Wind Turbines (Minimum Distance from Residential Premises) Bill [HL]

Baroness O'Cathain Excerpts

Friday 10th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Cathain]

I shall speak in the gap in this immensely fascinating debate. I was stimulated to make a very short contribution by a statement made by my noble friend Lord Greaves. He said that wind farms were not the answer. Then I began to mull over the question. Do we really know what the question is? Surely the time has now come for us to reconsider whether we need to increase relentlessly and in an unthinking way the despoliation of our countryside, establishing wind farms and wind turbines in order to produce inefficient energy on a cost-benefit analysis, when we should be asking and undertaking a total reassessment of the impact of so-called climate change. I suggest that the documents which have just been adduced by our noble colleague Lord Turnbull be read by everybody. Only on that basis will we be able to see that these things are changing inexorably—the balance between the costs of fossil fuels and the amount of electricity that is required. We are going back to old statistics without taking the new assessment into account.

[Lord Greaves]

As the noble Baroness has called me in evidence, I ought to make it absolutely clear that I do not agree with a word she is now saying.