National Grid: Pylons
Debate between John Hayes and Mark FletcherWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I must apologise that the Minister responsible, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), was unable to be here today, as he is otherwise engaged. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) on securing this debate. As I listened to some of the contributions, I did regret that the Minister responsible did not leave me his hard hat. Indeed, since I was told yesterday that I would be responding to this debate, my right hon. Friends the Members for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) have all contacted me about this issue, so I have some idea of the pressures that come with this role. I can see that this is a particularly difficult issue for many constituents.
An expanded electricity network is critical to lowering consumer bills, securing our energy supply, delivering green growth and skilled jobs and decarbonising our electricity system, but it must be delivered strategically and sensitively, in a way that considers and mitigates the impacts on communities and on our treasured landscapes. I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions today. We all recognise that this is an important subject for our communities. My colleagues and I are clear that community voices must be heard in our transformation of the electricity system. As the Prime Minister has made clear, we are making the change to net zero in a way that supports communities and families. That is true for new electricity infrastructure, and the organisations responsible for the planning and delivery of that infrastructure are working to deliver on that.
This country is undergoing an energy revolution, which has reducing consumer costs, respecting environmental and community considerations and protecting national security at its core. Members will be under no illusion that in order to bring new home-grown electricity on to the system, we must expand the electricity network considerably, rewiring from where new generation is being built, in our wind-rich seas and new coastal nuclear sites, and connecting it to areas of demand. We anticipate that we will need to meet double the current level of demand by 2050, and we will need an efficient, high-tech system to transport that power to drive our country forward.
The Government are leading efforts to speed up this network expansion to connect new generation and demand when and where it is needed. We are acutely mindful of the potential visual impacts of electricity transmission infrastructure on communities, particularly overhead lines. The reinforcement of the network to transport this low-carbon electricity is being delivered through a balance of methods, including making upgrades to existing infrastructure, such as offshore and undersea power cables. The use of undergrounding is the starting presumption in nationally designated areas—national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty—to protect those landscapes.
Sir John Hayes
Given what I said about the agreement the Government made to protect flat lands such as the fens in relation to onshore wind, which involves much lower structures, will the Government, on the grounds of consistency, add the fens to the list the Minister has just set out?
Mark Fletcher
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I am not empowered to give that particular positive response, but he has already called on me throughout the debate to respect beauty, and I hear what he has said loud and clear.
Elsewhere, overhead lines should be the strong starting presumption, but this remains flexible, and undergrounding may be used in other areas in certain circumstances, namely where there is a high potential for widespread adverse landscapes and/or visual impacts. Such decisions will be weighed up through the planning process. The Government have worked with the Electricity Systems Operator to create a new process for strategic planning for electricity networks, which considers the four principles of impacts: on the environment, on communities, on costs to consumers, and on the deliverability and operability of that system. That design process looks at the network holistically, identifying areas where existing infrastructure should be upgraded and reinforced, and considering where co-ordination efficiencies, or innovations such as offshore cabling, can be used to reduce the overall impact on communities of infrastructure expansion.
New innovations in cable technology are enabling a very substantial offshore network to be created to help reduce the need for new transmission infrastructure on land. The recommendations in the ESO’s most recent network plans mean that, by 2035, three times as much undersea cabling could be laid than new pylons in Britain. However, we will inevitably require some new onshore infrastructure, as those offshore links have to make landfall and run inland. We must also consider the impacts on the marine environment and marine users, such as the fisheries industry, just as we would on land, as well as the far greater costs of offshore cabling.