Solar Panels on Agricultural Land

Sarah Bool Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

I do not know how many tens of thousands of people the Government need to hear saying precisely that before action is taken. Ministers repeatedly state that lower-quality land should be used, but in reality that is not the case. There is a growing gap between policy and practice.

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

In my constituency, the Secretary of State has just approved the Green hill solar farm, 60% of which will use best and most versatile land. That means that arable land will be lost for 60 years in our area. Local groups are considering a judicial review. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the policy says we should not use that land, it does not make sense that the Government approve these farms none the less?

[Esther McVey]

I think that, like with most things, the Government do not know what is going on. They talk the talk but do not put what they say into practice. In 2025, the Campaign to Protect Rural England found that 59% of England’s largest solar farms are located on productive farmland, with almost a third occupying the very best agricultural land. The proposed Tabley Hill solar farm in my constituency is another instance of a large-scale solar development being directed towards some of the country’s best agricultural land.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Shanks]

It is not for me to litigate individual planning applications; that is what the planning system exists for. We have given very clear guidance on this, and we keep these things under review. At the moment, we already have a planning system that takes these things into consideration, and I will not open up the debate on individual projects. Indeed, the National Farmers’ Union has said that solar poses no threat to food security.

I must also highlight the most glaring point in all this: clean energy is about us trying to get off fossil fuels, and although part of the reason for doing so is to reduce all our constituents’ exposure to the impacts on bills, the summer we have just lived through was a perfect example of climate change in action. It made the impact of not tackling the climate crisis on food security very clear and present for us. To exclude that from the debate misses the crucial point that climate change is far more likely to impact our food security in Britain than any infrastructure that we are building.

I have already told the right hon. Lady that I agree that we should be building much more rooftop solar, and that is why the future homes standards encourage new houses to be built with solar installed. That is also why I am working to see whether we can get even more solar on warehouses, supermarkets, car parks and everywhere else we possibly can, which I am entirely open to, but ground-mounted solar will nevertheless remain important.

I also want us to look much more at innovation in how we farm alongside solar farms. I have visited a number of solar farms where the two go alongside one another, such as where livestock grazing can go alongside solar deployment. There is also a lot of emerging science in agrivoltaics on developing new ways to make sure that we have arable farming alongside solar.

[Sarah Bool]

In the Green Hill solar farm application, one of the arguments made was that we could also have sheep farming, but the Secretary of State’s decision actually said that this was irrelevant and would not be considered, because they could not guarantee it. Actually, the promise of them sitting side by side is not a guarantee.

[Michael Shanks]

I am not making any guarantees here, and I have not pretended to do so. I am saying that there is much more opportunity to do these things side by side, and I have visited and seen some places where it is working, including places where there is a net gain in biodiversity from the deployment of solar panels.

In this focus group on solar, we will clearly not have support from everyone who has spoken in the debate today, and I entirely understand that. As I have said in a number of debates—I hope fairly—we want to ensure that we bring communities with us on this as much as possible, and the planning system is important. The right hon. Member for Tatton also talked about community benefits, and it is really important that those are meaningful to communities. We will say more soon about our expectations on developers for community benefits. We want those to genuinely invest in the future of communities, rather than be tokenistic. It is important to say that they are not compensation regimes; they are about saying, “You’re hosting infrastructure on behalf of the country, and we thank you for that. Here is a community benefit.”

Contrary to how it seems from my speech, I think there is much that we agree on. We want to preserve the character of the countryside across the country, but I also genuinely believe that we have to rapidly increase the amount of electricity that we can generate from clean sources. We have to ensure that we have renewables alongside nuclear and other technologies, and the planning system exists to balance that with continued food production and protecting communities. I am very open to looking at any further reforms that are necessary, but I think that the balance is understood at the moment. I hope we can continue this conversation in the manner in which we have had the debate today.

Question put and agreed to.