Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

In summary, it is not a ban on solar. Well over half the land in this country would still be available for it under NSIP, just not the 42% that most reliably feeds us. I am trying to strike the right balance between food security and energy security, as well as the security of the democratic process. That is why my amendment is important. I will listen very carefully to the debate, but I announce my intention to divide the House if I am not satisfied. I beg to move.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I will say a word about Amendment 45, which has been tabled by my noble kinswoman, my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger. My noble friend cannot be here—she is part of an IPU delegation in Geneva—and she asked if I would come tonight, apologise to the House for her absence and make a few remarks about this amendment on her behalf.

I am happy to do this not just for reasons of domestic harmony, although domestic harmony is very desirable, but because this amendment runs very parallel to one about food security that I moved in Committee. My issues then looked top-down at the world position and how it would impact this country’s food security; this amendment looks bottom-up at what we need to do to make sure that we do not unnecessarily and unduly impede our ability to feed ourselves, which must surely be a key responsibility of any Government.

My noble friend asked me to make a number of points. Before I do, I remind your Lordships of my entry in the register: my family investment company owns a few acres of agricultural land.

The first point is that solar power development should not take place on higher-quality agricultural land, which was the point that my noble friend Lord Fuller made. We need to keep this productive land to feed ourselves and remember that, if we lose it once to solar panels and solar farms, we have probably lost it for ever.

The Minister might refer to the forthcoming land use framework as providing the answer to this, but that will not come out until this Bill is an Act. One hears the awful sound of a door slamming behind a bolting horse.

The second issue is another point made by my noble friend Lord Fuller, about the continuing and rising tensions geopolitically. We need to keep those always in mind when we consider this country’s position and our ability to feed ourselves by bringing in food from overseas. We grow just over half our food ourselves.

The third point is that using agricultural land for solar panels has too often been the soft touch and the easy option. As has been said, farming is not particularly profitable and is cyclical. Therefore, it is much easier for a farmer to sign a long-term contract that provides security for a generation, for himself and for his family. That is one route.

The other route, of course, which is much more difficult, is to go down the commercial channel. There, the Government are likely to see much more hard-headed commercial resistance. For example, as a first step, why are we not putting solar panels on every new house we build? Why are we not insisting that solar panels are put on every new factory and every commercial building that is constructed? Why are we not thinking about retrofitting solar panels to existing buildings where suitable? All that would improve the situation without us having to reduce the amount of land available for production of food.

My fourth point takes the Minister to a point she made in Committee, to which she was not, to be honest, able to give an entirely satisfactory response. What plans do the Government have to monitor the continuing ownership of these solar farms—not just the person who builds them and owns them initially but when they are sold? If the Government argue that solar power is critical to this country, some monitoring of who owns that critical facility is obviously important. The Minister has written to my noble friend—she is grateful for that—and indicated that the Government are thinking of some form of monitoring, but it is not clear in what form the statutory basis of the monitoring will be. Will it be in statute? Will it be guidance? Will it be advisory? Who will enforce it? My noble friend Lord Blencathra and I have spent enough time dealing with secondary legislation to know that there are all sorts of ways in which this can be effective or not. It would be very helpful for the House to know what the Government have in mind for this critical part of our future national life.

Finally, no proper account has been taken to assess the permanent damage to our countryside—not just the short-term implications for roads, with tons of material being brought in to establish a solar farm, but the long-term visual impact on our country. In an age when mental illness is rising, we should not underestimate the value of open country. Not for nothing did Octavia Hill, one of the co-founders of the National Trust, write:

“We all want quiet. We all want beauty … we all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently”.


The Minister will say that the Government have clocked this and are working hard to make sure they are collecting all the appropriate statistics to ensure that these risks are being examined. Indeed, she concluded a long paragraph on this in Committee by saying:

“The Government therefore already have legal requirements to report regularly on matters relevant to food security in the UK”.—[Official Report, 15/9/25; col. 1963.]


I do not for a moment suggest that the Government are not collecting lots and lots of statistics. The critical question is what they are then doing with them. Which government department and Secretary of State are responsible for taking all this information, which we are told is now being collected and we all agree is very important and has a real impact on our future as a country, assessing it, working with it, interpreting it and using it to guide future policy?

I think the House is entitled to know from the Government how it is being used, how we can be reassured that our future is being properly assessed, and that it is not falling between the stools of different departments and that there is a Secretary of State responsible who is going to be able to keep us, Parliament and the country, informed that our future is safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

The Minister talked about the monitoring procedures. Her remarks indicated they were going to be only when the projects were in their early stages. The worry is what happens maybe three, four or five years later, when the people who start owning it pass it on to someone who may be less attractive to the future of this country. Will the monitoring be a continuous process throughout the life of each project?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I believe I said—I hope I did—that all stages would be monitored, from application to operation. I hope that is reassuring to the noble Lord.

In relation to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, on China—it is important to pick them up—the Government are committed to tackling the issue of Uyghur forced labour in supply chains, including the mining of polysilicon used in the manufacture of solar panels. We expect UK businesses and solar developers to do everything in their power to remove any instances of forced labour from their supply chains. The Procurement Act 2023, which came into force on 24 February, enables public sector contracting authorities to reject bids from and terminate contracts with suppliers that are known to use forced labour themselves or anywhere in their supply chain.

The Government are considering how to strengthen Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which places a requirement on businesses with a turnover of £36 million or more to publish an annual modern slavery statement, including possible penalties for non-compliance, as well as working with a wide range of stakeholders to update the Section 54 statutory guidance. I hope that gives the noble Lord some reassurance that we are taking this very seriously indeed.

From my time as the Minister in MHCLG with responsibility for net zero, I know that we have looked extensively at the UK supply chains and what might be done to further promote and help them to grow their businesses. All this being said, I agree with the sentiments of the noble Baroness that more should be done to install solar on rooftops. We are pursuing various measures in connection to this, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, from solar on schools and hospitals and our new building standards to tax breaks and our new £13.2 billion warm homes plan. We have recently conducted a call for evidence about solar car parks, which the noble Baroness praised in Committee.

It is important that we do not overstate the amount of agricultural land that might be occupied by solar infrastructure. I know the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, questioned the Government’s figures on land use. Without being drawn into that discussion, it is clear that a relatively small amount of land, 0.4% in the most ambitious scenarios, is due to have solar installed by 2030. This does not constitute a threat to food security or to British farming, which the Government will always champion. Rather, the primary threat to British agriculture comes from the damaging effects of climate change, and the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, already mentioned the impact on harvests this year. We have to take that into account as well. I, for one, think that Britain should do its part in the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Building low-carbon power plants is an essential aspect of this.

I hope that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness will note the steps the Government have taken to return the decision-making of more solar projects to local authorities and the existing robust provisions for planning authorities to consider impacts on food production, and that the noble Lord might consider withdrawing his amendment.