Energy Bill [HL]

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

As I say, what we are seeking is simple justice. I will leave the closing words to the Minister himself, when he was dealing with the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Featherstone in relation to solar energy.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

I apologise for interrupting and am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for allowing me to do so. Given that he is not moved by the arguments made by the Front Bench on our side, perhaps I could try an argument on him that might appeal particularly to a Scottish Liberal Democrat. News came in recently, in the last month or so, of a study that has found that the density of breeding golden plover goes down by 80% when a wind farm is built on a particular piece of moorland.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Viscount is rehearsing Second Reading arguments. We are dealing with some very small—but very important to the developers—changes to try to ensure justice. As I indicated, the Government will get their policy and will be able to close down the onshore wind industry subsidies, as they wish to do. What we are trying to do is to ensure that this very small and limited number of cases where substantial amounts of money have already been laid out by developers in trying to take the development to planning consent—and where in some cases the council had indicated that it was minded to consent after much local discussion and engagement—should be allowed to proceed.

To us it is a question of simple justice. I read somewhere the other day that the Scottish author William McIlvanney had said that Scotland’s motto was not,

“Wha daur meddle wi’ me?”,

but was really, “It’s no’ fair”. In this case, it isnae fair. The Minister himself said, when dealing with the end of the renewables obligation for solar of 5 megawatts and below, that,

“we have aimed to strike the right balance between protecting bill payers and protecting developers who have made significant investments, while being conscious of the need to decarbonise our energy infrastructure. That is why the order makes provision for a number of grace periods, which mirror those offered last year as part of the large-scale closure. Stakeholders have welcomed this consistency”.

Well, they do not welcome the inconsistency in dealing with onshore wind. He went on to say:

“One of the grace periods was designed to protect developers who could show that a significant financial commitment had been made on or before the date on which the proposals were announced. This required evidence that a planning application had been made, among other things, as a proxy for the financial commitment”.—[Official Report, 16/3/16; col. 1915.]

It seems to me that that is entirely in line with what we are proposing in these amendments. It is a question of simple justice, and even at this late stage I ask the Minister to think hard and seriously about these matters and to respond favourably. I beg to move.