Solar Farms

George Freeman Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

I rise not just as the Member for Mid Norfolk, but as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture. As Members will be aware, Norfolk is Britain’s first county and our leading agricultural county—the Royal Norfolk show is the premier show in the country. Norfolk is absolutely at the vanguard of this country’s agricultural industry, and of the Government’s stated—although increasingly cynically stated—commitment to increasing food security.

The globe has to double food production in the next 25 years on the same land area, with half as much water and energy, and Norfolk is in the vanguard when it comes to the technologies with which to do that; there are the drought-resistant crops, and the gene-edited, disease-resistant crops, at the Norwich Research Park. In my constituency of Mid Norfolk, the home of Banham Poultry and Cranswick Country Foods, farming and agriculture is the No. 1 industry, employing thousands in agricultural machinery supplies, haulage and food processing. I cheered when I heard that the Government were going to support the agricultural industry and food production, and I cheered their commitment to supporting UK science, including the agricultural science that is key to meeting that challenge, but since the election, we have seen the most extraordinary attack on farms, the rural economy and small businesses taking on jobs. There is also a proposal for a 7,500 acre—that is 10,000 square miles, or 20,000 km—solar farm, reaching from Castle Acre, through Swaffham, to Dereham. This is in a constituency where agriculture, food and tourism are the No. 1 industries.

Government Members need to reflect on this. I want renewable energy, and I want cheap energy. My constituents would like to be consulted. The residents of 14 villages will wake up living in the middle of a power station, with no serious planning consultation at all, no community benefit, and the rates being taken back to London by Ministers. This is an utterly cynical move towards the industrialisation of the countryside, which will rebound seriously on the Labour party and, more importantly, on this country’s food and energy systems. It is wrong.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

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[Joy Morrissey]

As the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs represents a constituency in Croydon, it is perhaps understandable that he may misinterpret the needs of rural communities. We need to continue to highlight the plight of rural communities and how such issues affect them, and we must allow for proper debate in the House about these important topics.

I hold the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), in high regard, and I hope that his response will recognise and encompass the concerns and issues that have been raised today. I know that his brief covers several Departments and that that brings challenges, but the Government need to address three key areas of concern: the loss of high-quality agricultural land, the clustering of development applications linked to solar farms and the importance of community consent.

On the loss of high-quality agricultural land, my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham eloquently set out why that matters to her constituents. It also matters to constituents in Mid Norfolk, where a 7,000 acre development is proposed.

[George Freeman]

Does the shadow Minister agree that as well as all the points that have been made about agriculture and solar, there is a democratic point here? Residents in 14 villages in my patch, and in many others, will find that they are living in the middle of a power station. Let us name it for what it is: a power station. They think that each village will have a bit of solar, but they will be living in an industrial power station. That should not be allowed to happen without a proper planning consultation and proper compensation.

[Joy Morrissey]

I could not agree more with what my hon. Friend said. There is a lack of compensation for rural communities and no offer of lower energy bills or a discount on offsetting the cost of energy. These local communities will sacrifice their green spaces, livelihoods and way of life for energy that will not give them a direct benefit.

In Lincolnshire, this issue has a huge impact. We see solar applications in constituencies, particularly in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, where they cover 7% of the overall available land. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) in Lincolnshire faces 5% of land in his constituency being consumed by solar. That is shocking. Across the country, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) faces 9% of land in his constituency being consumed by solar farms. Lincolnshire’s agricultural land is vital to our food security, but it is under threat. Developers see this land as the fastest and easiest pathway to solar farm development, enabled by a Government who seem to place no importance on our food security.

The Countryside Alliance recently highlighted that tenant farmers face threats; I appreciate that that was raised by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), and I appreciate his boldness in doing that. Those tenant farmers are being evicted to make way for solar farms. Tenant farmers are not landowners: they work the land, and they are being evicted so that solar farms can be put in place.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) and the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, pointed out, we are losing farmland and farmers and our food security in the reckless ideological pursuit of net zero. That is why His Majesty’s Opposition have tabled new clause 47 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which would limit where solar farms can be built on agricultural land. What assessment have the Government made of the impact of solar farm applications on the loss of agricultural land and tenant farmers in areas such as Lincolnshire and on our national food security? Will the Minister look at ways to incentivise the development of solar capacity away from agricultural land?

As developers seek easy access to agricultural land, this leads to a clustering effect, which many Conservative Members mentioned. We heard mention of a 3,000-acre development in East Yorkshire, which, coupled with another 3,000-acre development, means that 6,000 acres of land in East Yorkshire are being consumed by solar farms. The need for these applications to cluster around substations for cost-effective grid connection is creating an overwhelming impact in areas such as Lincolnshire, Suffolk, Buckinghamshire, East Yorkshire, Norfolk and across our rural communities in England and the south of Scotland.

I particularly want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend—

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[Michael Shanks]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point, but it was not me saying that this is not a competition—it was her own shadow Energy Secretary just a few months ago. I do not accept her point, either; I will come to that very briefly, but in a bit more detail, in a second.

