Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if he will take steps to prevent solar panels from being placed on agricultural land.

Planning guidance makes clear that, wherever possible, solar developers should utilise brownfield, industrial, contaminated, or previously developed sites. Where the development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, lower-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land.

The total area of land devoted to solar panels is very small. As of the end of September 2024, ground-mount solar PV panels covered an estimated 21,200 hectares (52,000 acres), which is only around 0.1 per cent of the total land area of the UK.