Onshore Wind Energy

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

Before the hon. Lady moves on geographically—I come from a totally different part of the country—let me congratulate her on the way in which she has constructed a very strong argument against wind energy, although it is not one that I entirely sign up to. However, I feel that she has overplayed the negatives. Turbines, for example, are not operational for about 100 hours a year as a result of strong winds. She has also rather underplayed the economic benefits to the manufacturing sector in the UK. Does she not agree with the way in which this Government are approaching this issue? They are constructing incentives for communities to benefit from wind farms rather than simply having them established in the landscape with no benefit to the local community. Does she think that that might help to change people’s attitudes towards them?

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. Many colleagues want to speak. Can we have pithy interventions?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Absolutely. As I said earlier, I completely applaud the Government’s intention to enable communities to share in the benefits of wind farms; it is absolutely right. It should have been done before now. I completely agree that where wind farms go ahead, communities should benefit. None the less, I slightly take issue with the point that my hon. Friend made about the amount of time that wind turbines are actually working. The latest statistics show that, on average in the UK, they operate between 25% and 30% of the time.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies]

On a point of order, Mr Walker. The hon. Lady intrigues me. It is a very good debate and she has put some powerful points. However, has there been some policy announcement today? From what she has said, it sounds as though it may be beneficial. Are we hearing here and now a policy announcement?

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

That is not a point of order. In his summing up, the Minister might want to refer to the letter that he sent to the hon. Lady, but it might just be a personal letter that we all receive from Ministers.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I can confirm that the letter was simply a piece of information that was put on the Department of Energy and Climate Change website. The Minister’s office sent me a link to it, so I can confirm that the information is in the public domain.

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[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and it is one that I completely agree with.

There is now a fairly gloomy picture in this country, where it appears that the taxpayer foots the bill for wind farms, communities pay the price of the loss of amenity and the wind farm developer takes all the reward without even needing to prove that there is a benefit in terms of reducing our carbon footprint. So I again applaud the Minister for the way in which we are moving to a different environment, in which communities will have a greater say and will share in the proceeds that accrue from the building of wind farms.

Having looked into this issue in great detail in the last few weeks, I accept that there are marginal benefits from onshore wind. However, it is very difficult to suggest that onshore wind will mean that we can reduce our reliance on conventional power sources. By the very nature of wind, that will not be possible. Nevertheless, wind should be present in the mix of what we are trying to achieve: reducing our carbon footprint, plugging the energy gap, and ensuring good energy security.

Having said that, the benefits of onshore wind have been hugely exaggerated by the developers who stand to make huge sums from the taxpayer incentives. In addition, we are genuinely adding to fuel poverty in this country and costing consumers and businesses billions of pounds because of this battle to develop onshore wind. Another study, by the Centre for Policy Studies, suggested that 61% of people are either fairly unwilling or very unwilling to see their electricity costs rise to pay for onshore wind development.

So what are the solutions? First, as I have said, I welcome the Localism Bill. It goes a long way to providing solutions that will put people back in the driving seat. I welcome the commitment to sharing the financial benefits of wind farms between developers and the communities that host them. I thoroughly welcome neighbourhood planning, which will allow local communities to exclude or include wind farms within their neighbourhood plans.

Secondly, if those neighbourhood plans include wind farms, they can be up to a capacity of 50 MW. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to take my proposed amendment to the Localism Bill as his own and to adopt it. What I have proposed, with a great deal of support from hon. Friends and colleagues across the House, is that the capacity for onshore wind farms that come under the neighbourhood plans should be 100 MW, in line with offshore wind farms, rather than the 50 MW that is the current capacity. The reason is that otherwise there would be the perverse incentive for developers to apply for planning for a 52 MW capacity wind farm to get around the neighbourhood plans. Therefore, I urge the Minister to consider my amendment seriously.

Thirdly, we need to look very carefully at the rights of communities, to ensure that we have the right balance in this sector. In Denmark, for example, there is a minimum distance from habitation of four times the height of the wind turbine and in Scotland the guidance says that there should be a 2 km exclusion zone. There is certainly more that we in this country can do to ensure that people can defend their immediate environment.

Fourthly, we should look very carefully at how we ensure that developers go to those areas of the UK that are very windy and not to those areas that are marginal in terms of the amount of wind that they receive and that are only profitable because of the taxpayer benefits that they offer.

My fifth point is that we in this country should be looking much more closely at other sources of renewable energy. In particular, I want to highlight ground source heat pumps, which have been described as

“the most energy-efficient, environmentally clean and cost-effective space-conditioning systems available.”

There is an advert for them.

There are also tidal and marine technologies, which are more predictable and reliable than wind, and they are cheap to maintain once they are established. Hydroelectric power is even more reliable than tidal power, because it allows water to be stored to meet peak demand.

