Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Fuller Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

I am lucky enough to have spent the Recess in a rural area of Shropshire, where we have a house. I watched the harvesting over August, with farmers working all hours of the day and night. I know from talking to many people in the area that it feels as though the countryside is not understood and is being attacked by this Government. Proposals for solar farms on agricultural land are yet another attack. I beg to move.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 92 in my name. The amendment is simple and straightforward: it recognises that solar farms have a role to play in our energy security, but that that must be balanced with an effective use of our best farmland for food security. I observe that the lack of Labour Party Back-Benchers here says more than we need to about their views on farm and food security.

This amendment would not prevent or fetter the development of solar farms on the poorest quality land or restrain smaller proposals on the best land which command the support of the local planning authority. However, where large-scale solar proposals come forward that include the best and most versatile land, my amendment would mean that the nationally significant infrastructure project—NSIP—process would not and could be engaged. To be clear, this would not be an absolute ban on large-scale solar farms on the best land; it is just that, if those proposals were to come forward, they would need to be determined locally by the planning authority.

It is said that modern society is no more than three meals away from breakdown. In the hierarchy of needs, food in the belly is the number one priority. When the chips are down, you cannot eat a solar panel. Last year, the national wheat yield was down by 20% on account of wet weather. This year, the yield impairment is similar but because of dry weather. Just as there are no guarantees about the weather, we cannot be careless with our food supply.

I have recently heard encouraging noises from Defra Ministers who belatedly realise that the risks of food security are greater than they have ever been and that the best land should be reserved for food production, where inputs can be used most productively. The poorest and least productive land can be harnessed for other uses—environmental, amenity or economic. I welcome this sinner that hath repenteth and I venture that there is now common ground between people like me, who appreciate and value food security, and the Government. That should make acceptance of my amendment easy to achieve, so that the right balance is struck between heating and eating.

I will not go into quite so much detail as my noble friend, but let us talk about what I mean by the best and most versatile land. The Library tells me that, under the 1966 agricultural land classification process, grade 1, 2 and 3a land comprises 42% of the cultivated area of Great Britain; by difference, therefore, the substantial majority, 58% of the agricultural land, is in the poorer grades 3b, 4 and 5. Now, this would still be available for large-scale solar energy under my amendment, and there are millions of poor hectares to go at. That is land the size of 12 Norfolks or two and half times the size of Wales—noble Lords will note that I do not use the football pitch analogy.

Last year at the Dispatch Box, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, explained that, in the case of a recently approved Sunnica proposal in Suffolk, the proposal did not include some of the best and most versatile land. I will not criticise her for an honest mistake, but I regret to tell the Committee that there was plenty of the best land, including grade 2 land, in that proposal—land that is now lost to food production for a generation. On so many levels, the Government’s rhetoric is at odds with the reality. They have lost control of the numbers, and in so doing are imperilling our food security, which is national security.

In Lincolnshire, the county that more than any other puts bread on our tables, already 2% of that county is under threat from solar. Worse, thanks to my noble friend Lord Frost we learn that the majority of the Heckingham proposal is predominantly the best grade 1 land under the 1966 rules.

In an Answer to a Written Question last November, the Government reported that 1,400 hectares of land in Norfolk were currently under NSIP applications. But the reality was that it was 7,500 hectares, and now the number is greater still. We know from Great British Energy—I am pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in his place—that there just is not the grid capacity to accept all the solar that is being promoted.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, surely the point about the Bill is that it is enabling us to put the structures in place to actually get the grid capacity up and running.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

True. The noble Lord makes a good point, and so I sense even further a degree of consensus on both sides of the Committee on this matter. If we take the fact that the grid capacity is not there to accept all the solar that has been promoted, because it is diurnal and seasonal and comes in very big flashes which can overwhelm the grid, and that capacity to absorb is limited, only a fool would disagree with limiting the proposals to the poorest land first.

