Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I am sure that the heat that my noble friend was about to allude to will make it attractive to certain kinds of rapid acceleration of growth. It is not the only thing that would benefit there, but it is more about trying to neutralise the impact of what seemed to be necessary infrastructure with the ongoing operations rather than disrupting those who are already farming our land for the food that we need for continued food security. With that, I put forward the benefits of my amendment.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities. I commend the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his amendment and for introducing this group. I will speak to Amendments 79A and 94FA—if your Lordships will pardon the expression—tabled by my noble friends Lord Swire and Lady Coffey and will end with a question for the Minister.

There are environmental and financial reasons for undergrounding these transmission wires. The environmental reasons are mostly because they are wasteful. It is debatable how much they waste, but I think it is between 7% and 10% of the energy that is transmitted, which seems nonsensical. As my noble friend Lord Swire said, they are also unsightly, which in tourist areas is very unwelcome. They are also extremely vulnerable to storm and extreme weather conditions. We have just had the first storm names for the forthcoming season—I do not know whether my niece and god-daughter will be delighted that Storm Amy will be the first one to hit us, but there we go. I remind the Minister that Storm Arwen caused such damage to the north-east of England and North Yorkshire that large swathes of north-east England and North Yorkshire had no electricity for up to 10 days. That is unacceptable.

The second power lines, which I think I referred to at Second Reading, run through the spine of North Yorkshire, from Middlesbrough all the way down to York, where they join the national grid. Only three months prior to those being built, an ethanol pipeline had been laid, tracking more or less the same route through agricultural land that the overhead pylons were following. It makes sense that if you are digging the land up once then at the same time you put the transmission lines there. Underground lines are less vulnerable to storms, extreme weather and extreme frost. In one year, we had temperatures of minus 17 degrees for six days running in North Yorkshire in the winter. Those are the environmental reasons that I put to the Minister.

We are frequently told that we cannot afford to place these transmission wires underground. I remind noble Lords that every single customer is paying, through the standing charge, for the infrastructure. Why do we not have a say, as customers, on the infrastructure that is being used? I give three examples of the latest profits for electricity companies. They are eye-watering and beg the question: why are we told that it is not affordable to place these transmission wires underground? The latest figures I have seen from Octopus Energy are of a 0.7% profit margin, delivering a net profit of £83 million. For OVO Energy, the latest figures I can find are for 2023—I cannot find the figures for 2024, though they are probably available—when OVO Energy announced a pre-tax profit of £1 billion. That is one electricity-generating company alone. For Centrica, there was a £1 billion profit for 2024. Why are we being told that it is unaffordable when there are monstrous profits to which we are all contributing as consumers?

To sum up my short contribution, I strongly support Amendments 79A and 94FA, and argue that there are absolutely no environmental and financial reasons not to underground these transmission wires.