Electricity Infrastructure: Rural Communities

John Lamont Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Westminster Hall

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of electricity infrastructure on rural communities.  

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. I am delighted to have secured this important debate, as it is an issue that affects many communities across our United Kingdom. However, it particularly affects the Scottish Borders and other parts of Scotland, such as the highlands. Frankly, the Borders are being inundated with plans for new energy infrastructure: wind farms, solar farms, battery energy storage units and mega-pylons.

This weekend, I joined other concerned local residents on Lauder Common, near Threepwood. It is a beautiful part of the Scottish Borders, an area of unspoilt landscapes and natural habitats that Scottish Power Energy Networks plans to destroy with a new electricity substation linking giant mega-pylons.

From a vantage point on the southern upland way, we were able to look over the award-winning Threepwood Moss, a special area of conservation and home to curlews. Threepwood Moss is at risk from major construction works for the new electricity substation, a battery energy storage system and a nearby solar farm.

The total site will cover approximately 24 hectares, which is equivalent to around 40 football pitches. This is at the heart of what is called the cross-border connection, which would see more than 75 km of overhead lines installed across the Scottish Borders, looping through the new substation near Lauder—called Gala North by Scottish Power Energy Networks, which I will call SPEN for the rest of this debate—and down to a second proposed substation south of Newcastleton.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[John Lamont]

I will take interventions, but I will make a little more progress. Patience, colleagues!

It means giant mega-pylons running through communities and landscapes across the Scottish Borders. We all understand the need for a modern, resilient electricity network, but there must be a balance. It must be done in a coherent and organised way that does not come at the expense of our rural environment or the wellbeing of our communities. This project is deeply unpopular with local people and will do huge damage.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member agree that it seems strange that the proposed grid upgrade in Scotland does not take into account the future of nuclear power which we understand will be developed right across the UK?

[John Lamont]

I share the hon. Member’s concerns, and I will come on to nuclear a little later.

[Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)]

In my constituency, pylon proposals are causing huge distress among our rural communities. They will not bring any real benefit to those communities. In fact, developers often bypass the rights of landowners, and the proposed developments will ruin our beautiful landscape. Does the hon. Member agree that electricity infrastructure anywhere must be done with communities, not to them?

[John Lamont]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point about taking communities with us. We all accept, I believe, the need to invest in our electricity infrastructure, but it must be done in a coherent way that takes local communities with us.

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

Would the hon. Member agree that transmission line operators should consider the impact on local communities by leaving legacy housing, employing graduate apprentices from the area and not swamping local villages with workers’ camps?

[John Lamont]

The hon. Member makes a key point, which I will come to later, that often these projects generate many jobs while the developments are being constructed, but the jobs disappear as soon as they are finished. That is unlike nuclear power, which the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) mentioned, with 300 jobs in Berwickshire alone directly connected to Torness power station. Those are permanent jobs, for people living and working in the local communities. We do not get the same employment opportunities with some of the current proposals for energy infrastructure.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention resilience and modern technology. I declare an interest as a member of the Ulster Farmers Union. The National Farmers Union and the UFU have indicated that infrastructure needs to be upgraded to ensure that whenever storms come, there will not be loss of electricity or broadband outages. Does he agree that we must ensure the livelihoods of our rural constituents and their businesses when we look to the future?

[John Lamont]

The hon. Member makes a key point about the need to invest in the electricity network, but it needs to be done in a coherent and organised way with buy-in from the local communities. That is what is lacking dreadfully with some of the proposals.

I will make some progress. The issues are clear. First, the proximity of pylons to people’s homes will impact their quality of life and the visual amenity of their community. Secondly, our countryside will be scarred, damaging tourism and leaving businesses that are already badly suffering out of pocket. It will also damage our environment and natural habitats. Agricultural land will be damaged or lost, impacting farms, reducing the amount of produce made in the Borders and harming our drive for food security. We are not saying that we do not want any energy infrastructure—we already have a lot in the Borders. It is about finding the right solution that protects our rural communities.

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. Although he is speaking about the Borders, we are seeing something similar in the north-east. We have a huge amount of energy infrastructure across our region, whether that be pylons, batteries or substations, and the communities feel like things are being done to them. Our agricultural land is vanishing. Housing are having substations put right outside—I have heard from one household who have a substation right outside their child’s front window. There is no planning or organisation. Things are being imposed on communities who have very little say. The ways in which consultations are done are not up to scratch. It seems that there is nothing communities can do to have a say and actually be heard.

