Navitus Wind Farm, Swanage

David Mowat Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I shall come to that point and ask the Minister to reassure me that the subsidy withdrawal will also apply to offshore wind farms. With households already struggling to pay their energy bills, the financial incentives for investors are almost obscene. The news yesterday that such subsidies will eventually be reduced to zero should deter companies hoping to exploit our energy crisis.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Unfortunately, that news will not apply to schemes such as Navitus Bay because it will not be applied retrospectively, if ever it were to happen. Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that, based on the numbers he has quoted, the total subsidy for that wind farm over the next two decades would be in the order of £1.5 billion to £2 billion, which is an awful lot of money for other consumers to find?

[Richard Drax]

I entirely concur. At a time of austerity, when we are all looking for the pennies here and there to keep our country afloat, this is not a moment to dish out money to, in particular, foreign companies. That is what is so ironic: they are Dutch and French companies, not British.

To their credit, the companies involved, Navitus, Eneco and EDF, have consulted and are consulting those who live near to or use those waters, and they have promised to take their views into account. Opponents of Navitus believe that the giant turbines will have a catastrophic effect on the environment and on tourism. Millions of people do not flock to our coastline to watch turbine blades go round; they go for peace and a chance to escape this busy world in which we live.

I worry that our current planning guidelines will not help local people to defeat unwanted wind farm proposals. In a recent reply to my letter, the Minister explained that the Navitus Bay wind farm is a

“Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project under the planning act”.

As such, the project goes straight to the Planning Inspectorate, together with an environmental statement on the potential impact of the wind farm, and that, too, is prepared by the developer.

The Minister points out that the public may submit their views to the inspectorate, but he reminds me that the wind farm is part of our commitment to meet renewable targets. There is a hint of inevitability about his reply, and I should appreciate his reassurance that the scheme is not a foregone conclusion.

I fear, as with recent onshore wind farm planning appeals, that we may find inspectors citing renewable energy targets as more important than planning considerations. I sincerely hope that the national planning policy framework amendments suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry and by other colleagues in the House—in which we recommend that renewable energy targets should not be used by developers as a reason to override the unsuitability of specific locations, and that the wishes of local people should still be considered paramount—will be adopted in the case of offshore wind farm applications as well.