Large-scale Solar Farms

Debate between Karen Bradley and James Gray

Thursday 18th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) has said it all in a most powerful and conclusive speech. It covered most of the ground superbly, and I congratulate him on it. Prior to that we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson). I congratulate her on calling this very important debate at an extremely important moment. The way she laid the case out was masterful. They really were extremely good speeches, and I thank my hon. Friends for them. I will try not to repeat what they had to say.

It seems to me that we are at a tipping point in this whole debate. Within the last few days, I have noticed a few very interesting remarks by the Government on the question of large-scale solar. On Tuesday, they answered a question from me, and my hon. Friend the Minister, who will reply to the debate, commented that he thought the question of large-scale solar was

“a very interesting topic, and one that we are listening to.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2024; Vol. 748, c. 153.]

“One that we are listening to” is an important thing for a Government Minister to say. May I congratulate him on having the courage and the conviction to come out on to Parliament Square a moment ago to see many of my constituents, who are out there complaining about the Lime Down solar farm proposed in my constituency? That demonstrates that he is ready to listen. I am sure that he will have noted how many Conservative Members of Parliament are here today, and how few from other constituencies. This is a huge issue for all of us.

That same day, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who is now the Energy Minister—I congratulate him on his promotion—said during Question Time that

“solar projects should be directed to previously developed or non-greenfield land.”—[Official Report, 16 April 2024; Vol. 748, c. 149.]

That was a very straightforward remark from the Minister.

And then, at Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday, the Prime Minister said that we do not want to see more solar on greenfield sites. He said that it is the cheapest form of energy, but we want to see it

“on brownfield sites, rooftops and away from our…agricultural land.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2024; Vol. 748, c. 303.]

So in one week, we have seen three Ministers, including the Prime Minister, stipulating that they agree with the points we are trying to make in this room today. My instinct is that we are at a tipping point, and the Government have realised that what they have achieved is a huge concreting- over of our countryside in very largely Conservative-represented constituencies, such as mine. They are beginning to realise that that is an enormous political mistake.

Incidentally, I was very much encouraged by a recent report from the Planning Inspectorate on a planning application for a large solar farm in Bedfordshire. It said that the Secretary of State agrees that this solar farm would result in a large change

“to the character of the land which would impinge upon the openness of the Green Belt”.

He believes that there would be

“a significant adverse effect upon both the spatial and visual qualities”

of the greenfield, and that development on the site would be

“visible in the wider landscape…harmful to purpose”

and encroach on the countryside as defined under planning law.

It seems to me that the Planning Inspectorate as well as Ministers are beginning to realise that this is going wrong. I very much welcome the NPPF, broadly speaking, but did not quite follow the arguments with regard to large-scale solar. The Minister may have to consider redesigning the NPPF in some detail after this debate and the other debates we are about to engage on. There are about 40 colleagues with large-scale solar farms in their constituencies, and I am ready to work with them on a national basis. However, as other colleagues have said today, there is nothing wrong with being a nimby.

I would like to make some brief remarks about a new application in a place called Lime Down in my constituency. Incidentally, can we please tell the public relations spin doctors who work for these developers that using names like “Lime Down”, “Poplar’s Ash” or “Birds’ Lea” to disguise the fact that they are industrialising the countryside will not work? In my constituency, they have used the name “Lime Down”. That application—many of my colleagues have spoken of similar experiences today—includes some 2,000 acres of panels, a further 2,000 or 3,000 acres that will be blighted because they are between different patches, and a 30-mile connection down the road to the substation in Melksham, which is the nearest bit of the grid we can get to. It will be 3 million panels—just think of the HGVs required to get them into the middle of the countryside. We are talking about a bit of countryside in the Cotswolds that runs down the historic Roman Fosse way. Some of the finest buildings, farms and landscapes in the land will be blighted by this application. We are totally opposed to it.

I called a public meeting the other day in Malmesbury town hall. I was delighted that 750 people came; not many of my colleagues can remember a meeting with 750 people turning up. People are extremely angry about what is being proposed for the so-called Lime Down area. I was delighted that they took the trouble to come to the meeting that evening. This is a huge issue in my constituency, and we must see what we can do to stop it.

If I may differentiate myself slightly from some colleagues, we in Wiltshire are already taking our fair share of solar. Eight of the largest solar farms in England, and I suspect in Europe, are in Wiltshire; most of them are in my constituency in the north half. All told, we have 54 solar farms in production already. The target for the county is 570 MW; we are already doing 590 MW, so we have exceeded our county target. We have two or three very large-scale ones, such as Lyneham, with 250 acres, and RAF Wroughton, with something like 200 acres of solar farm. We are already making a huge contribution to the national effort towards solar. The 2,000 acres proposed for Lime Down would bust the target entirely and would be wholly unacceptable to people in my area.

