Localism Bill

Debate between Graham Stringer and Philip Davies

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I want to press on, because the Government have allocated a shameful amount of time for this debate and other people want to speak.

I support first past the post, even though my father would have been disadvantaged by it. My amendment 15 proposes that there should be a two-thirds reduction in the number of councillors in local authority areas that have an elected mayor. There are already far too many local councillors; Bradford has 90, for example. The US Senate has only 100 people in it, for goodness’ sake. Why do we need 90 councillors in Bradford? If we are to have an elected mayor as well, why on earth should we have an additional layer of bureaucracy, more expense and more levels of local politicians? If we are going to have an elected mayor, for goodness’ sake let us reduce the number of local councillors at the same time and save the council tax payer some money. I hope that the Government will accept my rather modest amendments, but if they do not, I will certainly be interested to hear their reasons.

Onshore Wind Energy

Debate between Graham Stringer and Philip Davies

Thursday 10th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Philip Davies]

I have given way enough, and others want to speak. The point is that I find it nauseating to hear politicians for ever bleating on about how terrible fuel poverty is when those very same politicians advocate policies that entrench fuel poverty in this country and make it worse. They should be honest about what they are doing. They cannot in one breath say, “I want to see more wind power in this country; it will add this amount of money to people’s bills,” and in the next breath say, “Isn’t it terrible how bad fuel poverty is?” I find that nauseating.

At the moment, Britain is only obtaining a fraction of its electricity from renewable sources. That will have to be expanded massively to hit these targets. The wholesale price of that quantity of electricity is about £1 billion. However, on the renewable obligation, the complex subsidy paid to generators but drawn indirectly from bills adds a further £1.4 billion to those bills. That more than doubles the cost to the British consumer. If 30% of UK electricity is to be renewable in 2020, an ongoing annual subsidy of £6 billion a year or more is required. That is before all the hidden costs of major grid expansion and so on.

[Graham Stringer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I need to press on because other hon. Members want to speak.

What is worse is that the National Audit Office has identified wind power as being one of the most expensive ways of reducing carbon emissions, with recent reports claiming that abating 1 tonne of carbon costs between £280 and £510, compared with £10 to £20 per tonne in the European emission trading scheme. There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. When I asked the Minister a parliamentary question about these issues, he replied that the Government have spent £2.2 billion supporting wind energy between April 2002 and March 2010 and that, despite that huge outlay, they have found it impossible to predict when the energy source will prove profitable without grants. The Minister stated:

“We expect that over time we will be able to reduce support for wind power and other renewable energy technologies as they become more economic, but it is not possible to put a specific timescale on this.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 185W.]

I was also struck by the comment about wind speeds and the extent to which they are brought to bear on planning decisions on wind farms. I asked the Government about that last year in a parliamentary question that states:

“what guidance his Department issues to planning authorities on taking into account prevailing wind speeds in determining planning applications for wind farms.”

I would have thought that that would be pretty obvious to most people. I was appalled—although perhaps I should not have been surprised—to be told in the answer that the advice is that

“local planning authorities should not make assumptions about the technical and commercial feasibility of…projects and should not reject planning applications simply because the level of output is small.”

The answer goes on to state that local authorities

“should not question the energy justification for why a proposal…must be sited in a particular location”.—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 818W.]

Basically, wind speeds are not to be taken into account whatsoever when determining planning applications for wind farms. You could not make it up, Mr Walker.

Wind farms are very inefficient. In fact, during the chilliest periods, when demand is often greatest for electricity, most of the 3,000 wind turbines were virtually stationary. They were working at less than a 100th of capacity and producing electricity for fewer than 30,000 homes. A report by the John Muir Trust—one of Scotland’s leading conservation bodies—found that wind turbines are 25% less effective than claimed. For a total of nine days during some of the coldest periods, output dipped below 10 MW, which is barely enough to boil 3,000 kettles. The situation is absolutely ludicrous.

I could talk about many other issues. Noise is certainly one problem. I reiterate the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness about having distance guidance on where these things could be sited. Scotland has guidance on such matters, as does Wales. I hope that the Government will introduce such guidance for England, too. There are also concerns about wildlife.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire made a great point about the problems in Denmark, but I do not think she mentioned this point, although she may well have done. As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) mentioned, the conventional power plants have to keep running at full capacity in case the wind does not blow sufficiently. As a result, the increasing demand for coal needed to plug the gap in Denmark left by underperforming wind farms meant that Danish carbon emissions rose by 36% in 2006. That was when Denmark was massively expanding wind farms. It seems bizarre to say the least. Reports have shown that Danish gross domestic product is approximately 1.8 billion krone lower than it would have been had it not embarked on such an energy policy.

The hon. Member for Ogmore asked for international comparators. In Spain, in 2007, a law passed by the Prime Minister guaranteed producers a so-called solar tariff of as much as 44 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity for 25 years, which is about 10 times what they would be able to get on the wholesale market. That has nearly bankrupted Spain, which has obligations of about €126 billion to meet.

There are alternatives, one of which I want to draw to people’s attention briefly. Calor has developed a liquefied petroleum gas fuel cell boiler that has the potential to deliver 50% reductions in carbon emissions in existing homes. It does not require huge subsidies or place a huge burden on the economy, and it reduces fuel bills, rather than increasing them. The technology is practically and commercially available. The boiler is based on clean technology—cleaner than oil, coal and biomass—and I urge the Government to consider some of the other options, rather than pursuing a blinkered approach that results from the belief that wind farms must be good because they sound green. They are doing huge damage to not just our local communities, but local households, which are faced with increasingly big bills to pay for the policy. Such an approach is also damaging our manufacturing industry, as it simply cannot afford it.