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend is demonstrating what a doughty campaigner she is for her constituents in the north-east of Scotland. I agree with everything she has said, and I will develop some of those points.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

We have a similar issue in the west midlands, although it is not entirely a rural area. On the edge of Birmingham in my constituency, battery energy storage systems are being imposed upon local communities. What was green belt is now being defined as grey belt. Local communities feel that they get all the pain and no gain, and they have no say at all. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is time for the Government to sit down and have a real rethink?

[John Lamont]

My right hon. Friend is right. She has consistently raised this issue in the Commons, and I know how passionately she feels about it on behalf of her constituents. I will come on to battery storage shortly.

It is important that alternatives are considered. For example, rather than overhead cables, why is underground cabling not being considered? That proposal has been simply dismissed on cost. [Interruption.] I have a lot of time for the Minister, but he is dismissing these concerns out of hand. He is laughing and scoffing. These are real concerns that my constituents feel passionately about. I would be grateful if he showed the same respect that I give to him for the concerns that I am raising on behalf of the people of the Scottish Borders, the highlands and the north-east of Scotland. These concerns are legitimate and I would be grateful if he treated them as such.

The proposals for underground cabling have been dismissed by ScottishPower Energy Networks on cost grounds alone. It may be more expensive for the developer, but what is the cost of destroying our natural environment forever? Rather than using the route through the Scottish Borders, why can we not use the route of the existing cross-border electricity infrastructure following the M74 motorway and railway corridor?

Throughout the process, SPEN has not listened to our local communities in the way we would have hoped. It is another example of decision makers in cities with little regard for the people and landscapes affected. I have organised a number of extremely well-attended public meetings about the cross-border connection and some of the other infrastructure projects being proposed. We have set up the Action Against Pylons: Scottish Borders Alliance, a voluntary coalition of 10 independent community action groups made up of people who live along the proposed route of the pylons and the other infrastructure projects being imposed on us—the people whose lives are going to be made a misery if this project goes ahead. Local people are coming together to fight the plans: there are too many people to mention, but I wish to pay tribute to a few of them. Edward Kellow and Rosi Lister put in many hours of hard work to get the group up and running. Campaigners such as Rory Steel and local councillors Leagh Douglas and Julie Pirone have done much to raise public awareness, alongside many others. As a group, we invited SPEN and representatives of the Scottish Government to walk the proposed route of the pylons, to come and see the landscape and communities that will be most impacted by their plans, and to hear the concerns of local residents. It was a perfectly reasonable request but they refused. It seems that the people who live in the areas most affected are secondary to SPEN’s plans.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for securing the debate. I gently remind him that there is an alternative to opposition: participation. In the Western Isles we have the highest level of community-owned wind farms in Britain: 22 MW, alleviating fuel poverty and powering community economics. Our council is ready to take a 20% stake in two big wind farms, leaving the local authority—one of the smallest local authorities in Britain—in charge of 89 MW of power on an island chain with a daily demand of 39 MW. Do the maths: the communities benefit. GB Energy has been set up with substantial sums for community involvement and I ask the hon. Member to consider what my island community and communities across the highlands and rural areas have done: buy in, participate and have a share. People might object to the pylons going past them, but they really object to the profits going past them. By having community participation, and a community share, we can make sure that communities benefit.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

This is a half-hour debate, so interventions should be shorter than that.

[John Lamont]

The Borders already has a significant number of electricity infrastructure projects, including wind farms and battery storage plants that have already been developed. Some are community owned—Berwickshire Housing Association co-owns a wind farm—but it has gone too far. Many people who previously supported those types of projects feel that we have our fair share. We are now tipping the balance into changing the Borders beyond recognition. That is why people who previously consented to such projects now say, “Enough is enough.”

It is about not just the size and scale of the pylons, but the connected electricity infrastructure that comes on the back of the pylons, with the new substations and new projects rushing to get a connection to the upgraded power supply. Barely a week goes by without a new planning application: wind turbines, solar farms, battery energy storage units, data centres. The borders have been expected to take a disproportionate burden in the transition to net zero. As we have heard in this debate, other rural communities across the UK feel much the same. There will be those who say that we need to suck it up. Take for example the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), who said he would happily live next to an electricity pylon or a wind turbine. That is very easy to say for someone who lives in north London; it is an entirely different matter for someone who lives in the countryside.

