Green Energy in the North-west

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for securing this really important debate on an issue that matters not only to all of us here, but to our constituents. I want to draw to the Minister’s attention a few points that are especially relevant to Cumbria, and I hope she can answer some of my questions.

In rural communities such as mine, the growth in the provision of ground source heat pumps in buildings around Cumbria, but particularly in the more rural areas, is hugely encouraging. I would be really grateful if the Minister spent some time looking at the problem whereby small businesses—very often farms—end up being charged ludicrous sums of money to get connected to the grid for the ground source heat pump to work. I have spoken to Electricity North West, which acknowledges that that is not great, but the company is allowed to do it, so it does so. The cost is sometimes about £7,000 or £8,000 per connection, which is massively debilitating for dairy farms and other small businesses in rural communities. That is the first thing I would love the Minister to look at.

Secondly, would the Minister look again at building regulations and insist that the provision of renewable energy is integral to all new builds, particularly solar panels? I understand why there is resistance to this: it adds cost to the bill, and green bills can sometimes be more expensive. However, that could be offset—more than offset—if the Government revised the Land Compensation Act 1961 to reduce the price of land at the same time. That would massively reduce the cost of building, meaning that it would be entirely affordable to insist on solar panels in every new building. Let us remember that retrofitting properties is far more expensive than doing the right thing in the first place when they are built.

Thirdly, could the Minister acknowledge that the Government’s ending of the feed-in tariff schemes for hydro energy and electricity has been massively damaging to that sector? A wonderful hydro-energy company in my constituency, Gilbert Gilkes & Gordon, has had to let go of almost 20% of its workforce indirectly as a consequence. Will the Minister announce now, or soon, ways in which the Government can provide incentives for hydroelectricity and ensure that the likes of Gilkes can expand in the future? It seems most peculiar in a county such as Cumbria, which I admit is occasionally damp and contains England’s fastest flowing waterways, that we are making such limited use of that water. Companies of great heritage, such as Gilkes, could be making sure not only that we employ more people in great jobs locally, but that we make use of the natural energy that is so abundant in the lakes and the dales.

Finally, I draw the Minister’s attention to something that MP colleagues in Cumbria and I have written to the Government about: the exciting prospect of tidal energy across Morecombe bay. This is an opportunity to connect the Furness Peninsula—or, as we say, “Lancashire over the sands”—with mainland Lancashire and, more importantly, to generate energy from that source. This Government need to take the blame, as do previous ones, for the fact that despite the United Kingdom having the largest tidal range on planet Earth after Canada, we tap nearly none of it. Morecombe bay is an opportunity to do just that.

I set these things in front of you, Mr McCabe, and the Minister, and I eagerly await her response. I suggest that all these proposals, and the many others put forward by hon. Members sat around the table and on the internet, could make Cumbria a—if not the—leading green energy provider in the UK, creating thousands of good, long-term jobs, contrasting beautifully with the somewhat less progressive proposal for a coalmine in west Cumbria, which I hope the Minister will agree to scrap.