under the scheme between its launch in May last year and March this year.

Households with a broken boiler could wait up to six months to source a certified installer, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said, receive a grant, if they are lucky, purchase the heat pump, if it is available, and have it installed, by which time they may have suffered without heating during the coldest months of the year. That is never going to deliver on our ambitions, not least because every broken boiler is a missed opportunity. It means people will go out and buy another fossil fuel boiler because the option to buy a heat pump was just too difficult.

We cannot afford to drop the ball like that. Every time someone needs a new boiler, surely the right thing is for them to say, “Thank goodness for the Minister! She made it so much easier for me to get a super-efficient, clean boiler, which is not just keeping me toasty in the winter, but saving the planet for my children and grandchildren.” That is where we need to get to, and I know the Minister is listening and smiling with delight because that opportunity is opening up before her.

While the Government may have set the ambitious target of 600,000 installations of heat pumps per year by 2028, it will not be achieved unless they address the extortionate cost and impracticality of installation. A poll by Liquid Gas UK discovered that more than two thirds of people living in off-grid rural homes fear that they would not be able to afford a heat pump if required to install one. The average cost of installing a low-carbon heating system such as a heat pump is estimated to be between £15,000 and £30,000. That probably includes the £5,000 grant, as installers are not going to ignore the subsidy, either. For many families, that is an expense that they simply cannot afford. Twelve per cent of houses in rural areas are in fuel poverty—a rate 43% higher than on-grid homes.

On top of the expensive cost of heat pumps, there is a lack of skilled engineers available to install and manage them. I recently received an email from a heating engineer who works in an off-gas grid area of Herefordshire. They are deeply concerned that the Government’s proposals are impractical because it is so expensive and difficult to install heat pumps. In rural areas, it will therefore be extremely difficult to source a nearby engineer to install a heat pump when one’s current oil boiler breaks.

Homeowners should have the freedom to choose their heating systems based on what suits their needs, preferences and budgets. Rather than installing an expensive heat pump, they might find it more suitable to have a hybrid or cocktail of alternative energy sources, such as biomass boilers, which are eligible for the Government’s renewable heat incentive—

--- Later in debate ---

[Amanda Solloway]

I confess to being a whisky drinker, so I feel a visit coming on, but that might not be allowed. Of course, I will look into that.

Transitioning rural, off-grid properties to low-carbon heat will help to move us off imported oil and build energy independence; help protect consumers from high and volatile energy bills; and keep us on track for net zero. However, I want to take this opportunity to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire that we recognise the challenges involved, which he has described so eloquently. Decarbonising rural, off-grid properties in a way that is fair, affordable and smooth for consumers will require a range of different technologies and policy approaches.

While we expect that most off-grid properties will ultimately switch to heat pumps, affordability is a key challenge that we need to address, particularly while the cost of installing a heat pump remains higher than the cost of replacing an oil system. That is why we are taking a range of steps to grow the heat pump market to 600,000 installations a year by 2028, and to make installing a heat pump a more attractive and affordable choice for heating a home. I acknowledge the challenge of building the skills that installers will need; I will take that point away and—with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker—come back at a later date in a different manner. The steps we are taking include providing support through schemes such as the boiler upgrade scheme and home upgrade grant. We want to make sure that people make green choices.

As we take action, we want to ensure that the economic benefits of the transition to net zero are retained in the United Kingdom, which will create new, highly skilled jobs in the low-carbon economy. That is why we are investing £30 million in the heat pump investment accelerator, which will bring forward investment in heat pump supply chains and aim to ensure that at least 300,000 heat pumps are manufactured annually here in the UK by the end of the decade. I also take this opportunity to reassure my hon. Friend that no one will be required to install an unsuitable technology in their home or business. Heat pumps will not work everywhere—some off-grid properties are simply too poorly insulated or have certain characteristics that would make installing the technology challenging. We are therefore looking closely at the potential role of low-carbon heating solutions, such as high-temperature heat pumps, hybrid heat pumps, solid biomass or renewable liquid fuels. They could play a part in the low-carbon heating mix, particularly where heat pumps cannot be used. However, sustainable biomass is a limited resource, and we need to take care to prioritise its use in sectors that offer the greatest opportunity to reduce emissions and where there are the fewest alternative options to decarbonise.