Let us not forget that this is also about tackling the climate crisis. The Conservatives might be willing to ignore that crisis, but the truth is that time and again they forget that climate change will have a devastating impact on agriculture and on land across this country. We have to do something about that, and this is part of it. Solar will be part of our energy security in the future, although it will not make up the entirety of our clean power system.

[George Freeman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I will make a bit of progress, because I am conscious that another debate is to start soon.

Rooftop solar, as many Members have raised, is important. It is not an either/or. We see a real opportunity to put solar on every possible rooftop right across the country. We have announced our ambitions for new homes and for industrial buildings. We recently launched a consultation or a call for evidence on car parks, too. If there is a rooftop that we can put solar panels on, we are keen to do so, but there will also be a role for ground-mounted solar to play.

Finally on this point, the public also support solar. Many Opposition Members have said that they have done their own surveys—where, funnily enough, they get the result they hope to get. In the most recent poll, 88% of people said that they support solar, and that figure has never dipped below 80%. There is a question about balance, as I have said in this House on a number of occasions and will say again. We want to build a clean power system that brings communities with us. That requires a balance of different technologies in different parts of the country, but it is not credible to come here and say, “We support the building of infra- structure, but please do not build it in my constituency.”

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[Michael Shanks]

First, I say to the hon. Member that I have one of Europe’s largest wind farms on my doorstep, so I know exactly what it is like. I would also say that bringing down bills and delivering energy security matters to his constituents as much as it matters to mine, and a robust planning system is in place. Opposition Members speak as though there is no process for local communities to be consulted, but there absolutely is; they are frequently consulted, and that plays a critical part in the decisions made about these projects.

[George Freeman]

Will the Minister give way?

[Michael Shanks]

I will not, because I am conscious that there is another debate to come.

These questions about the planning system are important. There is a rigorous process in place. We recently raised the threshold for solar projects going into the NSIP regime. I seem to remember a number of Opposition Members opposed that, but the whole purpose was to ensure we do not have the issue that we have at the moment, where a lot of projects are deliberately 49 MW, which is just below the threshold. By changing the threshold, we have more projects going through local, democratic council planning considerations, so those Members should welcome that decision. Those planning decisions also consider biodiversity, the local economy, visual amenity, protected landscapes and many other things, and those considerations also include, as a number of Members said, cumulative impact where more than one project is planned in close proximity.

Members raised many other points that I am afraid I will not have time to come to in this debate, so perhaps we should have another debate on some of them. On land use, the guidance makes it clear that wherever possible, developers should utilise brownfield, industrial, contaminated or previously developed land. Where development on agricultural land is necessary, lower-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land and so on. On questions of food security, I defer to the president of the National Farmers Union, who says that it is

“important that we’re not sensationalist about the impact on food security”.

I trust his judgment on this question above some others in this place.

I am moving through a number of points as quickly as I can. On land use, a number of Members have asked about how we bring together the land use framework and the strategic spatial energy plan. I had a meeting about that just this week. The Government should have had a serious look at land use in this country many years ago and at how we strategically plan our energy system right across the country. They will come together. We are also looking at regional energy plans that give a more localised view, too. The National Energy System Operator is currently taking that work forward, and that is an important step.

On community involvement, it is important that communities feel like they have a voice in this process. I have frequently said from this Dispatch Box that I do not for a second underestimate the strength of feeling for communities that have any infrastructure built near their houses or villages—whether that is prisons, the electricity system or new housing—but as a country, we cannot simply say that we will not build any new infrastructure because some people might oppose it. If we did that, we would never build anything, we would never deliver economic growth, and we would hold this country back, so I make no apology for saying it is about the balance between how we bring communities with us and how we get on with building in this country again, and that is important.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham about glint and glare, the impact on the loop-the-loop was one of my highlights of the debate. As the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) said, solar panels are designed to absorb light, not reflect it, and glint and glare is considered in the planning process already, so it is taken into account.

I am conscious of the time, and I apologise to hon. Members who raised serious points that I will not be able to address in this debate. I am happy to follow up in writing on a number of those points.

Solar power is one of the cheapest forms of energy that we have in this country. It is deployable at scale, and can play a critical role in delivering our energy security and in our delivering the climate leadership that we need—to tackle not a future threat, but a present reality that will affect farmers up and down the country if we do not do so. I acknowledge that any infrastructure project has impacts on communities. The planning system does all that it can to mitigate those impacts, but we need to build stuff in this country. Infrastructure has to be built, and our electricity system has to be upgraded. We will build on rooftops, we will build a mix of energy technologies right across the country, and we will take on all innovations that are possible. It is fantastic how quickly we are innovating in this space, but hon. Members cannot simply say, “Let’s not build in my constituency”, because that is not a credible option.

I thank the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham once again for securing the debate. Although we might not agree on everything, I take her points very seriously. It is important for me to say that I hear the points that she and others have raised, and I am happy to meet her to discuss them further.