National Grid (Montgomeryshire)

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is always a great pleasure to serve under your fair chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am sure today will be exactly the same. I normally try to be a fairly relaxed and laid-back speaker in the House of Commons, and I like to be consensual in my general approach and debating style. I think that that is probably the most effective way for someone to get what they want, but since 2005 there has been one issue on which I have had great difficulty remaining calm whenever I have addressed it. It involves the industrialisation and destruction of the wondrous part of Wales where I have always lived and which is the subject of today’s debate. I want to speak about the mid-Wales connection project and the behaviour of National Grid in forcing it on the people I represent.

I have divided my speech into four sections. First, I will outline the general background to provide context. It will be necessary to make passing reference to a conjoined public inquiry into five wind farms that will have an impact on my constituency. A planning inspector’s report is being considered by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. To reassure the Minister, I respect her position and totally accept that she will not be able to make any comment on planning issues that could eventually land on her desk for decision. Today’s debate is about the mid-Wales connection project. It is a linked proposal being taken forward by National Grid, and I need to refer to the wind farms public inquiry only to create context.

Secondly, I will describe how National Grid has behaved in Montgomeryshire and north Shropshire, which has shocked me. I believe fellow MPs, the Minister and the public will also be shocked to learn about the tactics that this massive leviathan of an industrial complex and its agents have used to force their will on the local population. Thirdly, I will refer to what I consider to be the outrageous way in which National Grid has sought to influence the planning system using its power and money, which all seems to be entirely within the law. One issue I will raise, and to which I hope the Minister will respond, is whether that unparalleled power to influence planning applications, before and as they are being decided, should be reconsidered.

Fourthly, I will comment on the impact that the behaviour of National Grid, widely perceived by the public to be close to Government and thought by many to be a part of Government, has on the public’s faith and confidence in the democratic process. To finish, I will press the Minister to call on National Grid to suspend the mid-Wales connection project, at least until there are approved wind farms to be connected by it.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and neighbour for the persistent and dogged way in which he has championed this issue to protect his beautiful constituency and his constituents’ views. National Grid could not find, if it tried, a location to generate electricity that was further from its existing network. As a result of the construction, huge swathes of Shropshire will be carpeted over with pylons to connect the electricity to the grid, and that is completely unacceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his support.

First, to give the context, the rumpus began in 2005 when the Welsh Government announced in their infamous technical advice note 8 that Montgomeryshire—it spilled over into Radnorshire and Ceredigion—was to be transformed into a wind farm landscape. Although I had always been sceptical about the balance of benefit associated with onshore wind, I had not been a vociferous opponent until then. I had not thought the odd wind farm development would lead to the complete desecration of the mid-Wales landscape. It was the astonishing scale of development that flowed from the Welsh Government announcement that shocked me, and the subtle dishonesty with which it was presented. In 2005, Montgomeryshire was already blessed with more turbines than anywhere else in Wales, and the capacity to transfer new generated power to the grid was almost exhausted. To fulfil the Welsh Government’s new policy, a new dedicated 400 kV cable would have to be built, connecting the onshore wind farms to the national grid around 40 miles away.

In 2005, I was an Opposition spokesman on this policy area in the National Assembly for Wales, and I soon understood the scale of what was being proposed. Inevitably, whatever the announced target was, the capacity of the dedicated line would be filled. The cost of it—it was probably approaching £1 billion—was such that it could not possibly be allowed to become a stranded asset. Already there are about 20 applications at varying stages of readiness for new wind farms in and around my constituency. In summary, that means 500 new turbines on top of what we have now, a 19 acre substation and a 50 km, 400 kV power line on steel towers connecting to the existing grid in north Shropshire via the beautiful Vyrnwy valley. It is desecration of landscape on a mind-blowing scale. Not surprisingly, that has outraged much of the local population.

I used the word “dishonesty” to describe the position of the Welsh Government in 2005, and I did not use it casually. When I led a group of concerned Montgomeryshire residents to Cardiff Bay to express our views on the steps of the Senedd, the First Minister, Carwyn Jones, and the Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development, John Griffiths, stated publicly in response that the national grid line would not be needed to fulfil their policies. That was untrue, and the First Minister has subsequently changed his position, very quietly. Mind you, there were getting on for 2,000 of us who travelled on a seven-hour round trip on 38 buses to make our point. I have lived in Montgomeryshire all my life, and I have never known the people of mid-Wales to be so angry.