I have heard it said that we need not worry about this and that only the amount of land currently used for golf courses is being used for solar—something like 0.5% of all land—but that is simply not true. It is the 19th hole tale that has grown with the telling. The Government’s land use framework contemplates that 9% of all land will be used for environmental and energy schemes. Let me say straight away that agri-solar is starry-eyed, greenwashed fantasy. The solar panels are taller, so they are even more visually intrusive, with even more chemicals used to bash the weeds so that they do not shade the panels or wrap their tendrils around the steel stanchions.

The principle of controlling solar development aside, this amendment is important because it seeks to remove the loopholes and abuses that we have seen flow from the misuse of the NSIP regime for solar applications, including artificially stringing together many disparate smaller schemes, some miles apart, to get over a hurdle threshold. Where I live, a local proposal comprises a dozen different blocks of land spread out over a canvas more than 15 miles wide and eight miles tall as a device to get over that NSIP threshold. That is an abuse.

I can see that it is in the farmer’s private interests to sign up for solar. On normal arable economics, a farmer would do well to earn £200 an acre from the fruits of his labours, having investing millions in plant and equipment and subjecting himself to the risks of weather and the market. By contrast, solar developers are offering him the chance to sit on the beach with an index-linked £900 or more. Landowners of really quite small holdings which have been aggregated together have given tenant farmers notice to quit so that they can enjoy those inflation-linked payments of over 40 years at many times the rent. But our tenant farmers are among the most entrepreneurial growers, not having had the benefit of inheriting land, and we cannot afford to lose their dynamism.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 94B regarding permission for energy substations on higher quality agricultural land, I will also speak to Amendment 94A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, which according to the Herald is pronounced “drum-lang”. The amendments reflect the concerns that I and my noble friends have about what is happening on higher quality agricultural land, which, as we have heard eloquently described, is critical to food security.

My noble friend’s amendment reflects quite a lot of the concerns expressed in the House of Commons. I am thinking of my right honourable friend Wendy Morton, my honourable friends Sarah Bool and Mike Wood, and a number of other people who have spoken in debates in the House of Commons who are concerned for a couple of reasons about why battery energy storage systems seem to be not exploding —well, some of them are—but certainly expanding.

There is an important point to understand. We have seen, progressively, the previous Administration and this Government trying to get a grip on managing energy production and to get a proper strategy going. Meanwhile, in the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, the proposal is that we need about 27 gigawatts by 2030, 29 gigawatts by 2035, and a broader estimate—although the Government have not set a formal target—of 50 gigawatts by 2050. But where are we right now?

Figures from a paper from RenewableUK published in December 2024 suggested that there were 5 gigawatts of total operational capacity and 127 gigawatts in the pipeline. You do not need an A-level in maths to add up and find that that comes to 132 gigawatts. Of those, I think it is fair to say that 40 gigawatts have already been consented, 30 gigawatts are in the planning process and a further 48 gigawatts are being developed to go into the planning system.

My concern and that of my honourable friends and right honourable friends in the other place is that, in our process, we have already approved pretty much all that has been wanted by our energy operator. So why is it that, in effect, we seem to be encouraging even more to come through?

I am conscious that not every application will necessarily produce the outcome that is desired—we have seen that with other things—but, frankly, for those who have got the planning consent, we should make sure that they deliver what they say they are going to do. We should do that instead of, yet again, building up, and potentially blocking, land being used for food production to perhaps become an area for battery energy storage in the future, when we will have already achieved our outcome.

We discussed a lot about safety earlier; the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, spoke to that. He spoke comprehensively, but I point out to him there have been some instances where, for example, chemical interactions meant that hydrofluoric acid was produced. I did my PhD in chemistry a long time ago, but HF is one of the chemicals that I used. I can honestly say that, if you get it on your skin, although you will not realise it for a couple of days, your bones are basically crumbling right inside your skeleton. If you get it in your eyes, it is game over, frankly. On a very serious note, it is fair to say that there are significant risks. While the HSE has been cited as having a framework in place and similar, the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, referred to the Defra consultation about bringing these regimes into the EPR. It was published only last week. This is no criticism of the Minister, but what is noteworthy is that it said—I am quoting word for word—that

“it is not the role of the planning system to regulate fire risk and there is limited provision through the planning scheme to ensure that measures are maintained”.

