Planning and Solar Farms

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Everyone is in favour of renewable energy and there is no harm in having some solar farms; the problem is the sheer scale in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. Ten thousand acres of applications ring the small town of Gainsborough, and are marked on the map in the red and black. This is ludicrous overdevelopment. To distribute, say, 1,000 acres —that is the offer—in a large rural district such as West Lindsey, covering perhaps up to 600 square miles, would be reasonable, but 10,000 acres ringing one town is just ridiculous overdevelopment.

The point I want to make is that when it comes to a public inquiry—and there should be a public inquiry—the applications must be taken as one, because developers are trying to have their cake and eat it. On the one hand, they say that these solar farms are nationally significant infrastructure projects. They say that simply because they want to bypass local opinion—that is the only reason. They want to bypass the whole planning process. They say that they are nationally significant infrastructure projects and therefore must be considered by Whitehall rather than by the local authority. That is their point of view, although when Tony Blair brought in the new planning system, it was designed for nuclear power stations, not for one little company making numerous applications and subverting the local planning process.

On the other hand—this is where the devil comes into all this—the developers are dividing the projects into separate applications. One of my constituents noticed that some developers submit multiple applications, but under the same project management team. All three of the developers in our part of England use the same law firm. When the Department considers such applications, it must consolidate them into one and look at them as a whole. I do not think any fair public inquiry would allow development on 10,000 acres ringing one town, as long as the applications were consolidated into one. But they are trying to pick us off one by one.

We all know that if the applications were approved, thousands of acres of good farmland would be lost. This is at a time when food distribution networks worldwide have been turned upside down by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Even this week, since the latest attack on the Crimean bridge, Russia has said that it is suspending the agreement to allow grain to be exported through the Black sea. Our own national planning policy framework presumes against the approval of applications that would build on highly graded agricultural land; that is because Britain’s food security is of the utmost importance.

I am sure that when the Minister responds to the debate he will say that we do not want to build solar panels on good agricultural land. We all know that the protection applies to land grades 1, 2 and 3a, but we must extend the exemption to 3b as well. Talk to any farmer in Lincolnshire—my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) is married to a farmer, so she knows this issue more than anyone else—and they will say that the quality of land is all much the same for wheat, grain and barley. Any farmer will say that. Solar companies are trying to conduct so-called analysis of the land to prove that it is 3b when no one in the past has cared whether it is 3a or 3b. The whole thing is a con and a cheat.

It is worrying that there is some evidence that some of these companies have Chinese backing. All this stuff is made in China. What are we playing at? Opposition to the projects is both broad and deep. I have had objections from the parish councils of Brampton, Brattleby, Broxholme, Burton, Cammeringham, Fillingham, Glentworth, Ingham, Kexby, Knaith, Marton and Gate Burton, Saxilby with Ingleby, Scampton, Springthorpe, Stow, Sturton by Stow, Upton and Willingham.

Consider the visual impact. Look at the cliff that runs all the way down the centre of Lincolnshire. If all the applications are granted, anyone looking from the cliff will see a sea of black. Instead of seeing unique farmland stretching away to the Trent, perhaps all the way to the Pennines, there will be a sea of black. The developers have offered almost nothing in community gain. We have heard all about the threat to good usable farmland. Building solar farms on that land undermines farming as a profession and the agricultural sector as a whole. Farming is a challenging, all-consuming and difficult calling in life. It is incredibly rewarding for those involved in it, and absolutely necessary for the lifeblood of the country.

As we have heard, Lincolnshire is the breadbasket of England, and we would like it to stay that way. Covering 10,000 acres around one town is not the way to do that. The land covered by the applications I have talked about could feed two cities the size of Hull for a year. The panels would stand 4.7 metres tall. I have known tenant farmers, whose families have been farming 200 or 300 acres for 200 years, who will be thrown off their land. They have absolutely no rights: the landowners can come in and throw them off the land they have been farming for generations.

Who gets all the benefits? I have nothing against large landowners. Unfortunately, I am not one myself; I would love to be a large landowner. We have many large landowners in Lincolnshire. To be fair to them, they are good people. They are already quite well off, but they are going to get fantastic rewards. The rewards that landowners get are staggering.

[Dr Johnson]

The situation may vary for different landowners. I have talked to those in my constituency—that does not include my husband because, although he is a farmer, he is not planning a solar farm, or at least not to my knowledge—and the amount offered is more than they would get for farming the land. It takes out the risk of things such as bad weather. Equally, the difference after tax is not so great. In fact, the money is going to the speculating companies—the prospectors who approach landowners to rent the land from them.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am worried about where those companies come from. This has all grown up very suddenly and they have huge financial resources. I suspect that they are not very interested in Lincolnshire; they are based in London. They are a group of entrepreneurs who are going to make shedloads of money and then sell the planning application on. They do not care a damn about us.

