Onshore Wind Bill [HL]

Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet and thank colleagues both there and throughout the House who have supported the Bill, as well as many outside organisations.

This Third Reading comes at a time when the country is deep in an energy security crisis. We urgently need to shift away from reliance on fossil fuels and the volatility of the international gas markets. The Prime Minister wrote this week that

“green energy of all kinds”

will be at the heart of the imminent energy security strategy.

Onshore wind offers cheap, clean, domestically produced energy, but at the moment planning restrictions impose an effective moratorium on its development and the repowering of existing installations. My Bill would end that moratorium and put planning applications on the same basis as others. I hope the Minister will indicate in his response that the Government recognise the need to change current planning policies to enable onshore wind to play a full part in our energy mix and our response to the current crisis. I beg to move.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)]

My Lords, the issues raised in the Bill—energy and planning—were always important. With recent events they have become even more so and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on bringing the Bill to your Lordships’ House. She is absolutely right: onshore wind delivers cheap, clean, domestically produced electricity. I am sure that in the coming months and years we will come back to the issues raised in this Bill, whether in the Subsidy Control Bill or in many of the other Bills we will discuss. On these Benches we have always been happy to support this.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her Bill, which I fully support. I have long opposed subsidies for wind, but I am not opposed to wind. As far as onshore wind is concerned, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and I find windmills quite attractive—although this was not a view universally shared by my constituents.

In the current circumstances we must support the cheapest, most reliable mix of energy we can produce. With high gas prices, clearly wind is more economical. We should support it and not have artificial barriers to its development. But however much wind power we develop, we will need gas to back it up when the wind is not blowing. As well as liberalising the rules on building wind farms on land, I hope we shall liberalise the rules on exploiting gas to go with it.