I am sorry, but one of the key features of the planning system is to consider fire and fire risk and the like, so it will be worth the Minister looking at that element again; I am sure his officials will be keen to do so as well. We need to make sure that these things are safe. I shall give way.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I am reminded to reprise what the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said earlier about the need to have pre-scrutiny and the fact that a national organisation, the HSE, was the competent body. As my noble friend has been speaking, I have been reminded that it is for local organisations, the local fire authority and the local planning authority to make those determinations. National bodies such as the HSE do not have the capacity or the local knowledge to comment appropriately.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I think that is right. The HSE, on its own website, refers to the fact that it cannot comment on every application and, in effect, needs to be proactively contacted only if there is considered to be a major risk.

I am also conscious that the River Test is considered by my honourable friend Caroline Nokes to be under threat. For people who are interested in these things, I commend the speech of my right honourable friend Sir Alec Shelbrooke, who talked about dendrites. It was a very knowledgeable, well-researched speech about fire risk, including thermal runaway and the like.

Coming back to the fundamental proposal of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, he specifically asked me to talk about safety. There is a concern about overdevelopment and the loss of food for agricultural production. We will keep coming back to this on this side of the House, recognising the importance of food security alongside the other elements of national security.

On the amendment that I have tabled, perhaps I should declare an interest as this is about a subject that I have referred to a few times before: energy substations. Again, I am worried. There is an element here of thinking about where we do energy generation or other aspects of interconnection. Frankly, if the Government think the only way they can get these things done is by ripping apart environmental protection law and reducing food production land, they should not connect at those areas that already have these environmental designations or are key producers of food in this country.

My amendment refers specifically to 1, 2 or 3. I am conscious that the best and most versatile land is traditionally grades 1, 2 and 3a. However, Defra, through Natural England, does not publish where grades 3a and 3b are, because apparently that is too difficult to do, as it requires individual local site surveys on determining whether a particular field is grade 3a or 3b, so for comprehensiveness I have put in grades 1, 2 and 3.

However, as my noble friend Lord Fuller has pointed out, there is an element here about the fact that, frankly, a lot of this stuff was—in effect, with a light touch—reconsidered only in 2010. Fundamental parts of our land have not been assessed in terms of their contribution towards food production or food security for probably the best part of 40 to 50 years. As a consequence, recognising the targets set by the Government and the challenges that we face, I am conscious of the land use framework. Admittedly, I did a draft of that nearly three years ago, and I am sure everyone is frustrated that we still have not seen it yet. One of the challenges is this competing element of what we do with the land that we have.

Let us be straightforward about this: once agricultural land is gone, it is gone for good. I am not blaming farmers or landowners, who, candidly, the policies of the last 12 months have given even more reason to get a secured income on the basis of the value or use of their land. One of the foibles, in a way, of doing things such as leasing out land for solar is that it does not adjust in terms of the agricultural elements of inheritance tax. However, when farmers can get a guaranteed income for a proportion of their land, while other things are so uncertain, I do not blame them for wanting to make that choice.

My honourable friends—apologies, I am still earning about this place; I should have said my noble friends—have eloquently put some of the issues around solar. There definitely has to be a place for solar across our country, but one final point that I want to make on battery energy systems is that we really need to target where they are going to be. There is no point in having batteries in parts of the country that are nowhere near the grid or near where most of the energy is going to be used. That is why I have proposed the amendments I have today.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 89, 92, 94A and 94B relate to Clause 28 and the protection of agricultural land. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hodgson and Lady Coffey, and the noble Lords, Lord Fuller and Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, for tabling these amendments. Is that the right pronunciation of Drumlean? I am glad he is not here, because I know he would shout at me if I got it wrong.