There were some comments on the EPC, which is under a different Department, but I will take that away. However, I thoroughly believe we should always be looking at ways to improve methodology, and I am happy to have further conversations on that, if that is helpful. The forthcoming biomass strategy will review the amount of sustainable biomass available in the United Kingdom and consider how the resource could be best utilised across the economy to help achieve the Government’s net zero and wider environmental commitments. My hon. Friend also mentioned the consultation on the boiler ban. The Government have a commitment to transition to clean heat for the future. My hon. Friend asked me about a date, which I am unable to give at this stage, but I will look into that consultation and get back to him as soon as I can.

We will continue to work with industry stakeholders to build further evidence that will allow us to evaluate what roles these fuels may play in heat, especially where heat pumps cannot be used. Earlier this week, I visited Certas Energy, the UK’s largest distributor of heating oil. I thank it for supplying off-grid customers this winter. I also learned about its plans to transition to low-carbon renewable liquid fuels, and I will take away lots of points from that visit. Through the support we are providing, I assure my hon. Friend that we are acting and will continue to act to ensure that the transition to clean heat is smooth, fair and affordable for rural off-grid households and businesses.

[Greg Smith]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I think the Minister had finished. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will have a quick chat with the Minister afterwards—I can feel it.

Question put and agreed to.

Energy Bill [Lords]

Greg Smith Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I welcome many of measures contained in the Bill, not least the clear step forward in embracing nuclear. Indeed, I consider it an act of national vandalism and a huge part of our difficulties on energy cost and supply since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine that previous Governments failed so badly on nuclear.

First, I wish to focus my remarks on community energy. It is an absurdity that the community energy sector has seen minimal growth in recent years, accounting for less than 0.5% of total UK electricity generation capacity, not because of the cost of technological development or even deployment, but because of energy market and licensing rules. That should be easily fixable, so I add my voice of support for clauses 272 and 273 to enable community schemes to sell the electricity they generate locally.

These seem to be straightforward, pro-competition, pro-consumer reforms, and my central ask is that they should be adopted as part of the Bill. If my hon. Friend the Minister is minded not to support them, what will he propose to open up the huge community energy sector opportunity that the Environmental Audit Committee’s 2021 report identified could grow by 12 to 20 times by 2030, powering 2.2 million homes?

I turn to the challenges facing rural off-grid households. According to the latest census, 15% of my constituents—and, for transparency, this applies to my house too—use oil-fired boilers for central heating, compared with 3% nationally, and a further 4% use tanked or bottled gas, compared with 1% nationally. As it stands, such households are looking down the barrels of massive expenditure when their boilers need replacing. A troubling direction of travel means that, as soon as 2026, these oil-burning boilers will be banned and groupthink will be directing us to worship at the altar of the heat pump.

Not only are these things horrendously expensive, but for many rural homes they just will not, and never will, work. The Government’s own data shows that some 20% of off-grid households simply cannot use them. Many rural or older homes, built out of stone, cob or “Whychert”, which is unique to the Vale of Aylesbury, are less energy efficient, more expensive, more difficult and, in some cases, impossible to insulate. It is essential that the Government drop ambitions to ban people from using systems that actually work for their homes. Instead, they should ensure there is the best variety of choices available to households to choose how to decarbonise in a way that will not leave them broke, indebted and cold.

The best way of moving forward would be to adopt the provisions in the Renewable Liquid Heating Fuel Bill, introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), into this Bill. That would enable people to transfer to the use of hydrotreated vegetable oil at a fraction of the cost of a heat pump and associated works—we are talking hundreds of pounds to convert, rather than tens of thousands of pounds for the alternative.

