Onshore Wind Turbines

Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Chris Heaton-Harris

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I absolutely concur with my right hon. Friend.

Do the Government believe that the renewables obligation banding for onshore wind is sustainable, necessary or good value for money? Have they considered the effects of the renewables obligation banding in inhibiting renewable diversification? Will the Minister agree at least to conduct a review of the banding for onshore wind?

Noise is a problem that many of our constituents fear when it comes to onshore wind. Different studies show that about 20% of all wind farms constructed in the UK trigger quite serious noise complaints. Since 2009, the wind industry has adopted a new noise modelling scheme that predicts acceptable noise levels much closer to dwellings, leading to planning applications coming forward with big turbines very close to dwellings. There are fewer proposals in remote locations and, as we have just heard, modern turbines are getting bigger.

The Minister knows that his Department commissioned a report. I apologise: it was not his Department, but the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The report was on amplitude modulation and in effect concluded that it was not cost-effective to research wind farm noise problems because only a few people suffer from them. That is patently not the case. However, as the Minister knows, his Department was caught out by a freedom of information request that revealed that in 2006 it had instructed the Hayes McKenzie Partnership to remove from a report a recommendation that acceptable night-time noise levels should be reduced.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to make an intervention on a subject that has not been mentioned but is relevant to my constituency. In my constituency, there are proposals from Peel Energy to build a large-scale wind farm on the marshes between the Mersey estuary and the villages of Frodsham and Helsby. Those proposals would not just result in the ruin of a beautiful area of Cheshire countryside, but lead to the destruction of wetlands that provide a habitat for numerous species of rare birds. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reassure me that the Secretary of State takes such factors into account when determining these types of application. Some of the structures end up being very close to areas of outstanding natural beauty.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am sure that Ministers will have heard my hon. Friend’s very sensible plea for areas of scientific interest to be looked after.

I was talking about noise. Some of us just do not believe that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is promoting wind farms, and not inhibiting them, by trying to force new noise criteria on the whole country. It is slightly worrying that the Hayes McKenzie Partnership has been commissioned by DECC to carry out the new noise review that the Minister recently announced. The science around noise seems to be a very moveable feast.

It is my contention that onshore wind diverts valuable resources from other renewables that do work and that people like. In my constituency alone, if we diverted the money that might well be spent on wind power towards other things, such as air source or ground source heat pumps and home insulation, we might well be able to insulate just about every house in the constituency and get people to buy in to this.