Amendment 89, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, seeks to prohibit the construction of ground-mounted solar farms on land of grades 1, 2 and 3A. The Government view food security as national security and champion British farming and environmental protection. All solar projects undergo a rigorous planning process, considering environmental impacts, local community views and any impact on food production. The Government believe that solar generation does not threaten food security. As of the end of September 2024, ground-mounted solar PV panels covered an estimated 21,200 hectares, which is only around 0.1%—not 1%—of the total land area of the UK. Even in the most ambitious scenarios, only up to 0.4% of UK land will be devoted to solar in 2030.

The Government are in total agreement with the noble Baroness in that we want to get the balance right between protecting fertile agricultural land and facilitating renewable energy. The Government agree that protecting food security should always be a priority. That is why land use and food production are already material considerations in planning. Planning guidance makes it clear that, wherever possible, developers should utilise brownfield, industrial, contaminated or previously developed land. Where the development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, lower-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land. However, we do not believe the accelerated rollout of solar power under present planning arrangements poses a threat to food security.

The government consultation on the land use framework sought feedback on what improvements are needed to the agricultural land classification system to support effective land use decisions. The land use framework, to be published later this year, will set out the evidence, data and tools needed to help safeguard our most productive agricultural land. It will also lay out how government intends to align the different incentives on land; ensure that joined-up decisions are made at national and local levels; and make accessible and high-quality data available.

As such, we believe that this amendment is not necessary to protect agricultural land. Moreover, a total ban on the use of higher-quality land may have several deleterious consequences. Quite often, a site suitable for solar development will contain soil of varying quality. At the moment, the amount of high-quality land proposed to be developed is examined by planning officers. This is a consideration in planning decisions. Were this amendment to be incorporated into the Bill, large projects could be rejected for the sake of a small area of higher-quality soil that constitutes a small fraction of the overall site.

This amendment would reduce the number of economically viable sites for solar generation, which would increase costs for developers. They may seek to recoup these by placing higher bids in the contracts for difference scheme. That cost is ultimately borne by bill payers. In short, banning all solar development on higher-quality land may endanger the Government’s mission to achieve clean power by 2030, increasing the exposure of British consumers to volatile imported fossil fuels.

I shall touch on the noble Baroness’s point about solar on domestic and non-domestic buildings. Deploying rooftop solar remains a key priority for the Government and we will publish the future homes standard this autumn. The new standard will ensure that solar panels are installed on the vast majority of new-build homes once it comes into force, saving households hundreds of pounds a year on their energy bills. That will support our ambition that the 1.5 million homes we will build over the course of this Parliament will be high-quality, well designed and sustainable.

Additionally, the recently published Solar Roadmap contained several actions for both government and industry to support the deployment of solar PV in the commercial sector. These included unpicking the complex landlord/tenant considerations in the sector by developing and distributing a toolkit for owners and occupiers. The Government set out that rooftop solar on new non-domestic buildings will, where appropriate, play an important role in the future buildings standard, due to be introduced later this year.

The Government have also announced £180 million of funding for Great British Energy to help around 200 schools and 200 NHS sites to install rooftop solar. We expect the first of these installations to be complete by the end of the summer—summer being a flexible concept, so whenever that comes. The Government are assessing the potential to drive the construction of solar canopies on outdoor car parks over a certain size through a call for evidence, which closed on 18 June. We will publish the government response to that consultation. I trust that the noble Baroness will be satisfied with that response and I kindly ask her not to press her amendment.

Amendment 92, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, seeks to remove solar projects on high-quality land from the nationally significant infrastructure project regime. I thank the noble Lord for his engagement on this subject. I know that he has spent many years serving in local government and has considerable expertise. However, I hope that he recognises the contradiction in his argument. At the same time as he argues about the very difficult conditions that farmers face in growing food, these are brought about by climate change, but he is using them as arguments not to tackle it by moving to clean energy—so there is a bit of a contradiction in the argument there.

