Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Smith and Ed Miliband(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
Small modular reactors are less land intensive, are very efficient and would get us to clean energy very quickly if the Government were to get on and actually support some orders. As land is in scarce supply, when will the Government get on board with nuclear, instead of shackling themselves to the inefficient, land-destroying, countryside beauty-destroying and inefficient solar.
Ed Miliband
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we support the SMR programme, and we are driving it forward through Great British Nuclear. I am afraid he is making a terrible mistake, which is that we need all of these clean technologies at our disposal—we need nuclear, we need renewables, we need carbon capture and storage—and the difference is that this Government are getting on with it. We have delivered more in five months than the last Government did in 14 years.
Clean Energy Superpower Mission
Debate between Greg Smith and Ed Miliband(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Edward Miliband
I was delighted to visit the port of Milford Haven during the election campaign. There is an interesting issue here: the £1.8 billion investment that this Government are making in our ports will hopefully allow us to invest in floating offshore wind at more ports than the last Government were able to. I cannot make promises about particular ports from the Dispatch Box, but this is so important, because if we are to get the jobs here, we must invest in our port infrastructure.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State referred multiple times to community consent, yet the 6,000 acres of solar installation in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) had no community consent. That sends shivers down the spine of my constituents in and around the villages known as the Claydons, who are looking down the barrel of a 2,100-acre solar installation called Rosefield. That is on top of a proposed battery storage plant next door, and on top of the National Grid wanting to build a brand-new substation to take the thing in; it is the tail wagging the dog. What will change to make community consent a reality?
Edward Miliband
What the hon. Gentleman wants for nationally significant projects is community veto.
Edward Miliband
The hon. Gentleman nods his head. I will be honest with him: we are not going to give community veto. The last Government did not give it either. There are nationally significant projects that the Government have to make decisions on. Obviously, we have to take into account the views of local communities, but the whole point of decision making on the nationally significant infrastructure programme is that we look at the needs of the nation as well. That is why community benefit is important. If we ask local communities to host clean energy infrastructure, sometimes they will not want it, or sometimes a minority will not want it—I am not making presumptions in this case—and then we should ensure that those communities benefit from it.