I also want to make a call for action on the renewable heat incentive. Last week, I saw a company in my constituency that turns methane from landfill sites into biofuel. The machines that the company uses to do that generate heat, which the company plans to use in polytunnels in Kent, allowing the strawberry-growers there to compete with our colleagues on the continent. What could be better than trying to use that long chain of renewable energy to provide yet more energy?

So what we need is cheap, reliable sources of energy and to have a better balance between onshore wind, which has such a high cost for communities, and other sources of renewable energy. In conclusion, onshore wind plays its part but as a country we need to balance the national priorities with the right of local communities to have their voices heard.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. We have an extraordinary number of colleagues who wish to speak. We have an hour and 40 minutes left before the wind-ups by the Front-Bench spokesmen, so I will leave colleagues to do the mathematics.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. We have 25 minutes left. I see three Members who wish to speak, but there might be room for four, depending on how Members handle their time.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. I would like to get in two last speakers.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I will be as quick as I can, Mr Walker, despite the plethora of wind farm applications that is currently affecting my constituency.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We have an extra five minutes, so the hon. Gentleman does not need to rush too much.

[Andrew Percy]

Thank you, Mr Walker. That gives me time to mention all my various campaign groups. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing the debate. Since her election, she has proven a vociferous campaigner on this and many other issues, and it is good to see her standing up for her constituents again today.

On a positive note, I am a big supporter of the renewables industry, which has the potential to offer thousands of jobs up and down the country. As the Minister knows, in the Humber, fantastic opportunities are coming our way with the announcement that Siemens is coming to the region for offshore wind. Companies are coming for manufacturing, and all sorts of opportunities are facing us. All MPs, local authorities and businesses are trying to support the Humber, and I thank the Minister for the support that he has shown. The region has suffered considerably over the past 10 years, never mind the current austerity measures, but renewable energy is one way that our region can come back. I am a big supporter of renewable energy, especially offshore wind. When it comes to onshore wind, however, with no whiff of hypocrisy I have a few concerns about where the country is heading.

My constituency crosses east Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire and contains some of the flattest parts of the country. A lot of it is drained marshland; it is very flat, we have wide horizons, and consequently we also have high wind speeds. That means that we have been besieged by wind turbine applications. Such applications are not for small wind farms. When I heard one hon. Member speak of three or four wind turbines I thought, “If only.”

A wind farm application for 34 turbines at Keadby has been given permission on approval. There is permission for a wind farm at Goole Fields for 20 turbines, and at Twin Rivers for 15 or 18 turbines—there are so many, I forget the exact numbers. Wind farms already exist at Bagmoor, and there is another farm of 18 turbines at Saxby Wold. There is an application for a number of turbines at Worlaby, and I have 14 turbines opposite my house in the village of Airmyn, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams). We successfully fought off an application at Elsham and, most recently, just this week North Lincolnshire council refused planning permission for the third time for Flixborough Grange. That was for a small development of eight turbines. It has been through the planning application twice, and been to the planning inspector once. On that occasion, the inspector upheld the local authority’s decision, but within less than a year the application came back in exactly the same format as the first one. The planning committee at North Lincolnshire council said no again on Wednesday, and I thank Conservative colleagues on the council, along with a small number of Labour councillors, for standing up for local residents.

Such things demonstrate how ridiculous the situation has become. North Lincolnshire hit its 2020 targets two or three years ago, but it continues to be besieged by application after application, and something has to give. We were willing to play our part. One or two of the applications I have mentioned—including that at Goole Fields, which is in the east Yorkshire part of my constituency—went ahead, despite being a big development, with very little public opposition. Residents were generally supportive of that location, so it is not a case of saying no to everything. We were prepared to do our fair share. In North Lincolnshire, when the Conservatives ran the council, we adopted a policy of, “We will take our fair share but we want a say in where the wind farms will be located.” Because of that policy, we hit the 2020 target. Nevertheless, it made no difference. Applications continued, they were approved on appeal, and the 2020 targets meant nothing. Thanks to the vociferous campaigning of groups such as BATs—Burton Against Turbines—and SWATs—Saxby Wold Against Turbines—we have managed to stave off some of the applications. However, if it were not for well-organised individuals in particular villages, we would be covered in wind turbines.

There are great opportunities in the Localism Bill for communities to have more say. However, I am concerned that we will end up in a situation where, as one Minister said, we have to “frontload” the system. That is all well and good in parts of the country that have not already played their role, but we feel that we have played our part and hit our target. We have hundreds of wind turbines planned. They are all 410 feet high—we will have none of that metric nonsense. Imagine looking out at 34 turbines, each 410 feet high, and then turning a little and seeing a further 20 turbines three or four miles up the road, and then a further 18 a couple of miles further on. We are creating landscapes of turbines that are encircling communities.

