Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lincoln Jopp]

And there we see the battle. Without wishing to get into other controversial areas, it is a little like proposals to build on green belt. If everything else were built on first and we protected the green belt, we would be a richer country.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

South Derbyshire has two grid connections and gets a plethora of applications for solar and battery energy storage systems—it is the bane of my life. I am passionate about moving to renewables. I have just got an electric car, and it is helping me keep my energy costs down for the journeys that I need to make, particularly in the light of what is happening with Iran.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for securing this debate on alternatives, but does he agree that it is not quite as straightforward as we think? We need to do this quite speedily. People assume that putting solar panels on industrial sites is easy, but we still need to be able to connect them to the grid, which is being upgraded in my neck of the woods. Does he agree that, much as we desperately want alternatives, there is not a sliver bullet to get us there?

[Lincoln Jopp]

The hon. Lady makes a really important point. One of the massive delays in deploying solar power is the requirement to achieve planning permission, and I am so pleased that she has brought that up. One of the beauties of floating solar is that if the owner of the reservoir or former quarry will use the electricity themselves, there is no requirement for planning permission. In terms of speed to deployment, return on investment and speed to profit, this is to a certain extent an answer to a maiden’s prayer.

We have not yet added in the third element of this battle between food security and energy security: water security. I believe in climate change. I am more sceptical about carbon neutrality within a certain arbitrary timeline, but the fact is that evaporation is a massive issue as the world warms up. One of the stunning and much less vaunted benefits of floating solar is that it reduces evaporation by 70%. Australia is very expensively covering reservoirs in anti-evaporation covers, but those could be floating solar panels.

I can sense the mood of the Chamber—hon. Members are very keen for me to list the other benefits, so I will do just that. The first, which we have talked about, is that floating solar comes with none of the opportunity costs of putting solar panels on grade A agricultural land, so we can move the debate on from whether we have to choose between energy security and food security.

Secondly, because of the effect on evaporation, floating solar also moves the debate on from the need for water security and energy security. Another stunning benefit is that it is twice as efficient as land-based systems. We would need only half the amount of floating solar as we would need solar covering Lincolnshire or Suffolk agricultural land. Hon. Members who remember their O-level physics will know that the evaporative effect on the underside of the floating solar panel makes it self-cooling, whereas land-based and roof-based systems and those in railway sidings simply get hotter through the working day and become less efficient.

“What about the water in these reservoirs? Surely, Lincoln, this can’t be as good as it sounds?” Well, it gets better, especially if the reservoir is to be used for drinking water further downstream. Denuded of heat and light, those things that grow in reservoirs that subsequently have to be filtered out, very expensively, by the water companies cannot grow. It is win-win-win all round.

Let us leave 2016, when we were Europe’s leaders, and fast-forward to last year. If ever there was a way to motivate Members of the House of Commons, it is to suggest that the French are beating us at something. Bear in mind the 6.3 MW—enough to power 2,000 homes—on the Queen Elizabeth reservoir. Last year, a plant on a disused quarry in Perthes, France became fully operational. It generates 75 MW.

I visited a former dock in Barrow-in-Furness where a 45 MW site is planned. It has to go through planning because BAE Systems will take the electricity. I would relax the permitted development right to include third-party use of the electricity, so that we can realise the benefits and improve the business case of floating solar to entertain the sort of investment it would need. I think there are 570 reservoirs in this country, and there is floating solar on one—the Queen Elizabeth. Ten further projects are planned. We also have innumerable former quarries and unused ports such as at Barrow. The opportunity is huge; we are talking terawatts. If it is realised, floating solar could generate 1% of UK baseload.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) mentioned space. Clearly, that would be phenomenal. Dare I say that it behoves the Government to look at this in a more strategic way than hitherto? They published their long-awaited solar road map. It has about 94 pages, and about half a page and a photo are dedicated to floating solar, which they describe as a “nascent” technology. I hope that I have shown that it is not nascent at all; it has been with us for quite some time.

Last August I stood on top of the Golan heights, looking down towards Syria, and saw two enormous reservoirs that were almost completely covered with floating solar panels. We should look to hotter and more arid countries for our sense of where we should take our innovation and technology. My plea to the House and the Government is this: look again at the potential for floating solar. When it comes to energy security, food security and water security, it provides a non-ideological, highly practical solution—a NIHPS—without papering over the beautiful parts of England.

By the way, all the reservoirs in my constituency are raised, so this solution comes with none of the visual vandalism of our country being carpeted in solar panels, to which people object so much. The tops of those reservoirs can be seen only by people taking off from or landing at Heathrow. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) is quite right: nothing is as simple or as perfect as it might first sound. I do not envy her having two grid plug-in points—she will be one of the most popular Members of Parliament going. But if we can, we must examine floating solar in greater detail, because it could, to a certain extent, produce a valuable alternative diversification of our energy supply in a world that is becoming ever more dangerous and insecure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Bool]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I think it also speaks to a wider issue about efficiency in the use of land. The EN-1 national policy statement says that we must be efficient in the use of natural resources, including land use itself. I think it is apt that we talk about floating solar, because we are not taking out agricultural land; we are using land that is serving one purpose but can legitimately serve another without disruption.

