National Grid (Montgomeryshire)

Simon Hart Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies]

I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for raising that point, which I intend to raise, because it is hugely important.

Over the past year or so, I have had countless frightened constituents ring me, terrified by the bailiffs employed to enforce the National Grid’s will by the agents, Bruton Knowles, who are based in Birmingham. One constituent rang me recently to say that bailiffs had entered his property without permission, using profane language and frightening his wife and children, who fled to a back room. The police were involved. Another constituent, who lives in an isolated property, rang me to say that eight men from National Grid suddenly appeared on her drive. She sent her children upstairs, locked all the doors and rang her husband, who was at work, and my office. She was terrified. An 85-year-old constituent was advised by her friends to co-operate, because of concerns about her personal welfare.

At one meeting I attended, National Grid had brought along a Gene Hunt lookalike as an enforcer to stand in the background. Police officers were also there, as they have been throughout the supposed consultation exercise. I received an e-mail two days ago from the son of an 83-year-old constituent. He had had to come home to protect his frightened father, who had encountered two strange men emerging from behind his garage, uninvited and unknown. I could go on, but I have made the point.

I am also told that National Grid has failed to share information with the local highways department. There has been non-stop lack of openness and transparency. It is all laughably described as consultation, but it is nothing more than outright bullying, using size and money to crush a local population.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I have listened to many passionate speeches by my hon. Friend. From what he is saying, is it any wonder that members of the public have lost confidence in institutions such as National Grid? They have even lost confidence in MPs and Assembly Members because of this kind of story.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is the fourth point that I will be making in my speech, but for now I come to my third point.

The whole basis of National Grid’s approach has been to create an assumption that its proposals and all the consequent wind farms are inevitable. The spin has been, “You can’t stop us, so you might as well help us and make the best of it. There is no point in protesting, it’s inevitable.” Up to November more than £15 million had been spent on the project. It is a blatant attempt to influence the planning process.

I was chairman of a planning authority for seven years. I knew that I could never be influenced or seen to be influenced before a decision was taken. I was also part of the planning appeals process in the National Assembly for Wales when I was an AM. Again, I knew the importance of avoiding any perception of influence when dealing with planning applications. That is why I fully respect the Minister’s position today. Yet here we have National Grid spending £15 million to portray another 500 turbines in mid-Wales—probably 20 or so per wind farm application—as an inevitability, before any applications are decided. That is blatant pressure on the planning system.

Recently, the chief executive of Ofgem, Dermot Nolan, giving evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Committee, questioned the position of National Grid and spoke of the need for a more independent body to develop the network. At present, National Grid has a huge financial interest in expanding the network—it expands its influence—and all the costs involved are transferred to the consumer by one means or another.

The whole mid-Wales connection project is financial madness. I have never known anything so financially crazy. There has been no value for money assessment whatever, although from the perspective of National Grid, that does not matter, because the consumer will pay. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that unusually dominant position of National Grid. It seems to me, as it does to Dermot Nolan, that there is a conflict of interest and a strong case for separating the roles of transmission operator and network expansion. I must add that I am shocked that Sir Peter Gershon, the chairman of National Grid and a man of great standing, would put his reputation on the line defending what must be becoming a huge financial and totally illogical embarrassment.

My final point this morning is specific to mid-Wales and north Shropshire, but more generally relates to the confidence that the population of Britain have in the democratic process. We have seen reduced engagement with the democratic process, in particular by young people, but National Grid has been granted the power to act beyond any democratic control, spitting in the face of public opinion. Any localism agenda has been thrown out of the window and, in my view, National Grid is acting contrary to any sort of human decency.

I hope that the Minister will consider asking National Grid to scrap such a crazy project or, at the very least, to suspend it until planning permission is in place for wind farms that might need a connection.