It is vitally important that every project is submitted to the planning process that best suits its impact, scale, and complexity.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

The point is that the difficulty that farmers are under may be aggravated by poor weather, either too wet or too cold, but the real problem is that this Government are engaged in a war on the countryside by undermining the finances of every family farm and damaging food production, even with the stuff on bioethanol, taking 1 million tonnes of wheat out of the market. That is the reason why farms are doing so badly—it is not to do with climate change.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord was referring specifically to climate impacts on food growing, which I felt was a bit ironic as we are trying to tackle the climate change that is bringing them about with exactly these measures to use clean energy.

The Government recognise the benefit of returning control over decisions to local planning authorities. As of 31 December 2025, we will double the NSIP threshold for solar projects from 50 megawatts to 100 megawatts. However, the Government believe that large solar farms, even when they propose to use higher-quality agricultural land, are best dealt with under the NSIP process.

The NSIP regime is rigorous. Although the decision is not taken locally, local engagement is still at the heart of the process. Under the current legislative framework, developers taking projects through the NSIP regime are required to undertake community consultation as part of the preparation for the application. This gives communities ample opportunity to feed in their views and shape the project. Currently, the level and quality of community consultation, among other factors, is taken into account by decision-makers. I am glad the noble Lord made a protest about the one that he was subject to; I hope communities will do that if they feel that those consultation processes are not being carried out in good faith.

Moreover, considerations under the NSIP regime include any impact on land use and food production. Planning guidance is clear that poorer-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land, avoiding the use of best and most versatile agricultural land where possible. This is in line with the policy governing decision-making by local planning authorities. Even if there were a marginal gain in public confidence from returning the decision to local authorities, we would not expect the outcomes to change.

This marginal gain must be weighed against the likely costs of this proposal. First, a proper examination of the potential impacts of a large-scale solar farm is a major and lengthy undertaking. Giving this responsibility to local planning departments may place an untenable burden on resources which are already under pressure.

Secondly, it is right that projects of such scale, size or complexity as to be nationally significant should be considered through the NSIP process. These proposals are of strategic importance to the country as a whole, and as such central government is the most appropriate decision-maker. Changing policy to allow decisions about these projects to be taken by local authorities may increase investor uncertainty at a pivotal moment for the Government’s 2030 clean power mission. This may jeopardise our work to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels, increase energy security and protect consumers from global price shocks, just at the very time when Members have raised the issue of security.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I am prompted to intervene only because the head of the noble Lord, Lord Khan, nearly seems to be falling off with nodding. The point is that the NSIP regime is combining schemes which, frankly, should normally go through the local planning authority. These are disparate, small, stand-alone schemes which fall under NSIP only because the system is being abused to string them all together quite artificially. There are no capacity constraints in local government planning to do with these smaller schemes; we know where they are and we know the issues. To suggest that stringing together a dozen different small schemes is nationally significant demonstrates the falsehood and the paucity behind the argument that NSIP should be engaged in this manner.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

These are geographical schemes. As I said, we are increasing the size of schemes that will go to NSIP.

Lastly, I am concerned that accepting this amendment would imply that there are some issues on which the NSIP regime is either not competent or not qualified to adjudicate. This is simply not the case. Setting this precedent may reduce public confidence in the NSIP planning system as it applies to other types of infrastructure. It may undermine trust in decisions which have already been taken. For all the reasons I have outlined—although it sounds as though I have not convinced the noble Lord—I hope he will not press his amendment and will continue to work with us on this issue.

Amendment 94A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to prohibit battery developments on best and most versatile agricultural land. The Clean Power 2030 Action Plan set out an expansion of renewable technologies required to achieve the 2030 ambition, including the acceleration of grid-scale battery development from around 5 gigawatts at present to at least 23 to 27 gigawatts by 2030. Grid-scale batteries, which are rapidly falling in cost and increasing in scale, allow the power system to store cheap excess renewable energy and use this, rather than expensive polluting gas, at times of need.