New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill

Wendy Morton Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I move the Bill with sunshine in my heart. I am an environmentalist, I have fought for years to improve the housing market in my town of Cheltenham, and I strongly believe that we all deserve a fairer deal on the cost of living. I was elected in July after campaigning on those three issues, and I move Second Reading of the Bill with those issues in mind. I thank hon. Members who have taken the time to attend today’s debate, and I urge them to retain a sunny disposition for the next few hours. I am happy to take interventions from Members from across the House, but I hope hon. Members will not use them to throw too much shade. I promise a warm response regardless, and I hope the Minister will provide the same.

Today, we can all make a commitment to a brighter future by backing the sunshine Bill. It will be a future in which people have lower household bills; we are less reliant on dirty and expensive fossil fuels, often imported from abroad; and the country’s energy supplies are more secure. This future is a vision supported by voters across political divides, as well as by industry.

Before I get to the core of my speech, I ask hon. Members to think back a few short years, to the start of the energy bills crisis. Householders endured a 54% rise in the energy price cap in April 2022, and bills remain 43% higher than they were before the crisis. That caused widespread fuel poverty. We witnessed another shocking increase in food bank use, businesses went bust, jobs were lost and family holiday plans were cancelled. The crisis also laid bare how short-sighted past ideological decisions were to slow down the roll-out of renewable technologies.

Imagine an alternative. Imagine that more homes included solar power generation during that crisis, and in the ongoing crisis. Bills could and should have been hundreds of pounds lower for everyone; householders would have been insulated against higher bills; and our nation would have been safer and stronger. Food banks would have been less busy, and the Government would not have been forced to give such large subsidies to ensure that people could get by.

At the heart of the discussion is a pressing need to tackle twin crises: the cost of living and climate change. As hon. Members will know, the climate change discussion often leads us to debate difficult trade-offs—the Government are grappling with those and they have my good wishes in doing so—but solar energy generation on new build homes is very much not in that category. The Bill helps us to tackle the cost of living and climate change—a clear win-win.

MCS Foundation research has shown that the payback period for a solar array on a three-bedroom semi-detached house is just four years, when that array is combined with other technologies that will be widely available in the next few years. Over a 25-year mortgage, the savings stand at a whopping £38,000. Solar technology also offers homeowners the chance to profit directly. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that a typical household could make between £270 and £400 a year.

On the environmental side, research by Solar Energy UK shows that buildings accounted for 20% of all UK emissions in 2023. The Government have placed building new homes at the heart of their agenda, which I support.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I genuinely welcome today’s Second Reading of the Bill. Having brought two private Members’ Bills through Parliament from the Back Benches, I wish the hon. Gentleman every success; it can be a long journey. Will he say more about the impact of solar panels on the environment and the green belt? In the shift towards using more solar panels, I fear many of the panels will be installed on prime agricultural land. I am disappointed that in Walsall, the planning inspector has just given permission for a battery storage facility on the edge of my constituency, right by a conservation area. I feel strongly that we need to look at alternative places for solar panels in order to protect communities and our green belt.

[Max Wilkinson]

The right hon. Lady is entirely right. She and Members across the House will have noted that the Campaign to Protect Rural England has taken a strong interest in this issue and in the Bill, for precisely the reasons she describes, with which I have a lot of sympathy. Efficient use of land and space in this country is extremely important.

If we are to achieve the new home building targets that the Government have set out, we must ensure that new build homes are equipped for the challenges of the future, which include climate change and looking after our environment. If we do not change the standards for new housing stock, we not only miss an economic opportunity but put the environment at risk. The Government’s own advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, has advised that the UK will not meet its emissions targets without the “near complete decarbonisation” of housing stock. That is why it is so important that the new Government, specifically the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, have moved the conversation along, not least as shown by the answer to a question that I asked the right hon. Gentleman before Christmas, in which he said he was “very sympathetic” to the case for mandatory solar panels on new build homes. He is right.

The case for updating the regulations is irrefutable. The regulations that govern building work are set out in the Building Act 1984, which is the year I was born, and the Building Regulations 2010, which is so long ago that Members will be disturbed to learn that I still had a large Brylcreem bill in those days. The previous Government consulted on the future homes standard, but we were not able to respond before the general election. It is heartening that the current Government have promised a response and to pick up that work. There will of course be strong pushback from some developers, who will default to thinking about profit only. I understand that profit motive, but I urge developers to think about the planet and what their customers are demanding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Max Wilkinson]

The Bill focuses on solar photovoltaics. Solar thermal panels are a different type of technology and are not covered by the Bill.

I would also like to thank CPRE. The right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) spoke earlier about the preservation of land and fields in green areas, and the CPRE is specifically interested from that perspective.

