Green Economy

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) who crafted such a genius motion, covering so many strands and industries and laying open the field for us to speak on a number of topics. I have been beaten by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), however, who has already given a full and comprehensive speech on the merits of Suffolk, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter).

I said in my maiden speech that I hoped our coast, the Suffolk coastal area combined with the coast around Lowestoft in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney and round into Yarmouth, would be known as the green coast, and I am delighted to say that our county councils, working with the local enterprise partnership, as has already been mentioned, are doing their bit to try and make sure that that vision becomes a reality. That was further enhanced when an enterprise zone was granted in a neighbour’s constituency and has been designated one of the centres for offshore renewable engineering.

I am delighted to say that the Suffolk-Norfolk rivalries are not quite as strong as they once were: we now reach across the border and our county councils, our LEP and, I understand, Essex county council work together to make sure that we have an energy skills strategy that reaches right across our area. That was evidenced by the decision to allow Norfolk university technical college to be based in Norwich, the city represented by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary. That is a great opportunity and I am delighted to say that Suffolk and Norfolk are getting a grip on it.

With regard to the fiscal and regulatory framework, I was not surprised by the speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), because I know that he holds strong views on these matters. I understand perfectly why he feels that energy costs are unnecessarily high: he blames the subsidy and thinks it is a problem for other industries. I take a very different view: that if we are to encourage self-reliance in energy, we have to invest in our energy infrastructure. It is not about subsidy; it is about an incentive to attract investors from around the world, and nowhere more so than at Sizewell C. I have seen the strong commitment of EDF and British Gas to continuing their planning application work not only at Hinkley Point, but at Sizewell C. Frankly, all the talk about subsidy is nonsense. It is an incentive to have green energy infrastructure on which we can all rely.

I hope that we in Suffolk Coastal will be vying with my hon. Friend and neighbour across the river with the coming online of the Greater Gabbard, Galloper, and East Anglia wind farms and so on, as many of those come onshore in my constituency. That does not mean pylons in my constituency, although sadly it does in one nearby. We are seeing for ourselves the future of green energy, and we are proud to be part of it.

I say to the Minister—she has heard me talk about this before—that it would be lovely if the contribution those communities are making to green growth was reflected in the allocations from the coastal communities fund. They deserve the lion’s share of that money. Frankly, I feel that we should get our share of the revenue that the Crown Estate secures from offshore wind farms and other such activities. [Interruption.] I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet seemed to say, “Hear, hear” to that.

On other routes to market, I think it is telling that one aspect of green growth is trying to reduce the amount of energy we need for anything. I am delighted that the Government have put in place the money for rural broadband roll-out. I hope that the director general for competition in the European Commission does not put a spanner in the works by trying to prevent that money—our money—being used to ensure that we get broadband throughout the country. The other investment that my right hon. Friends in the Government are making, of course, is the investment in rail. I am sure that the Minister will not mind if I plug the future launch, which we hope will be very soon, of our prospectus for increased investment in rail, because we believe that it will generate a huge economic return for our region and the country.

I will mention briefly the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams). I have a lot of sympathy with his dedication to biomass. We have an anaerobic digestion plant at Adnams near Southwold and more are planned, but there is concern in East Anglia that biomass plants will be powered by straw that is sourced locally, because that would increase the price of straw for farmers elsewhere. With increasing welfare standards, which we all welcome, agricultural production will require more straw, which will start to become a scarce commodity. I have raised the issue with hon. Friends elsewhere—indeed, I am meeting the Minister to discuss the point—because we need to bear in mind the risk of distorting practices elsewhere through incentives on one side.

Finally, I will turn to the planning debate. There is no question but that I prefer offshore turbines to onshore ones, even though they are more expensive—the cost is coming down, as has been mentioned—especially as half my constituency is in an area of outstanding natural beauty. A very unpopular planning application was granted only the other day in Levington, which is in an AONB, and I was rather shocked and surprised that the four councillors outvoted three and the one who abstained. It was a great shame, because one of the things we need to do is get our communities behind the energy revolution and to share in it. Elsewhere in the constituency, communities have come together in wanting a turbine, so that they can use the proceeds from it. We need to develop an element of consensus on wind farms, because once they are in place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney will know with the Kessingland turbines, there are still issues for residents that need to be solved.

I shall use part of my contribution to this debate to call on my local district councils and indeed councils throughout the country to take advantage of the recent Department for Communities and Local Government guidance on including a supplementary planning document specifically on renewable energy. Instead of councillors being beset by every single application and the Planning Inspectorate overturning decisions, I would like to see local councils develop their activities in a planned and structured way and be part of the process of making sure that the future is as green as the luscious fields that we have enjoyed since all this rain fell.

The future is green. One of our party’s slogans was “Vote Blue, Go Green” and I would like to think that under this coalition Government, we are doing more than ever to promote the green economy.