Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, pursuant to the responsibilities of the Mining Remediation Authority, (a) how many claims relating to abandoned metal mines have been received by the Authority in each year since 2020, broken down by county, (b) how many such claims related to former tin mining areas in Cornwall and Devon, and (c) how those figures compare with the number of claims relating to former coal mining areas over the same period.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Mining Remediation Authority exists primarily to manage the legacy of Great Britain's coal mining past, and its statutory responsibilities remain focused on former coal mining activities, and as such the MRA does not hold data on metal mines.
The MRA’ provides technical advice, when requested, on hazards associated with historic metal mining, as part of its role as a 24/7 emergency response organisation and a Category 2 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
Between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2026, the Mining Remediation Authority responded to 4,802 incidents and claims across Great Britain. Of these, 1,785 cases were determined to be attributable to former coal mining activities.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that reforms to planning permission are matched by improvements to the processes for acquiring land and rights over land, so that grid connection projects are not delayed by unresolved land rights issues.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
DESNZ has worked closely with stakeholders to understand the extent to which current land access, rights and consents processes delay and add costs to rollout of electricity network infrastructure required for delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating the UK’s transition to Net zero.
This has included looking at where there might be opportunities to learn from approaches to other utilities.
Government’s assessment was set out in a consultation in Summer 2025 on proposed reforms to these processes. We expect to publish the response in the coming quarter.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what consideration has been given to aligning the statutory powers available to electricity network operators for land access with those available to water and telecoms utilities, to ensure timely and cost-effective delivery of network upgrades.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
DESNZ has worked closely with stakeholders to understand the extent to which current land access, rights and consents processes delay and add costs to rollout of electricity network infrastructure required for delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating the UK’s transition to Net zero.
This has included looking at where there might be opportunities to learn from approaches to other utilities.
Government’s assessment was set out in a consultation in Summer 2025 on proposed reforms to these processes. We expect to publish the response in the coming quarter.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what estimate he has made of the additional costs and delays to customers resulting from the current statutory processes for acquiring land and rights for electricity network upgrades.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
DESNZ has worked closely with stakeholders to understand the extent to which current land access, rights and consents processes delay and add costs to rollout of electricity network infrastructure required for delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating the UK’s transition to Net zero.
This has included looking at where there might be opportunities to learn from approaches to other utilities.
Government’s assessment was set out in a consultation in Summer 2025 on proposed reforms to these processes. We expect to publish the response in the coming quarter.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment has been made of the potential impact of current land rights processes on the UK's ability to meet its Clean power 2030 targets.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
DESNZ has worked closely with stakeholders to understand the extent to which current land access, rights and consents processes delay and add costs to rollout of electricity network infrastructure required for delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating the UK’s transition to Net zero.
This has included looking at where there might be opportunities to learn from approaches to other utilities.
Government’s assessment was set out in a consultation in Summer 2025 on proposed reforms to these processes. We expect to publish the response in the coming quarter.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if his Department will commit to developing new statutory mechanisms which provide electricity network operators with outcome-certain, timely, and cost-effective land access, while maintaining strong relationships with landowners.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
DESNZ has worked closely with stakeholders to understand the extent to which current land access, rights and consents processes delay and add costs to rollout of electricity network infrastructure required for delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating the UK’s transition to Net zero.
This has included looking at where there might be opportunities to learn from approaches to other utilities.
Government’s assessment was set out in a consultation in Summer 2025 on proposed reforms to these processes. We expect to publish the response in the coming quarter.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if his Department will engage with industry and landowner representatives to develop innovative, respectful statutory land access powers to support the delivery of Clean Power 2030.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The government regularly engages with industry and landowner representatives to explore opportunities for streamlining the land access, rights and consents processes. This work recently culminated in the publication of a consultation in summer 2025, which provided a formal opportunity for stakeholders to respond to a set of proposed reforms to these processes.
Prior to the consultation, the government established a Working Group to generate and appraise ideas to improve land access, rights and consenting processes, many of which were included in the consultation.
The Working Group met six times between April 2024 and May 2025.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps are in place to allow land rights negotiations and Section 37 applications to proceed in parallel.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Consent is required under section 37 of the Electricity Act 1989 to install or keep installed certain overhead electric lines. Land rights negotiations and section 37 applications can proceed in parallel. The Secretary of State would normally expect land rights to be in place before granting a section 37 consent, although as set out in the Guidance, in some circumstances he may consent ahead of this on condition that the work must not proceed until the relevant agreements with landowners and/or occupiers are in place.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to introduce statutory turnaround times for consents teams handling compulsory purchase and necessary wayleave applications, to reduce end-to-end project timelines.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The government is assessing how it can streamline land access, rights and consent processes to speed up electricity network deployment and published a consultation which ran from 8 July to 2 September 2025. The consultation proposed a raft of changes to these processes. We expect to publish our response in the coming quarter, setting out the direction of travel in this area.
Asked by: Andrew George (Liberal Democrat - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what funding his Department (a) has provided and (b) intends to provide, including through energy company obligations, to help reduce domestic energy bills between the 2020-21 and 2030-31 financial years, broken down by (i) cash handouts, (ii) installation of (A) new gas boilers, (B) heat pumps, (C) other heating systems, (D) solar panels, (E) domestic and heat batteries (including heat batteries), (iii) replacement (1) windows, (2) doors and (3) insulation and (iv) other support.
Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
As the first step towards the Warm Homes Plan, the Government has committed an initial £3.4 billion over the next 3 years towards heat decarbonisation and household energy efficiency, with £1 billion of this allocated to 2025/2026. The current iteration of the scheme, ECO4, runs from 2022 - 2026 with an increased value of £4 billion to accelerate our efforts to improve homes to meet fuel poverty targets.
Government does not specify which types of measures should be installed in any particular property, only that the installations should be carried out by TrustMark registered installers in accordance with the relevant standards and consumer protection requirements.
Deployment of measures under Government schemes are published monthly on Gov.uk: www.gov.uk/government/collections/green-home-grant-statistics, www.gov.uk/government/collections/household-energy-efficiency-national-statistics.