That leads me to a wider ask on the future of fuel. It is hugely welcome that, with this Bill, the Government are seeking to recognise recycled carbon fuels in legislation by extending the eligible fuel types under the renewable transport fuel obligation orders to include two new low-carbon fuels. As it is inconceivable that the future of aviation and maritime will ever be without the need for a liquid hydrocarbon, the challenge is what that liquid hydrocarbon looks like. My central argument is that, by using drop-in biofuels, which are more easily and financially scalable, in the short term and fully synthetic fuels in the medium to long term, the choice extended to aviation and maritime can equally be enjoyed, with much wider access, across other heavy-duty applications, such as agriculture and construction machinery, road haulage, rail, motorsport and, linking back to my second theme, the very fuel we use to heat rural and off-grid homes in a manner that does not leave people poorer and colder.

This is about developing new fuels for what we already have, not spending billions of pounds on reinventing the wheel, or at least that which makes the wheels and propellers turn. Perhaps such fuels will even be the saviour of the road car as we know it, as even the European Commission is proposing to allow e-fuels in combustion engines after its zero emission cut-off date in 2035.

Petrosynthesis, as Paddy Lowe, the pioneer of one synthetic manufacturer, Zero, calls it, creates a balanced, circular and sustainable future of indefinite timescale—the industrial version of the natural carbon cycle. This Energy Bill should be the vehicle to embrace this evolution right here in the United Kingdom. Across transport and domestic energy, synthetics offer so much. We just need to get fully behind them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

More than a million homes now have solar panels installed. According to data from the microgeneration certification scheme, a total of 130,596 solar panels were installed on UK rooftops last year alone, and that is more than 2019, 2020 and 2021 put together, but like the hon. Lady I want to see us go further and faster.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Energy security and food security should have equal billing, yet the proliferation of solar farms across thousands of acres of agricultural land is taking away from our nation’s ability to produce food. Warehouses up and down the land want to put solar panels on their roofs, but find they cannot because of the grid connections. What steps are being taken to ensure that the solar revolution can come on rooftops, not agricultural land?

[Graham Stuart]

The planning system is designed to seek that balance with the need to secure a clean, green energy system. It is worth noting that ground-mounted solar has probably the lowest levelised cost of any form of energy in this country. The Government have clarified the definition of “best and most versatile” agricultural land as constituting lands in grades 1, 2 and 3a, and we do everything we can to incentivise that solar should go on brownfield land or land of lower agricultural value.

Electricity Transmission (Compensation) Bill

Greg Smith Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move, that the Bill be now read the Third time.

It is one of the in-built oddities of democratic politics that more plaudits tend to be generated by dealing with a problem than by preventing one, yet that is exactly what this Bill sets out to do. We have a problem in North Somerset, and the purpose of this Bill is to prevent it becoming a problem for people in constituencies in other parts of the country.

As we replace our dependence on fossil fuels, for strategic and environmental reasons, with an increased use of renewables and nuclear, there is a need for new infrastructure for electricity transmission. As I have said at every stage of this Bill’s progress, that is something that we all accept as necessary. However, as we do that, we must not allow the rights of individuals to be overridden by the systems for compensation and the current legislation.

Anyone who has not yet seen what is coming to the rest of the country and who wants to get a look at the new T-pylons, which will replace the classic ones that we are all used to seeing, should feel free to take a drive down the M5. They will see what looks like something out of “The War of the Worlds” appearing across the countryside. It is a matter of taste whether people find the new pylons attractive or unattractive, although for the life of me I cannot understand why we have chosen white, which is just about the most stand-out colour with the greatest impact on the visual environment; if we wanted them to blend in better, a coat of green paint would not go amiss. But who knows? In time we may come to accept them visually, just as we came to accept the previous pylons.

This all occurred because we are increasing the voltage in our overhead cables and getting the new infrastructure to link the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station with Avonmouth. Actually, the quickest and shortest route would have been undersea. I still think it was a huge mistake not to go ahead with that approach, but that is going over history; we now have the new pylons.

