Offshore Wind Farms: Unexploded Ordnance

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) on securing the debate. I am pleased to respond on behalf of the Opposition.

As we have heard from many Members today, the issue of unexploded ordnance in our seas is a far-reaching one. There are no official estimates of how many unexploded devices sit on our seabed, but as we increase our use of renewable energy—and we welcome increasing construction of wind farms in our seas, which the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) highlighted—the issue of munitions must be addressed and dealt with. The creation of an offshore wind farm should not come at the cost of irreparable damage to the seabed and vulnerable marine species. It is clearly preferable for wind farms to be constructed offshore. The risk and disruption at sea are clearly less. In my constituency just last week a blade flew off a wind turbine. Luckily no one was hurt, but there is clearly a risk to human life. Where we can extend offshore wind at sea that is preferable, but clearly that comes at a risk to the seabed and to marine life.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), using high order detonation methods to remove munitions from the seabed is causing undue harm. Many species of marine life rely on their hearing to navigate around our waters, establish feeding patterns, and communicate with other mammals. High-order detonation has been found to cause irreversible noise trauma to thousands of sea mammals, as discussed by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). A 2015 study found that 88 explosions in one year would be likely to cause about 1,200, and possibly more than 5,000, permanent hearing loss events. In the five years since that study, we have seen an increase of 13 new wind farms in British waters, which contain a combined total of 853 individual wooden turbines. Does the Minister agree that a more up-to-date assessment of the harm caused to our vulnerable marine life is well overdue? We need to establish the damage caused by more recent detonations, so that we can understand the scale of the problem today.

Low-order deflagration is said to cause far less damage to our marine life and seabeds than high-order detonation, yet detonation remains the most common method of clearing unexploded ordnance in preparation for the construction of offshore wind farms. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) spoke with great experience and knowledge of that alternative, and of its benefits. Surely protecting our marine life and seas should be a major factor in the decision about whether to move to the use of low-order deflagration methods in place of detonation. We should not have to tolerate any more manmade tragedies, such as what happened at Kyle of Durness in 2011, when 39 long-finned pilot whales became stranded in the bay area after being displaced from their habitat following a high-order blast. Nineteen sadly died, and the subsequent DEFRA report concluded that a high-order blast

“was the only external event with the potential to cause the Mass Stranding Event.”

In June 2020, the National Physical Laboratory published a report funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The report appears to favour low-order deflagration over high-order detonation, but there has been no move from the Government to implement any changes following the report’s publication. Instead, we are told that there will now be a third, and potentially a fourth, stage of the report in order to

“further improve the information base”.

Will the Minister give an indication of when the findings of the third phase will be published, and whether there is a commitment to move straight into the fourth stage? When that is completed, do we expect to see a change in legislation to preserve vulnerable marine life and our seabeds? Given that the reports have been commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and that this is obviously an issue that has far-reaching consequences for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, can the Minister tell us what ongoing discussions DEFRA has had with BEIS on this issue?

As everyone in the debate is aware, we are in the midst of a climate crisis, which is something that the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) spoke about at some length. An increase in renewable energy sources needs to be made available, and more offshore wind farms is one of the best ways to achieve that. Indeed, at the end of 2020, there were a further nine offshore wind farms under construction. When finished, they will have a combined total of an extra 619 turbines. On the one hand, that is a positive move in the fight against the climate crisis, but it should not come at the cost of threatening our marine life. The Government have previously said that they

“recognise the potential for significant impact of underwater noise from unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance on vulnerable marine species”,

and that they are

“taking active steps to manage and reduce the risk.”

In conclusion, can the Minister outline the steps being taken and give a commitment that further action will be taken to ensure the waters around the UK, and the species that live there, are protected?