There is a hidden impact of the new electricity infrastructure too. Last week, we heard that data centres in Scotland powering artificial intelligence are using enough water to fill 27 million half-litre bottles of water a year—a shocking statistic. It is made all the more shocking when we discover that it is our precious tap water that is being used. According to Scottish Water, the demand is growing. There is also the agricultural land that is lost to those projects. Rather than filling productive agricultural land with solar panels, why not adopt a rooftop-first approach to protect our farmland and greenfield sites while maximising existing infrastructure?

Community consent and local democracy are vital, and I am afraid that my constituents too often feel that these projects are simply a done deal—that the projects are being done to them rather than with them, without meaningful and constructive engagement between the developer and local communities. We feel that SPEN and other developers will go through the motions of a consultation but ultimately know that they will get their own way because they are pursuing Government policy objectives. That attitude was evidenced when the Information Commissioner’s Office recently ruled that SPEN appears to be seeking to “obfuscate” concerns about major power projects. That is totally unacceptable.

We live in a democracy, and people are supposed to have a say on what happens in their community. We have an alarming situation in which many local residents are saying no and elected councillors are objecting, but the local council is powerless. Members of the Scottish Parliament are saying “Enough is enough,” but the SNP Government will not engage. Members of this Parliament are pressing the alarm bell, but the Labour Government say that it is nothing to do with them, which is utter nonsense.

We live in the United Kingdom, and we should respect local decision making. We do not live in China, but it increasingly feels like that. Whatever the Government want is bulldozed through regardless of local opinion or the impact on our environment, habitats or landscapes. That is not how we do things in this country. My concerns centre not only on the projects affecting the Scottish Borders; they are about the lack of co-ordination and cumulative impact assessments.

I have already highlighted the concerns about the cross-border connection and the process used for that. Separately, there is a rush to get connections to the new, high-voltage power line, which is what is generating the applications for battery storage sites, solar farms, wind farms and data centres. Where is the National Energy System Operator in all this? It should be dictating how many connections it will permit, as well as looking at the cumulative impact of those projects, but it is not. The situation has become a free-for-all, and both the SNP and Labour Governments seem happy to sit back and watch the chaos unfold. Who pays the price? Communities and the environment, such as those in the Scottish Borders.

It is not just people in the Borders who have been left dismayed by the way SPEN has behaved. In the highlands, my Scottish Parliament colleague Douglas Ross MSP and Highland councillor Helen Crawford have been leading the battle, and I am pleased they have joined us in the Gallery today. Councillor Crawford organised two conventions with community councils to issue a unified statement on the importance of local democracy to new energy infrastructure. That was backed by politicians from the Scottish Conservatives, Labour, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and independents—strong, cross-party backing—because the issue is above party politics, and because people deserve a real say in what happens in their community.

In the highlands, local communities are grappling with more than 1,300 major electricity infrastructure projects. Despite these concerns, the Scottish Government refuse to engage or meet local residents. I have a letter from Gillian Martin MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, in which she refuses to meet the affected residents, hiding behind the ministerial code.

This summer, I visited Torness power station. Some might call it a blot on the landscape, but it has been there for decades, generating vast amounts of electricity. It is a key source of high-quality jobs and an essential part of the energy network. Many of my constituents work there, as have generations of their families. Nuclear power is cleaner and greener than most alternatives. Frankly, it is the best way to produce more renewable energy while protecting our environment. Nuclear energy uses 3,000 times less land than wind does, and it can safely and reliably produce far more power than other alternatives. However, unbelievably, the SNP Government in Scotland have an ideological obsession against any form of nuclear-generated power. That means that in a few years’ time, Torness will close, jobs will be lost and our energy security will be weakened.

We should be increasing the use of nuclear power, not pursuing developments that will ruin our countryside and communities. New electricity infrastructure simply does not provide jobs and opportunities in the same way. Yes, jobs are created while the projects are built—although often for those outside the area—but then they disappear. The developers pack up and local communities pay the price for generations to come.

The issue matters to my community and to millions of people across the United Kingdom who are affected by new electricity infrastructure. Some of the most beautiful parts of our great country are at risk of permanent destruction. It is nonsensical for anyone to say that they want to protect our natural world while they simultaneously destroy it. We need a better deal for our rural communities when it comes to new energy infrastructure. The Government should urgently look at how developers engage with local people, consider options such as underground cables to protect our environment, and consider alternatives such as investing in nuclear, which is one of the most underused energy resources. If we do not do that, our rural communities will pay the price for generations to come.

I have one ask of the Minister today: will he meet me in the Scottish Borders, together with local residents who are raising concerns about this, so that he can see and hear at first hand what is at stake?