We do not mind playing our part on energy. We have Drax power station, Keadby gas-fired power station and several coal and gas-fired power stations in the area, and we are willing to accept them as important and necessary for the country. We must, however, ensure that as substantial numbers of turbines have been approved, a planning system is in place to support residents who say, “No, we’ve done our bit already.” We cannot ask communities to do their bit year after year, and I would like to hear from the Minister about our position on the big, onshore developments. I too will support the amendment to the Localism Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire.

I do not want to take much more time as one more Member wants to speak. The issue of appeals is perhaps not in the Minister’s remit, but I am sure that he talks regularly to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government, and we must establish what the appeals procedure will be. We understand that there will have to be an appeals procedure for bigger developments, as they are national infrastructure issues. The system must take local people into account and not allow what happened to East Riding of Yorkshire council a few years ago. It had a good record of risking public money in defending appeals and had turned down a number of wind turbines. However, through the Secretary of State, the inspector not only overturned a decision, but said to the democratically elected councillors, “You must stop rejecting these wind turbines.”

Where is the democracy in that? That is the planning system we have been left with by the previous Government. That is why it is so important that localism means exactly what I think it means—local people having real power and a real say over what goes on in their communities.

I again pay tribute to the Minister for his work in supporting our renewable efforts in the Humber. I hope that he will respond to my debate in this Chamber next week on the renewable opportunities in the Humber. We support renewable energy, but when it comes to onshore wind, we in Brigg and Goole say that we have done our bit. We were happy to do our bit, but enough is enough.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. The winding-up speeches will start at 4.55 pm. I call Stephen Barclay.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Thank you for letting me speak at short notice, Mr Walker. I endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) about our hon. Friend the Minister. We are very fortunate that he is handling this important brief. I also echo the comments of various hon. Members about my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) securing the debate and the formidable way in which she campaigns for her constituents.

I want to make three points before we move to the winding-up speeches. First, I want to press the Minister on whether we have the right funding balance for the various renewable technologies. In reply to my parliamentary question, he helpfully clarified that the cumulative expenditure between now and 2020 is anticipated to be £8.3 billion for onshore wind, £14 billion for offshore wind, £2.5 billion for solar technology and just £1.1 billion for tidal technology. We are an island nation and tidal renewable energy is something that we can sell around the world if we build that expertise. Given the climate of the UK, I wonder why we are spending on tidal energy less than half what we are spending on solar technology, and such a disproportionate amount less than on wind turbines. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that.

Secondly, what has come out very helpfully from this debate is the need for greater clarity on guidance, particularly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) pointed out, in relation to the distance between turbines and homes. That is a central concern of constituents of mine in Tydd St Giles, who are fighting an application for 12 turbines, which would be such a blot on the landscape of the fens.

May I suggest to the Minister a further area of clarification that could be put in the guidance? It relates to communities that reach the point of providing for 100% of their electricity need from renewable onshore wind turbines. In my constituency, Fenland has, on 2008 figures, 41,800 homes, yet we now have so many wind turbines that we already provide enough renewable energy for the equivalent of 40,000 homes. To return to the point about balance, if we are already at the point at which we, as an area, are producing enough renewable energy just from onshore wind turbines to power all our homes, it seems disproportionate that our beautiful and distinct open landscape is being over-burdened by too many wind turbines—it is fast becoming the “forest” of the fens. That goes back to the point about balance that a number of hon. Members made so clearly.

My third point is one that I tried to make in interventions. It is about the lessons to be learned from the targets that were set by the Department, albeit before the Minister’s term of office. In particular, what lessons do we draw from the target set in 2000—a 10-year target—which the previous Labour Government missed so badly? What lessons have the Minister’s officials learned? Have they conducted an analysis of what went wrong so that they can learn the lessons?

Furthermore, can we ensure that we are not paying, in terms of fuel poverty, for perverse consequences from the very odd, legally binding commitment that was signed up to in 2009—the earlier commitment having been missed—for a massive increase in the amount of renewable electricity to be produced? The figure is over 30%, although the Department, by its own estimates, reckons that it will take 12 years—from 2000 to 2012—to deliver 8%. That period, on the Department’s own figures, according to evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, accounted for 8%, yet in 2009 we signed up for a target such that over the remaining eight years we would add a further 21%. Again, there are lessons to be learned.

Have we got the funding balance right? Can we have greater clarity on the guidance? Can we learn the lessons from the targets that my hon. Friend’s ministerial predecessors set and subsequently missed? I look forward to his clarification of those matters.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Order. Front-Bench winding up speeches will last until 5.25 pm. Then the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) will have five minutes to wrap things up.