Jobs and Growth in a Low-carbon Economy

Phil Wilson Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his new position.

As has already been said, nearly 1 million people are currently employed in the low-carbon economy, and there is the potential for 400,000 jobs in the industry to be created by 2020. That represents a great opportunity for growth in jobs and gross national product in the north-east.

Last week I received a full and comprehensive briefing from NEPIC, the North East Process Industry Cluster, which has offices in Teesside. It represents 500 companies as diverse as petrochemical, biotechnological and pharmaceutical. They employ 35,000 people, with a further 200,000 in the supply chain, and generate over 30% of the region’s GDP. NEPIC wants the industries that it represents to focus on a wider bio-resources sector incorporating fuels, heat, electricity and chemicals.

For example, MGT Power wants to construct a 300 MW power plant that will generate electricity from imported wood. Progressive Energy wants to gasify coal using carbon capture to store CO₂ and produce syngas as a building block for green foodstocks or energy. That project has been submitted to the European Investment Bank by DECC for consideration for funding under the EU’s new entrants reserve scheme. TAG Engineering Services is to build monopiles for the offshore wind farm industry. Those and other initiatives will help to grow the low-carbon economy, and will aid employment and economic growth in the Tees valley.

Geographically, Sedgefield is covered by what is known as the Tees Valley plain, and has become a target for a great deal of wind farm development in recent years. County Durham has an excellent record on renewable energy: 22% of its energy needs come from renewable sources. The only English county that can beat that is Northumbria, which is also in the north-east. In my constituency, Dalkia has built a 17 MW biomass facility at Chilton. The development has my support, and that of the town and county councils. It employs about 40 people, and the money provided through a section 106 agreement will help to fulfil the local population’s ambition to establish an energy service company.

Chilton town council has applied to the Government’s social action fund for additional funding to engage in energy-efficiency tasks. I understand that the Government have said that the funding needs to be in place by 15 March, but the town council has not heard whether it has been lucky in its bid. Although I believe that the fund is run through the Cabinet Office, I hope that the Minister can make inquiries to establish whether the money will be made available, because it will go towards employing people to help limit fuel poverty.

Those are all laudable initiatives. Some may take time to achieve, but I am sure that they will be achieved, and they are proof that the people of Chilton are prepared to embrace the need for renewable energy. However, I believe that what they face now is unfair, and is making Chilton—and, indeed, the main areas of population in my constituency, Newton Aycliffe and Sedgefield—a renewable-energy hot spot. The Dalkia biomass facility is north of Chilton. Just south of it, E.ON proposes to construct potentially the largest wind farm in England, consisting of 45 wind turbines, or no fewer than 29. E.ON has designated an area of 7.5 square miles of my constituency for the wind farm site, known as the Isles. That is 5% of the area of the constituency and is the size of Newton Aycliffe, home to 28,000 people.

Given that there are wind farms at Butterwick, the Walkway, Lamb’s Hill and Moorhouse Farm, all within a few kilometres of the Isles, it is no surprise that local people are saying that enough is enough. Chilton is caught between a biomass facility and a potentially huge wind farm—so huge, in fact, that it will be the Secretary of State who makes the final decision.

I hope that when the Minister visits Chilton on Wednesday, he will be able to meet some of those who are campaigning against the wind farm. I oppose the proposal, and I do so from a position of strength, because my county is set on reaching the 2020 renewables targets, a record about which most of those from the south of the country who oppose wind farm development cannot boast. I hear a lot of warm words from the Government about giving people a say on wind farm development, but the planning Minister, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), said in this House on 17 November 2010:

“It would…be inappropriate to direct the Planning Inspectorate to refuse a planning appeal solely because of community opposition because there may still be strong national or local policy support for a proposal.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2010; Vol. 518, c. 807W.]

There is an element of truth in that, but when a planning authority states that the local landscape is full to capacity and cannot take any more wind farms, I believe it should be listened to—especially, in this case, as other parts of England do not have a record that compares with that of County Durham.

I am not dead-set against all wind farms. Offshore wind farms will, if we get the economics right, be a great asset to the country and create thousands of jobs in the north-east. That is why I am opposed to any great cut in wind farm subsidy: that may knock the industry off a cliff and cause a loss of jobs and investment in the Tees valley. However, subsidies do need to be kept under constant review.

If we are to win the fight against climate change, we will need to win hearts and minds. We need to take people with us, but when people feel engulfed by developments, do not feel as though they are being listened to, can point out of their window at a biomass facility—as the residents of Chilton can—or can point at a wind farm development, as in Sedgefield, Trimdon or Morden and Bradbury, I think they have the right to be listened to in detail when other developments are proposed.

I am pleased our motion calls for the engagement of local communities in the transition to a low carbon economy. I mentioned at the beginning of my speech the potential in respect of offshore wind and investment. That must continue in the Tees valley, as the implications for jobs are huge.