Duncan Hames
Main Page: Duncan Hames (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)
Mr Speaker
The Minister got the U right, but the U is not for unstarred; it is for urgent.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I welcome local authorities being allowed to make their own decisions on the merits of wind turbine applications. Does the Minister agree that setting excessive minimum separation distances, as proposed in a private Member’s Bill in the House of Lords last year, or more recently by Wiltshire council, only serves to deny local communities the chance to have their say?
Michael Fallon
I am not persuaded that minimum distances are the answer, because it is important to take into account the factors that apply to every specific application and these things should be judged locally and individually on a case-by-case basis. However, in the clearer planning guidance that is being issued today it is the visual impact as much as the siting of the turbines that will now be taken more fully into account.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I welcome the Minister’s support for biomass boilers, but the renewable heat incentive was announced in October 2010. Why is it not possible to open up the domestic scheme for payment before spring 2014?
Gregory Barker
It has been much more challenging than we anticipated, not least because when we entered government we found that the previous Government had done absolutely no work on this whatsoever. This is the first renewable heat scheme of its type in the world, and heat is much more difficult to quantify and value than exporting electricity, but it is good news. We prioritised industrial heat and are now moving on to domestic heat, and I am looking forward to the scheme’s launch this spring.