Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Tankerness and Viscount Ridley

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

I apologise for interrupting and am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for allowing me to do so. Given that he is not moved by the arguments made by the Front Bench on our side, perhaps I could try an argument on him that might appeal particularly to a Scottish Liberal Democrat. News came in recently, in the last month or so, of a study that has found that the density of breeding golden plover goes down by 80% when a wind farm is built on a particular piece of moorland.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Viscount is rehearsing Second Reading arguments. We are dealing with some very small—but very important to the developers—changes to try to ensure justice. As I indicated, the Government will get their policy and will be able to close down the onshore wind industry subsidies, as they wish to do. What we are trying to do is to ensure that this very small and limited number of cases where substantial amounts of money have already been laid out by developers in trying to take the development to planning consent—and where in some cases the council had indicated that it was minded to consent after much local discussion and engagement—should be allowed to proceed.

To us it is a question of simple justice. I read somewhere the other day that the Scottish author William McIlvanney had said that Scotland’s motto was not,

“Wha daur meddle wi’ me?”,

but was really, “It’s no’ fair”. In this case, it isnae fair. The Minister himself said, when dealing with the end of the renewables obligation for solar of 5 megawatts and below, that,

“we have aimed to strike the right balance between protecting bill payers and protecting developers who have made significant investments, while being conscious of the need to decarbonise our energy infrastructure. That is why the order makes provision for a number of grace periods, which mirror those offered last year as part of the large-scale closure. Stakeholders have welcomed this consistency”.

Well, they do not welcome the inconsistency in dealing with onshore wind. He went on to say:

“One of the grace periods was designed to protect developers who could show that a significant financial commitment had been made on or before the date on which the proposals were announced. This required evidence that a planning application had been made, among other things, as a proxy for the financial commitment”.—[Official Report, 16/3/16; col. 1915.]

It seems to me that that is entirely in line with what we are proposing in these amendments. It is a question of simple justice, and even at this late stage I ask the Minister to think hard and seriously about these matters and to respond favourably. I beg to move.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Tankerness and Viscount Ridley

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lord Hamilton’s amendment. The key point was that in discussing the amendment on 16 and 17 year-olds, it was clearly said to us that it did not allow sufficient time to ensure that we get the electoral register right. We also heard that the Electoral Commission thought that there was an issue with individual registration being different from household registration. We may well see a specific issue in Scotland, in that people who got on the register for the Scottish referendum may now find that it is not so easy to get on the register for this one, given the amendment we have just passed, because they have not gone through the individual registration process. There has to be clarity and time to get the electoral register right.

I come back to the point I made in Committee and which has been made here. The crucial thing is to make sure that this is as fair and final a referendum as we can manage, so as to settle the issue once and for all. It would be a great mistake—

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

Does the noble Viscount accept that the Scottish Parliament has now brought forward legislation to enfranchise 16 and 17 year-olds for the Scottish parliamentary and local government elections, the former taking place next May? I appreciate his concern about 16 and 17 year-old Scots, but the issue does not really arise because they will already be on the register by virtue of legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament.

[Viscount Ridley]

That is good news but there are a lot of other people in this country as well as Scots, and we have to ensure that they are properly registered. The next canvass begins, as we have heard, in July 2016. I do not quite understand how that interacts with this business of registering people for the referendum, but I beg my noble friend the Minister to take my noble friend Lord Hamilton’s amendment seriously.

Energy Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Wallace of Tankerness and Viscount Ridley

Monday 14th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the amendments tabled. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for indicating that he would be willing to recommit these relevant clauses of the Bill when we have an opportunity to consider the grace period provision that the Government intend to bring forward. That shows a constructive response to the concerns that have been raised.

This is not really an interest to declare but, when I was Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning in the Scottish Executive, as we then called it, I had some responsibility for the renewables obligation. The Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition in Scotland did much to take forward the case for the development of renewable resources in Scotland. To give the figures for Scottish renewables, around three-quarters of United Kingdom’s onshore wind developments are in Scotland. Therefore, that is where the impact of this measure will be most heavily felt. My noble friend Lord Teverson just handed me the Conservative manifesto and there is nothing in the wording on local decision-making to indicate that the period would be brought forward from April 2017 to April 2016, so I do not consider that this provision of Clause 60 is a manifesto commitment.

Given that the Scottish onshore sector directly employs more than 5,400 people and contributes £9 million to local people in community benefit each year, and that some 70% of people in Scotland support further development in wind and the benefits that it brings, it would be helpful if the Government recognised that there is a particular Scottish dimension to this. Obviously, planning matters are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Clause 59, which we have just debated, does not apply to Scotland so, to that extent, a distinction has already been made. In terms of this proposal, it would be in the spirit of devolution and constructive working with the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government if Scottish Ministers were able to determine that the current situation—as we understood it—will continue to 2017. That would allow the position to be tailor-made for the part of the United Kingdom where there is the greatest concentration of onshore wind power.

My understanding is that the particular provision was devolved to Scottish Ministers by executive order under the Scotland Act 1998 and thus it was executive devolution. That is why, when it came to the 2013 legislation, it was possible legislatively for the renewables obligation to be withdrawn. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, the understanding was reached on a timetable which has suddenly now been changed. I know that the industry in Scotland is extremely concerned about it and I would therefore encourage the Minister to look at what is being proposed to see if there can be a particularly Scottish carve-out for this. If he does not feel he can go that far—I hope he would be able to—when we come to debate what might be done in terms of grace periods, perhaps provision could be made to enable Scottish Ministers to devise their own grace period provisions, given that there are some very particular issues with regard to the development of onshore wind in Scotland.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, before coming to the substance of the amendment, perhaps I may express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his surprise that I am in my place and remind him that one should never believe everything one reads in the newspapers. I am only too glad to do my best to provide some grit for his oyster.

Before I go on, I should declare my energy interests as listed in the register, mostly in coal, although the wind industry has not in fact been a particular threat to coal. It has been more of a threat to the gas industry, which in some ways would have been a threat to coal. I urge my noble friend the Minister to stick to the Conservative manifesto commitment on this and not to visit upon Scotland a ruination of its landscape that would not be acceptable in England. I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, and the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that, yes, there is a difference between the policy of the coalition Government at the start of the year and the manifesto commitment of the Conservative Party, but that is because we had a change of government at the election.

The Government should not be taken in by the wind industry’s assertion that most people do not object to onshore wind. The commonly quoted research on this is often out of date and simplistic. For example, a MORI survey which is used to show that people do not mind or are supportive of wind farms was conducted in 2003, when a 15-turbine wind farm was considered large. Nowadays in Scotland they often comprise more than 30 and sometimes as many as 70 turbines. The land area of Scotland from which turbines are visible has dramatically increased over a short period. According to data from Scottish Natural Heritage, 20% of Scotland was theoretically visually impacted by turbines in 2008, whereas by 2013 it was almost 46%.