My second point is on the behaviour of National Grid. The position is that it has been contracted by wind farm development companies to build a 400 kV line. Over the past three or four years, National Grid has sought to force the line on a reluctant population and has totally failed to engage with the people of Montgomeryshire. Yes, it has produced glossy leaflets and yes, it has arranged hundreds of local meetings, but it has never listened to anyone. It never had any intention of listening. National Grid is programmed not to listen but to cajole, to persuade and then to enforce its proposals by whatever means possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. That was far too long for an intervention.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for raising that point, which I intend to raise, because it is hugely important.

Over the past year or so, I have had countless frightened constituents ring me, terrified by the bailiffs employed to enforce the National Grid’s will by the agents, Bruton Knowles, who are based in Birmingham. One constituent rang me recently to say that bailiffs had entered his property without permission, using profane language and frightening his wife and children, who fled to a back room. The police were involved. Another constituent, who lives in an isolated property, rang me to say that eight men from National Grid suddenly appeared on her drive. She sent her children upstairs, locked all the doors and rang her husband, who was at work, and my office. She was terrified. An 85-year-old constituent was advised by her friends to co-operate, because of concerns about her personal welfare.

At one meeting I attended, National Grid had brought along a Gene Hunt lookalike as an enforcer to stand in the background. Police officers were also there, as they have been throughout the supposed consultation exercise. I received an e-mail two days ago from the son of an 83-year-old constituent. He had had to come home to protect his frightened father, who had encountered two strange men emerging from behind his garage, uninvited and unknown. I could go on, but I have made the point.

I am also told that National Grid has failed to share information with the local highways department. There has been non-stop lack of openness and transparency. It is all laughably described as consultation, but it is nothing more than outright bullying, using size and money to crush a local population.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I have listened to many passionate speeches by my hon. Friend. From what he is saying, is it any wonder that members of the public have lost confidence in institutions such as National Grid? They have even lost confidence in MPs and Assembly Members because of this kind of story.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is the fourth point that I will be making in my speech, but for now I come to my third point.

The whole basis of National Grid’s approach has been to create an assumption that its proposals and all the consequent wind farms are inevitable. The spin has been, “You can’t stop us, so you might as well help us and make the best of it. There is no point in protesting, it’s inevitable.” Up to November more than £15 million had been spent on the project. It is a blatant attempt to influence the planning process.

I was chairman of a planning authority for seven years. I knew that I could never be influenced or seen to be influenced before a decision was taken. I was also part of the planning appeals process in the National Assembly for Wales when I was an AM. Again, I knew the importance of avoiding any perception of influence when dealing with planning applications. That is why I fully respect the Minister’s position today. Yet here we have National Grid spending £15 million to portray another 500 turbines in mid-Wales—probably 20 or so per wind farm application—as an inevitability, before any applications are decided. That is blatant pressure on the planning system.

Recently, the chief executive of Ofgem, Dermot Nolan, giving evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Committee, questioned the position of National Grid and spoke of the need for a more independent body to develop the network. At present, National Grid has a huge financial interest in expanding the network—it expands its influence—and all the costs involved are transferred to the consumer by one means or another.

The whole mid-Wales connection project is financial madness. I have never known anything so financially crazy. There has been no value for money assessment whatever, although from the perspective of National Grid, that does not matter, because the consumer will pay. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that unusually dominant position of National Grid. It seems to me, as it does to Dermot Nolan, that there is a conflict of interest and a strong case for separating the roles of transmission operator and network expansion. I must add that I am shocked that Sir Peter Gershon, the chairman of National Grid and a man of great standing, would put his reputation on the line defending what must be becoming a huge financial and totally illogical embarrassment.

My final point this morning is specific to mid-Wales and north Shropshire, but more generally relates to the confidence that the population of Britain have in the democratic process. We have seen reduced engagement with the democratic process, in particular by young people, but National Grid has been granted the power to act beyond any democratic control, spitting in the face of public opinion. Any localism agenda has been thrown out of the window and, in my view, National Grid is acting contrary to any sort of human decency.

I hope that the Minister will consider asking National Grid to scrap such a crazy project or, at the very least, to suspend it until planning permission is in place for wind farms that might need a connection.