As colleagues have mentioned, people are particularly upset because this is not an environmental matter or some effort to save the globe. It is funded by Macquarie, an Australian funding house—the so-called kangaroo vampires. Macquarie was most recently responsible for Thames Water—not a great success—and the fact that it is behind this proposal demonstrates that it is simply about money. The compensation proposed for farmers alone is £80 million, and we estimate the cost of getting the links through to the substation to be a further £25 million, so it will have spent £100 million before one panel is built.

We are talking about a multibillion-pound investment with very substantial returns for the Wall Street spivs who stand behind it. I do not think that the people of Wiltshire should allow that. The people behind it are not there for environmental reasons at all, although they may claim to be. They claim to be biodiversity-friendly and all that stuff, but it is absolute PR spin and total nonsense. They are there because there is an enormous amount of money in it. I do not see why we should compromise our environmental principles by allowing those people to come into our countryside and do what they propose.

Most of the salient points have already been made by colleagues. One reason why we do not want these proposals is the landscape: nothing could be finer than the south Cotswolds in my constituency. That landscape must be preserved. Several hon. Friends have spoken passionately about food security, and they are absolutely right. We are a very productive agricultural area—mainly beef and sheep, but also pigs and quite a bit of arable. Why should we give that up in favour of solar, when the contribution that solar makes to energy security is extremely small? I think 3% of national electricity is produced by solar.

[Dame Karen Bradley]

Another choice needs to be made when it comes to solar, which relates to the use of slave labour in the production of many solar panels and the materials that go into them. We should not have to make a choice between being environmentally friendly and respecting human rights by ensuring that forced labour is not active in supply chains.

[James Gray]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. If I remember rightly, we heard on the Floor of the House earlier this week that it is believed that Uyghur slave labour is being used in China for the production of those panels. They are then being shipped here on huge ships, and then they go on to lorries. They are extremely environmentally unfriendly in their production.

I will tell the House another thing that is extremely environmentally unfriendly. Macquarie says that in 40 years’ time the solar farm will no longer be used, that it will be demolished and that the land will be returned to agriculture. There are two or three things I want to say about that.

First, the chances of Messrs Macquarie still being here and living up to that promise are extremely remote. The farms are sold week after week, from one financial house to the next. The chances are zero that some nice company will come along in 40 years’ time and say, “Thanks very much, North Wiltshire: you’ve done your stuff and now we’re going to take these things away and return it to how it was.” It cannot happen, particularly because it is likely that the technology will move forward in the meantime. These things will very probably be out of date in five or 10 years’ time. Who will then remove them? Who will remediate the land? Nobody. There will be no such person.

Live Events and Weddings: Covid-19 Support

Debate between Karen Bradley and James Gray

Monday 9th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Gray. I do hope the fact that I chair a Committee that you sit on has not somehow swayed you into giving me more time than other people.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Reduced to one minute.

[Karen Bradley]

I will remember that when we meet on Wednesday.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for his excellent opening speech and for setting the scene so well. Given that I have only four minutes, I will focus on just one issue: wedding venues. Like many hon. Members, I have been contacted by so many people who have been affected—couples whose big day has not happened or has been seriously scaled down, and the businesses that supply wedding venues.

I want to focus on two unique venues in my constituency: Heaton House Farm and The Ashes. Heaton House Farm is in Rushton Spencer, and The Ashes in is Endon—both are in Staffordshire Moorlands. They are bespoke wedding venues; they do not do anything else. They offer large events and are licensed venues. They have the most incredible scenery. If you have been lucky enough to sit in the hairdresser’s and read Hello! or OK! magazines, Mr Gray, you will have seen the venues, because they host the celebrity weddings that feature in these great, august publications. However, they simply have no business at all at the moment—they have nothing. As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) said, they could not benefit from “eat out to help out”, because they do not offer food outside weddings and large events. They cannot benefit from the VAT reduction, because they have no turnover—they are not making any money at the moment.

The Heaton House Farm team have taken over running a community pub in Rushton Spencer, The Royal Oak, just to find somewhere to employ their staff. Without that, they will lose their staff. They are not making a single penny on that; they are doing it so that they can keep their staff and to make sure that when they can get back to having weddings, they can do so in the best way they possibly can. They do not benefit from many of the grants because their rateable values are too high—they simply need to be able to get back to holding weddings. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) said, they can hold a wedding service, but they could not sit the guests until the regulations changed to allow 15, and yet those guests could go to the local pub and up to 60 of them could sit, socially distanced, in tables of six. That cannot be right. We have to find a way through this. I invite the Minister to meet my constituents from Heaton House Farm and The Ashes to discuss the issue to see what support the Government can find to help those incredibly special places.