Energy Developers Levy

Ann Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a levy on energy developers.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. On the Suffolk coast, communities and nature are facing a stack of separate, fast-moving nationally significant infrastructure projects. Those are new generation, multiple offshore wind grid connecters, major transmission reinforcement, multi-purpose interconnectors and Europe’s largest energy project, Sizewell C. As we speak, we have six NSIPs being built or seeking consent in a small, 10-mile radius of my constituency of Suffolk Coastal. Each has been planned separately, but the impacts are felt cumulatively.

I find it absurd that our planning system still examines proposals project by project, and developers are not required by law to co-ordinate. My community is expected to host multiple billion-pound schemes simultaneously, without any statutory tools or funding to force or enforce co-ordination between developers. I need to say that, since I have been raising the profile of this problem, Ofgem has been leading co-ordination meetings with those NSIPs, but Ofgem’s role is only to chair those meetings. There is no statutory obligation to make them happen, and they have come about only because of increased pressure about the need for better co-ordination.

Some improvements have happened because of those meetings, and that is welcome, but we need to go much further. Co-ordination between NSIPs, when they operate in the same area, should be enshrined in law. That is precisely why I tabled new clause 33 to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which would have placed a legal duty on energy developers in the same area to share information, co-ordinate and co-operate on design and construction, and take responsible steps to reduce cumulative impacts.

As I have said before, the failure we are experiencing in Suffolk Coastal is because the previous Conservative Government totally vacated the leadership space when it came to our country’s energy and biodiversity planning. Energy developers filled that void. The Conservative Government sat back and allowed developers to take the lead and introduce proposals for totally unsuitable landscapes, all because it was cheaper than developing on brownfield sites. We have been left with a series of unco-ordinated whack-a-mole projects on the Suffolk coast. There is no brownfield-first strategy, no shared corridor strategy, no binding requirement to co-ordinate construction schedules, no mechanism to prevent the same land being dug up twice and no requirement to look at, or assess, the cumulative impact on nature and the environment.

It is not just me saying this. The Energy Security and Net Zero Committee report, “Gridlock or growth? Avoiding energy planning chaos”, highlighted the need for more strategic co-ordination in environmental impact assessments. It warned of “unnecessary costs and delays” from that “project-by-project approach”. The environmental impacts are assessed separately rather than cumulatively at habitat or seascape scale. In other words, communities in Suffolk Coastal are experiencing a national problem playing out locally, and that is exactly why I am calling for legislation to fix it.

The Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), agrees that it is completely crazy when construction is not co-ordinated. He sees the real need to apply that to not just energy companies but utilities digging up roads and pavements for repairs, or maintenance of gas, electricity and water, and construction projects. The Minister for Energy has previously acknowledged, publicly in debates and privately to me in meetings, that he agrees with me. He believes it is a source of deep regret that the previous Government did not do more to properly co-ordinate the huge build-out of new and important infrastructure. He has challenged me before that the statutory co-ordination I am seeking requires investment. That is a fair challenge. My response is a proposal to meet that challenge by setting out my proposed energy infrastructure co-ordination levy.

In simple terms, that is a levy payable by energy NSIP applicants, designed to fund cumulative planning, shared mitigation and co-ordinated delivery in host communities. It would apply to all energy NSIPs across generation, transmission and interconnectors. The payment would be triggered in two stages: a small amount when the application is accepted for examination, and the main payment when the development consent order is granted.

The levy would be calculated using a hybrid model reflecting real impact drivers: a base rate per gigawatt capacity; a base rate per kilometre of onshore cable; a base rate per substation or converter station; and a cap and a floor to ensure proportionality. That aligns cost with scale and disruption, not simply capital expenditure. Crucially, the funds will be ringfenced locally—that is really important.

[Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)]

I really appreciate the hon. Member’s having secured this important debate, as we have issues very similar to Suffolk Coastal’s in Caerfyrddin and west Wales in general. A levy is really important for cumulative planning and mitigation. I would also add that there are tangible benefits for our communities, such as public transport and affordable homes. Those are things that we do not have in rural communities, but which a levy could support. Does the hon. Member agree that that is the way forward—not the piecemeal dribs and drabs that companies are offering us?

[Jenny Riddell-Carpenter]

I am looking forward to the Minister’s response, but I agree that the whack-a-mole strategy, which I have talked about, needs far better strategic oversight.

A dedicated energy co-ordination fund for affected host areas would be established and delivered through a locally accountable team. That is important, because all too often developers are headquartered elsewhere; they do not live in the areas with the repeated traffic disruption and the cumulative land take. Local institutions— the local council, for instance—must have the capacity to co-ordinate what developers currently are not required to.

The fund would support four priorities: shared modelling and evidence; design co-ordination, such as corridor planning and joint construction scheduling; strategic mitigation for nature, such as landscape-scale habitat restoration and long-term management funding; and the community impact reduction—stronger traffic enforcement and transparent liaison, for example.

Alongside that, there should be a statutory co-ordination board, independently chaired, that could set binding co-ordination objectives that applicants would have to respond to in their DCO documentation. Some may argue that the existing DCO obligations already address that issue; I tell Members explicitly that they do not. There is no statutory requirement for co-ordination between NSIPs.