The problem we face is that the combination of planning law and current compensation methods hugely favours companies such as National Grid and the distribution companies over our constituents. If they want to put in an access road to build the new pylons or ensure the right to maintain them in time, they can do so; if constituents object, their property can be compulsorily purchased. At present, if National Grid tells our constituents that they will get a certain amount of compensation, and they do not like it, they end up having to go through the court system, which can be hugely expensive for individuals. There is not much point in having rights in law if those rights are too expensive to enforce. The whole point of the Bill is to redress that problem and ensure timely, accessible, affordable and binding arbitration that gives our constituents fair access to justice in a way that will not result in a potentially huge financial cost.

As I told the Bill Committee, the genesis of the Bill was that one of my constituents went to National Grid and said, “I’m not willing to accept your treatment. I’m going to see my MP.” They were told, “Fine, go and see him: he won’t be able to do anything about it”—but one of the great things about being an elected Member of Parliament is that we can do something about it. I hope that that individual is listening and watching as we do something to redress the balance in the David and Goliath struggle and help our constituents to deal with it.

Most of the issues raised on Second Reading have successfully been dealt with by amendments tabled in Committee. I am extremely grateful to the Minister: throughout the Bill process, he showed the constructive disposition with which I was familiar from working with him at the Department for International Trade. We made particular progress on ensuring—I would welcome it if he reiterated this point—that disputes that are not settled when the Bill comes into effect will still be covered by it. It is a matter not of seeking retrospection, but of ensuring that where disputes have not been settled, our constituents can use the provisions set out in the Bill.

One issue is perhaps not as completely settled as I would like. The Bill relates to new transmission, but I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that it will also cover distribution. That is a slightly lesser issue for our constituents at present, but if we replace the distribution network as part of the Government’s drive towards net zero and decarbonisation, there could be considerable disruption for our constituents as a consequence. The question that will arise is: at what point does updating and upgrading become new, and therefore within the scope of the Bill?

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case for the protection of all our constituents. On the point he just made, does he agree that such disruption is coming down the line? We are seeing a huge increase in the number of companies wanting to install solar panels, particularly on the roofs of distribution centres and warehouses up and down the country, but finding they cannot do so because there is no substation nearby to take the power in. If we are to have that revolution in solar energy on the rooftops of the United Kingdom, such fundamental change to distribution and substations is going to come.

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. It is true that we will require substantial new infrastructure. However, if we are going to do that successfully, surely we need the assent of the people of the country to do so—and if we are to get that, we must ensure that they are given the appropriate mechanisms to seek redress, should they come into conflict with some of the very large corporations that I have mentioned.

I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could just deal with that issue. I would like him to tell us that, as we develop this upgraded distribution network, it will count as new infrastructure and therefore fall within the remit of the taskforce he is going to set up. I welcome the acceptance of the amendments, which I think fulfil the cross-party spirit of support throughout this process—I do not see it visually represented on the Opposition Back Benches today, but I know Opposition support was there.

I look forward to my right hon. Friend coming forward with the details of the taskforce. There are two things we will specifically want to see. The first is a speedy process for setting up the taskforce and for how it comes to its conclusions, so we can get as early a utilisation of this legislation by our constituents as possible. The second is that the taskforce itself is fully representative, so it is not simply from the producer side of the equation, but at least equally weighted in terms of those whose properties may be affected, including the farmers up and down the country who are likely to be affected more than most.

I am very grateful to the Government for their support for this Bill and look forward to it becoming law, and I look forward even more to my right hon. Friend the Minister having the opportunity to clarify these small points in the way I know he is more than capable of doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), who so skilfully weaved into his speech many of the issues that we both face across our respective constituencies in relation to all the projects he listed. He has said that Aylesbury has the eighth worst congestion in the country; given that to get from one part of my constituency to another, I often have to go through the middle of Aylesbury, I certainly wish him every success in combating that congestion.

The wider point—I think it is very relevant, and it is why I rise to support my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) on what is an excellent Bill—is that we in Buckingham are no strangers to the acquisition of land in order to build something, quite often against the wishes and will of those who own that land. I am particularly referring to High Speed 2, but the principle remains the same: people should be fairly compensated when their land is taken or disrupted. Let us be really clear about this: in my constituency, the vast majority of those who see their land disrupted for projects, certainly for electrical upgrades, are farmers. Their ability to farm their land—to get their combine harvester from one side of a field to another, or to move their tractor in the way they wish—is being disrupted. Those farmers absolutely must have a clear, fair dispute resolution mechanism and fair compensation, not just for the loss of the use of that land but for the wider disruptions that that loss causes them.