[Wendy Morton]

This is becoming increasingly worrying, because we are now starting to see policy on grey belt. I fear that if we do not thoroughly grasp the issue of where solar panels, battery storage and all the other renewables infrastructure should go, we risk green belt being all of a sudden redefined as grey belt, in a few years’ time, and being built on.

[Max Wilkinson]

The right hon. Lady speaks powerfully for her constituency, which I know has a specific issue.

We mentioned housing developers, and one housing developer has put its head above the parapet to support the Bill. I am grateful for the support of Thakeham, and it is to be applauded for supporting the measure. Developers should support the Bill for sound business reasons. There is a clear market preference for homes with solar panels, and a relatively small proportion of the price will be rewarded with a decent payback, and customers want them.

Politically, there is demonstrable cross-party support. In the last Parliament, 79% of Members were found to be supportive, and I suspect the percentage is higher in this new Parliament. The climate barometer tracks support for mandatory solar panels on new builds and found a clear majority of support among all parties’ voters, so doing this would place us at the centre of political gravity. Some 80% of Conservative voters, 89% of Labour voters, 92% of Liberal Democrat voters and 63% of Reform supporters responded to the survey in favour of mandatory solar panels for new build homes. Those same constituents rightly look to us to make the right and logical decisions on these matters. They back the measure because all the evidence points to clear benefits at every level, including the Government’s positive agenda on energy and climate.

MCS Foundation research has found that mandatory solar panels on 1.5 million homes would be the equivalent of two additional Sizewell C nuclear power stations, which should give us all pause for thought. For a country that struggles to build infrastructure, we must not look past these easier, small-scale wins.

Building Homes

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Viability is stalling development in lots of areas in the country. We need to look at what support can be put in place for particular schemes—our new homes accelerator, for example, is providing planning capacity support and other forms of support—and at why some schemes, particularly consented or near-consented large schemes, are being held up. As I have said before in the House, we are giving further thought to how we examine these issues, and to what more we can do to ensure that consented schemes are built out in good time.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

This centrally driven intervention drives a coach and horses through green belt areas such as Aldridge-Brownhills and through local democracy. How will the Minister ensure that local communities are respected and have a voice, so that we build the right homes in the right places?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I return to a point that I have made several times during this statement. The onus is on local communities and elected leaders to put in place up-to-date local plans that shape where development is to take place. I know from previous conversations with the right hon. Lady that she wants brownfield-first developments—so do we. We have put in the framework published today a number of targeted changes to support the delivery of brownfield sites. We have also consulted, through a working paper soft consultation, on proposals for a brownfield passport to further accelerate and fast-track brownfield development. Local areas can look to bring forward and densify brownfield sites. However, in response to the point that there are not enough such sites, or that communities cannot work across boundaries with neighbouring authorities, we are saying, “Please look at the release of low-quality land within the green belt.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mel Stride. Sorry; he is not here.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Our high streets are undoubtedly changing. Conservative-led Walsall Council is working hard to secure positive change in areas such as Brownhills and the regeneration of Ravenscourt, and we have a new civic square. What additional resources will the Minister make available to councils? The regeneration of our high streets, both residential and commercial, is an excellent way of helping to protect green-belt land by also regenerating important town centres.

[Alex Norris]

The right hon. Lady is exactly right. The future of the high street is not about returning to how things were. There must be a place for leisure, a place, of course, for retail and a place for residential properties, and councils of all political persuasions throughout the country are trying to find that perfect alchemy. We have inherited an extremely difficult funding situation, but we are working our way through it, and future funding decisions will be made in the Budget on 30 October.

Building Homes

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

Parts of this consultation look at how we can strengthen section 106, and we want to do that in conjunction with local authorities. As I mentioned in my statement, we are also bringing forward, at a later date through this Parliament, measures on strategic planning and the planning and infrastructure Bill. This is the start of the process, but we know there is a lot more to do. I look forward to my hon. Friend’s engagement with that.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I am no nimby, but what we are seeing today is a lurch back to top-down mandatory targets that will ride roughshod through local communities such as those that I represent across Aldridge-Brownhills, and through local decision making. I do agree with the Deputy Prime Minister, though, when she says that the first port of call must be brownfield land, so will she confirm that she will give full financing to brownfield land remediation and reclamation?

[Angela Rayner]

We think we can use brownfield funding better, but this is not about riding roughshod over local decisions and what local people want; having mandatory housing targets and plans means that people will be able to decide. What we are saying, and what we said at the general election, is that we will build 1.5 million homes; we said that clearly, and we have a mandate to do it. We think that the new method for calculating housing targets works better; we think it will deliver for people, and that includes the affordability test. Therefore, we will deliver the houses that the right hon. Lady’s constituency needs, and I would encourage her to engage in the process with her local authority.