Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether he plans to provide financial support to encourage (a) undergrounding, (b) offshore routing and (c) other alternate routing of electricity pylons in rural and environmentally sensitive areas.

The Government does not fund the delivery of network infrastructure. Network company investments are funded through consumer bills, and this funding is regulated by Ofgem through the price control process. The design and development of electricity transmission infrastructure is a matter for the developer, including conducting necessary assessments of projects’ impacts on the environment, with the implications of those choices considered through the planning process. The energy National Policy Statement for electricity networks (EN-5) sets out a starting presumption for overhead lines in most cases and identifies when undergrounding or subsea cables should be considered.