Baroness Worthington
Main Page: Baroness Worthington (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Worthington
My Lords, I awoke this morning to find out from Twitter that the Secretary of State, Ed Davey, has just made another one of his grand bargains, this time with DCLG on onshore wind. I have to say that my heart sank. Yet again, it is a terrible bargain. In return for changes to planning laws that will undoubtedly make it more difficult to build wind farms, he has won an increase in the amount of money that communities can receive. Can the Minister explain what the benefit of that money will be if this pandering to a vocal minority ensures that planning laws are changed so that none of them gets built? Will these new rules also apply to planning applications for shale gas fracking?