Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment his Department has made of the i) effectiveness and ii) adequacy of the consistency of voluntary community benefits guidance for onshore wind developments.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
England and Scotland have established voluntary community benefits guidance for onshore wind, setting out best practice approaches with expectations that developers provide £5,000 per megawatt of capacity yearly over the project’s lifetime.
The quality and value of community benefits have increased over time in Scotland, with large scale projects commonly offering this figure or more. There is limited evidence in England given the de facto ban, however this will be monitored as deployment increases.
Government has sought views on the potential introduction of mandatory community benefits for low carbon energy infrastructure through our working paper, published May 2025.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impacts of making community benefit payments for onshore wind developments in England a statutory requirement.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The ‘Community benefits and shared ownership for low carbon energy infrastructure: working paper’ (published in May 2025) sought views on the level of contributions, calculation methods and the scope of technologies to help assess these impacts to ensure that any scheme delivers benefits that outweigh potential costs. We will publish a Government response shortly. Additionally, we note that community benefits provision is already well-established in the onshore wind sector on a voluntary basis, meaning many developers factor this into their existing project practices.
Any decision on mandating community benefits will be informed by stakeholder feedback and follow an impact assessment.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the Green Book cost benefit analysis accounts for (a) economic and (b) connectivity issues when assessing transport infrastructure proposals in rural areas like Cornwall.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department’s Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) provides methods and advice for assessing the impacts of schemes on economic activity and connectivity. This is mainly from direct benefits to travel users from reductions in travel time, and service improvements such as increasing frequency and quality. TAG can also assess impacts for wider economic, social and environmental impacts. For example, better connectivity can lead to productivity gains to businesses taking advantage of access to new markets and opportunities, or better access to jobs for people. These methods are equally applicable to urban and non-urban areas.
Asked by: Ben Maguire (Liberal Democrat - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the Green Book appraisal framework for reflecting the value of transport infrastructure funding in rural areas like Cornwall.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport’s Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) is a robust framework for assessing the cost and benefits of different transport schemes, across different parts of the UK. TAG builds on the foundations set by HM Treasury’s Green Book with specific guidance for transport schemes, but it does not deviate from the key principles set by the Green Book. The Department plans to update TAG in response to HM Treasury’s Green Book Review published last July, including supporting the development of place-based business cases.
The Department is developing an Appraisal, Modelling and Evaluation Strategy to identify updates to TAG to prioritise improvements to appraisal over the next five years, so investment decisions prioritise people and places are underpinned by high quality and accessible analysis. We listened to feedback from our extensive stakeholder engagement programme as part of this, and an emerging action is to consider developing the appraisal guidance for non-urban areas – including rural areas like Cornwall.