Roughly this time last year, I was delighted to speak on, I think, Third Reading of my right hon. Friend’s Bill that did so much good for people with Down’s syndrome in this country. It is a pleasure to again support him on a Bill that will fundamentally deliver a fairer outcome for landowners in my constituency, and across every right hon. and hon. Member’s constituency. The absolute need for affordable, accessible and independent alternative dispute resolution is clear and vital when we consider some of the points my right hon. Friend made about the sheer scale of improvements, upgrades and new installations of electrical power distribution systems in this country.

As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset in an intervention—my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) also made this point—this is an issue that will affect each and every one of our constituencies, not least as we see renewables installed, be it onshore wind or solar on the rooftops of distribution centres, warehouses, factories and commercial premises up and down the country. As it stands, the grid simply cannot cope with the power input coming from many of those solar installations. That is one of the reasons why we are seeing so many applications for huge solar farms on agricultural land up and down the country. That is where, within the existing grid, the substations happen to be that can physically take in the power to distribute to all of our homes and all of the businesses up and down the country. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to pinpoint the need to prevent a problem before it arises.

[Dr Fox]

The term “landowner” is being used very widely in this debate, but would my hon. Friend like to amplify the point that this is not simply about big landowners, but about small farmers and those right down to the level of individual households and homeowners that will be affected? There is a key principle—I might say a conservative principle—in this, which is that those who own property and land have rights, and when they are forced in the name of the public good to have some of the natural rights of property overridden, it is only fair in principle that they get compensation and access to law and justice as a result.

[Greg Smith]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says. In some cases, we may be talking about huge estates or big landowners, but in the vast majority of cases we will be talking about people with very modest parcels of land, smallholdings or small farms, such as small livestock farms that are of not more than 100 or 200 acres and small arable farms of 300, 400 or 500 acres. Those people do not necessarily have the means, and certainly not the capability, amid the stresses and strains of just getting on with their daily lives, to take on very expensive dispute resolution, which often involves big legal and tribunal fees, not to mention the time away from working their land in the way they want to and going about their daily business on it.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely spot-on and correct, as he always is, to say that it is a fundamental conservative principle to ensure that if we, in the name of the public good—sometimes that public good can be questionable, as in the case of HS2—need to take land, it needs to be fairly compensated. That is a non-negotiable position as far as I am concerned.

I am grateful that the Government have already indicated their support for the Bill. I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to be clear with the House when he responds about the timescale in which the Bill will be implemented once it has achieved Royal Assent, as I have no doubt it will, not least the creation of the taskforce. In his speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset made the very strong point that the taskforce must be representative. It cannot just be a one-sided body—it cannot look just to the power companies or to particular vested interests—but must be as broad and representative as it possibly can be to ensure that everybody gets a fair deal.

There is also the point with dispute resolution—no matter what sphere we are looking at, but in this case it is land taken for electrical distribution and transmission—that these disputes can often be long, drawn-out and lengthy. It is incredibly important, as the Bill becomes law and is implemented, that such recourse should be quick and straightforward, but that where cases remain complex and very difficult to judge, there is still a land tribunal option as well. Lastly, on the Secretary of State being asked to draw up proposals for alternative dispute resolution processes in relation to an order made under section 114 of the Planning Act 2008 about orders granting development consent, could those proposals equally relate to compulsory purchase orders under the Acquisition of Land Act 1981, which was amended by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004? There are some large underground cabling routes being developed by the National Grid that do not fall under a development consent order. I would be grateful if the Minister gave an assurance on that.

To conclude, I again congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing forward another hugely important Bill that will affect the lives of many of our constituents up and down the land and, as he says, will prevent a problem before it comes to fruition. He is absolutely right to highlight the power that Back Benchers can have to solve the issues that are raised with us by constituents before they become a huge problem.