Solar Farms: Agricultural Land

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Savage]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I agree that that is the way forward.

Let us consider the facts. Our agricultural land is dwindling at an alarming rate. We are down to 14.8 million acres of arable land, the lowest amount since world war two, and we are losing nearly 100,000 acres annually. We already import nearly 60% of our food. Do we really want to increase that dependency on foreign supply chains?

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

My hon. Friend is being super generous and I am grateful to her. She makes excellent points. We obviously have means by which we can control how those things happen, through the environmental land management payment scheme and planning law. Would she agree that, through both of those streams, we should be able to ensure that food security is at least as important as energy security, and that we should not be using productive agricultural land for solar farms when they can be developed elsewhere? Westmorland and Furness Council, for example, has used disused land to provide a solar farm of its own on non-agricultural land.

[Dr Savage]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we should be prioritising locations that do not impact on our ability to meet our food security needs.

The environmental benefits of solar farms are not as clearcut as some would have us believe. Yes, they produce clean energy, but at what cost? Large installations can alter local ecosystems, potentially contaminate soil and even increase local temperatures due to heat absorption by the dark panels—and let us not forget the human cost. Tenant farmers face eviction. Land values are skyrocketing, making it harder for new farmers to enter the industry, and we risk losing the very character of our rural communities that underpins local tourism and our national identity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He expresses a concern that local Members of Parliament will always have when constituents come to them with issues. Look, we are balancing an issue when it comes to solar. At the moment, about 0.1% of all our land in the UK—and, it turns out, about 0.1% of all agricultural land as a proportion as well—has solar on it. Even if we were to reach our targets or go beyond them, it would still be less than 1% of land. We have to look at that statistic, but we also have to look at the local situation, which is where we absolutely accept that we are asking people to have infrastructure in their communities that will affect them. It could change their view, change their roles or change the jobs that are available; it has an impact. Through our clean power action plan, we are looking at the community benefit systems that we need to put in place. I cannot speak to the hon. Gentleman’s particular case because it is going through a process and it would not be right for me to do so, but I am mindful of what he says about the need for communities to feel like they will have some direct benefits and to understand why we need some of this infrastructure.

The reality is that we have not kept up to speed with infrastructure developments in this country over the past couple of decades, and we need to move faster. Whether it is our grid system, renewable energy or our transport systems, we need to build these things for our children and grandchildren to have the future that we want to see. Of course we need to be mindful of the impact and how local people feel. That is why, for the nationally significant infrastructure projects, there is still consultation and strong engagement with communities. That needs to get better, and we are looking at that through our clean power action plan.

I am mindful of the time. I want to move on to food security, which the hon. Member for South Cotswolds mentioned. Food security is national security, and it is very important for this Government. We need a resilient and healthy food system that works with nature and supports British farmers, fishers and food producers. That is why the Government will introduce a new deal for farmers to boost rural economic growth and strengthen Britain’s food security.

[Tim Farron]

The Minister is being very generous; I am grateful. The concern is that farmers are often pushed into things that they would not choose initially—such as giving over productive agricultural land for stuff that is not food production. Because of the perversity of Government funding changes, perhaps the most egregious thing in the Budget was the 76% cut in the basic payment for farmers this year, which will make many of them feel that their hand is forced to go down a direction that they do not want to go down. Might the Minister have a word with the Treasury to see whether that cut could be taken away?

[Sarah Jones]

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point. The wider point about farmers being pushed according to EU or local subsidies over the years is of course right, and we need to get the balance right. I will speak to the numbers again: we are looking to go from 17 GW to around 45 GW, which is a trebling of the current land use of 0.1%. We are talking about small numbers, although I appreciate that in some constituencies, such as that of the hon. Member for South Cotswolds, it will feel much bigger because there are more of these products coming along.

Of course we need to get our system right for farmers. I am a Member of Parliament in Croydon, where we do not have many farmers, but I am incredibly grateful to them for their role and the work that they do, and we need to make sure that we support them. Where it is necessary to develop agricultural land—and we need to start with the basics of using other land first where we can—we do not think it will have any significant impact on food security because of the numbers: less than 1% of the UK’s agricultural land will be occupied by solar farms. We do not believe that will have an impact on our food security.