Renewable Energy Providers: Planning Considerations

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) on her diligence in obtaining this important debate about the nuts and bolts of how our country gets to a low-carbon renewable energy outcome.

I take it that, with the possible exception of one hon. Member present, there is pretty much a consensus that our country needs as much renewable power as possible, both offshore and onshore, so that we are on target for our climate goals. I also take it that we can organise our energy structures so that they mindful of how our landscape and community work while maximising the output of renewable and low-carbon energy in all circumstances. Clearly, decisions will have to be made about where things are sited, how they are sited and what the most productive use of land is under different circumstances, but those will be made within an overall view that we want to move forward on renewable energy as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Stroud identified the problems in a number of those areas, and I would say there are three: the small print, time, and connections. Those problems stand within the choices that we have to make, and resolving them does not undermine the principle that we must move forward on renewables on the basis of an acceptable use of the landscape, acceptable support from local communities, and an acceptable outcome in terms of the national stock of power and connections. We will have to do a lot of work across the landscape in different ways to ensure that we have not only the renewable plant, but the connections for that renewable plant, the planning arrangements for that renewable plant and all those things that work together strategically to enable us to get the best result for renewable energy across the country.

For example, the hon. Member for Stroud identified a number of things in our planning regulations that quite absurdly stand in the way of perfectly good schemes that everybody wants—the local community and so on. It seems to me that there is an overriding responsibility on Government to get that right. Planning regulations should not impede good schemes that are wanted and agreed just because of the small print. There is therefore a substantial job to be done by Government in actually going through those regulations to ensure that they presume in favour of renewable development wherever possible, with proper concern where there are exceptions, but are not written in such a way as to impede those perfectly good schemes.

By the way, in the most recent alleged amelioration by the Government of the problem of planning for onshore wind, it is claimed that they have pretty much come to terms with the development of onshore wind in their most recently announced changes to planning arrangements. They are no such thing in reality. The small print of those changes still effectively bans onshore wind from moving forward, because of the way that footnote 54, in particular, is to be written in national planning frameworks. Alongside the examples mentioned by the hon. Member for Stroud, that is an example of how the small print can have big effects on stalling, overthrowing or frustrating renewable and low-carbon development. It needs to be removed.

The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) made the point about just how much time is taken on offshore applications. Time is so important in not only getting these arrangements over the line, but ensuring that the investment happens in the first place. Someone faced with a 12-year process of getting their application sorted out, permissioned, thought about and given the go-ahead faces, among other things, a severe gap—a valley of death, as it were—between their application being progressed and the revenue from that application being arrived at. In many instances, those people will simply go away and not develop. Getting the time right, reducing the amount of time that the Secretary of State can take to make decisions and speeding up the process for renewables across the board are of vital importance. That is another thing that the Government can really have a hand in getting right.

The third question is on connections. We have increasing examples of the distortion of decision making on the siting of ground-mounted solar farms, because the developers of solar farms are faced with virtually no connectivity at distribution network operator level as far as their applications are concerned. They are therefore not necessarily looking for the best site for their solar farm in a particular area; they are looking for the small windows of remaining connectivity that might be possible for their solar farm to develop. They are looking for those permissions before, say, 2035. I have a direct case of that from some people I was talking to recently, who have done exactly that in their application for a solar farm. Unless we can quickly get the connectivity sorted out both offshore and onshore, planning schemes will increasingly be distorted. The Government can do a great deal on that. I hope the Minister will be able to comment on that this morning.

The hon. Member for Stroud has given us a good lesson on the detail and how we need to get the details right to bring the schemes forward.

[Siobhan Baillie]

I was hoping to hear from the shadow Minister, who is so diligent and always gets in the weeds of the details, which I say with the greatest respect, because he looks very carefully at issues, about his leader’s position on planning. The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) says that he will override local views to get planning applications through—I appreciate he was talking about homes rather than renewables—but how does that work with local people’s concerns and what he says about issues with councils? There is a lot of confusion out there about Labour’s policy, which we know can change with the wind.

[Dr Whitehead]

I think that what is being referred to is entirely in the context of what I have been saying about the impediments that we have at the moment. It is well known that we have broad support—this has been mentioned in the Chamber today—for particular proposals and a deep, narrow objection among certain people. I am afraid the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) is in that category of people who are just fundamentally opposed to these things, and he has various techniques that he puts forward to underpin that.

[Priti Patel]

Perhaps I could phrase the question in another way for the hon. Gentleman. His party is the largest party in local government and is in control of the London Government Association right now, where the focus is on net zero. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there is a disregard in the policies of his party for local communities and that it comes at net zero at all costs? That is effectively the stance that he advocates.

[Dr Whitehead]

No, I am not saying that at all. Indeed, if right hon. and hon. Members have been following what I have said, they will recognise that what I have said from the beginning is that the role of local communities in assenting to arrangements is vital and should not be eroded, but there is a difference between communities dissenting from various things and one or two people completely holding up something because of their particular positions.

We therefore need to achieve a balance in which the planning system recognises what most of the public want, while ensuring proper rights of consultation and objection, and taking broad support through to the end of the planning system. One reason why onshore wind was banned for a long time in this country was that one person could object to a local scheme under the rules that were in place from 2015 onwards, and that would effectively turn the whole thing over. That is just wrong. It should not be tolerated in a planning system that should, in principle, be in favour of renewables and low-carbon energy. That is the balance that needs to be struck with these developments, and the Opposition are committed to achieving that.

I hope the Minister will take from today’s debate that there is a lot of work for Government to do on getting the planning arrangements right for the development of renewable energy and on getting the development right, in terms of the proper arrangements that should exist for local consultation, reputation and possibly compensation. For example—

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Dr Whitehead]

I am happy to bring my remarks to a close, Ms McDonagh, which I anticipate is what you are going to suggest.

[Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Thank you.

[Dr Whitehead]

I just want to briefly mention the great work that the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) is doing on the Celtic sea. I think she will agree that we must get the offshore planning right for those developments so that landing can be assessed in terms of a planned arrangement at the start of that process, as it should increasingly be for the North sea, and so that the issues that she raised do not fall outside planning arrangements. That is another thing that the Government can get right; I hope the Minister was listening to the hon. Member for North Devon about how, among other things, they should go forward with the Celtic sea.