[Samantha Niblett]

One of the biggest concerns, particularly for my tenant farmers, is that when there is a change of land use for a solar farm, not only is the farmer unable to farm that land, but they do not have a farm—they are losing the farm. Does the hon. Lady agree?

[Sarah Bool]

Absolutely. It completely changes the nature of the relationship. We know that our farmers are already having a challenging time because of Government policies that are coming in; the inheritance tax changes have been devastating for our farming community. This is a point at which we should be supporting them. Part of that support is about saying that actually we need to be building reservoirs. On-farm reservoirs are going to be very important; again, that is a part of the planning system that we need to change and push through.

I do not want farmers to feel that they should or must go for solar applications in this instance, where actually the entirety of their farmland is taken out of use. The devastating thing about this policy is that a farmer whose family has been farming for generations—generations of them are buried at the Easton Maudit church—has had his tenancy ended and is already out, in anticipation of the policy coming in. Hundreds of years of a farming dynasty have been taken away.

This is not what the Government want to be doing, and it is not where we should be going. We should be encouraging farming, keeping our beautiful countryside, and using the alternatives. As I say, there are plenty, whether that is on top of warehousing spaces or on the sides of roofs.

Sale of Fireworks

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore]

I will make a little more progress, then take interventions. We get this problem far too often in my constituency, in places such as Riddlesden, Braithwaite, Bracken Bank, Oakworth, Haworth, Ingrow and Silsden. Just this weekend, I put out a call across the UK asking people to contact me with their experiences of fireworks. I put that out only last night as I was coming down on the train and I received well over 900 responses, which just shows the strength of feeling on this issue. I have received much more correspondence on this issue in preparation for this debate. The stories that I have heard are horrifying. One resident wrote,

“I was at a care home caring for the elderly with Alzheimer’s. There is no respite from fireworks for them and it is so unpredictable. I saw three elderly gentlemen walk around for hours a day thinking it was a gas explosion. Some of the residents tried to leave the building and to run away as they didn’t feel safe. Some of the residents were crying and distressed, some sat with their head in their hands. Meal times are disrupted, every aspect of their life is affected.”

Enough is enough.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I, too, have had lots of constituents contact me about this issue with concern for neurodiverse people, people with mental health issues, veterans with PTSD and animal owners. My constituent Helen sent me video footage of her border collie Alf, cowering in fear under a table. I wonder if the hon. Member agrees that in today’s modern age there are lots of beautiful alternatives for displays in the air that do not require fireworks—not to say that fireworks are not marvellous at the right time—and which can actually be silent. Does he agree that more people should be encouraged to use modern technology to deliver awe-inspiring displays?

[Robbie Moore]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. There are many other ways of having entertainment in the sky beyond using very loud fireworks. That gets to the detail of what one of the petitions is about: the decibels associated with fireworks going off.

UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

As the founder of Labour: Women in Tech, I wholeheartedly welcome the industrial strategy’s ambitious goals to scale our tech sector and workforce. On 15 July in Parliament, I am hosting WeAreTechWomen and Oliver Wyman for the launch of the Lovelace report. The report has identified that between 40,000 and 60,000 female professionals are leaving the tech sector annually or seeking advancement opportunities elsewhere, which represents well over £1 billion of economic opportunity that could be unlocked by better supporting our existing skilled workforce. Does the Secretary of State agree that both inspiring new talent and supporting great existing talent and diverse teams, across all demographics, is fundamental to maximising returns on our industrial strategy investments and securing the UK’s position as a world-leading technology nation?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend. It is brilliant to see her in Parliament as she has been a trailblazer on these issues, and I recognise the case that she has put forward extremely well. I recognise that this is a core economic priority for the United Kingdom, and it is great to see her as an advocate for that on the Government Benches.

Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill

Samantha Niblett Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I think my hon. Friend refers to clause 7, which deals with compensation. Again, let me be clear: this is a clause that we would put in any Bill. We are not Russia, and we do not sequester assets. The language in the clause—the legal definition—is something that we would use in most standard procedures. Going back to the question from the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), the effective market value of Jingye is zero, so there is no inconsistency between those two points.

[Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)]

What is happening today is something that mining communities like Swadlincote, in my constituency of South Derbyshire, will be feeling deeply in their souls. It is something that they could have only dreamed of back in the 1980s, when they wanted a Government who had their backs and prioritised the national interest. Instead, they had a Conservative Government who sold them down the river. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is a pivotal moment in our history, because we have a Labour Government prioritising our people and the national interest?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

This is a significant moment. How a country handles economic transitions is not about nostalgia for the past—we have to embrace the future—but how we help our people, our industry and our nation get to that point is key. My hon. Friend and I come from similar places, and we have not managed these transitions particularly well in the past. We are meeting this weekend to discuss the potential loss of thousands of jobs, which is what was on the line. The fact that we do not accept that, and that we will do things differently, is a welcome change.