[Sir John Hayes]

When I became the Energy Minister, I assumed that the renewable industry would be full of people like Richard Briers of the Good family. Remember the Goods in “The Good Life”? They were people interested in keeping goats in their garden and doing a lot of composting. In fact, they were the kind of people who drove flashy sportscars and had been selling double glazing the week before. It is clear that this is not about the environment and renewable energy; it is about getting rich quick.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

In that brief period of the Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), tried to change the definition to include 3b land. A huge mountain of well-funded lobbying money was put in immediately to frustrate the whole process. Make no mistake: this is not about the countryside and it is not about producing green energy in the right controlled way. It is about money. Some people are going to get very rich indeed.

Solar power has a vital part to play, but solar panels belong in moderate amounts—perhaps—on poor agricultural land, atop buildings and on brownfield sites, not on good farmland. Put them on top of large logistics centres at the side of motorways. Sit them on top of factories and industrial buildings. Put them on schools and houses, by all means, but good land needs to be kept in agricultural use.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) for securing the debate and the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution. In Northern Ireland, there are examples of solar farms being integrated into small farms where sheep are able to graze. There are a couple of examples of that in my constituency. Solar farms have been agreed to in places where there is industrial land with which it has not been possible to do anything. That land might have been corroded by lead mines or something like that. Those are the best places for solar farms. Productive land should be kept for farming, as the Ulster Farmers’ Union wants.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Industry always responds to subsidies. I cannot understand why the Government do not create a new subsidy regime whereby if someone builds a massive warehouse, it is in their benefit to put a solar panel on top of it. That is something the Government could do. Let us keep solar panels off good agricultural land, and let us have them in proportion. I hope the Minister will respond positively to this important debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

What is the difference in wheat production between 3a and 3b? Will the hon. Gentleman enlighten me, please?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The right hon. Gentleman tempts me to stray outside my departmental responsibilities, which I will not do. I am afraid that we are in complete agreement with his Government, who say that there needs to be far more solar deployment on category 3 land. He may want to take it up with the Minister outside the debate.

We believe that the system needs a renewed focus on integrated spatial and infrastructure planning to ensure we are developing and using land strategically, and ensuring that large sites of more than 50 MW are appropriately distributed across the country. I listened with great interest to the comments of the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) about a land use framework. We certainly support that direction.

We believe the planning system needs proactive and strategic energy deployment to be integrated fully into local and neighbourhood plan development, and renewable development should feature prominently in the development plan’s soundness test. We believe the system needs to speed up the process for securing planning consent for renewable generation of all kinds for projects over and under 50 MW capacity.

That is not to say that we do not understand and appreciate the concerns that have been expressed in the debate. As I have made clear, there is no question but that we need a more strategic and planned approach to ground-mounted solar deployment across the country. We need to do more to drive up rates of rooftop solar installation and prioritise solar deployment on previously developed or lower-value land. We need to take steps to further maximise the efficiency of sites used for renewable deployment, and co-locate infrastructure wherever possible to mitigate its impact on communities. We need environmental protections to remain in place, and we need communities to continue to have a say about where large-scale projects are best located.

Ensuring we have a sensible approach to large-scale ground-mounted solar deployment does not mean that there is an option to refuse it wholesale.

Independent Review of Net Zero

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on an excellent report. It is also a very long report, and very comprehensive.

Net zero is all well and good. Of course we need to make effective use of our natural resources—everyone agrees with that. Cutting out waste from our society and using what we have in better ways has always been a sound conservative principle, so none of us can disagree with it. However, we need to approach these issues holistically, and avoid making huge errors that would set us back in other respects for the sole purpose of chasing the goal of net zero.

Let me give an example. Since the second invasion of Ukraine last year, we have realised how tenuous our food security is. The world food supply is incredibly delicate, and it makes no sense whatsoever to take good land out of agricultural use to build huge solar farms. I know quite a lot about this, because in my constituency there are applications to build solar farms on 10,000 acres of good agricultural land. Each of the panels will be 4.7 metres high. Those 10,000 acres that will be taken out of agricultural use could feed two cities the size of Hull every year. Vast resources, in the form of financial compensation, are going to a very few people. Someone who owns 1,000 acres could receive £2 million a year, but tenant farmers, unlike landlords, are being put out of business.

This is a serious issue, and I hope that when people chase goals like net zero, they will try to think creatively. The report rightly says—on page 9, I think, and I have read it—that we must do much more to put solar panels on the rooftops of schools, factories, and logistics and distribution centres. We have millions of acres of flat-roof warehouses where they could go, but cutting the amount of land that feeds our families and communities is surely nonsensical. By all means have as many solar panels as you like and have them within scale, but the applications in a single district that I represent, West Lindsey, cover an area greater than the whole of the east midlands. Whatever anyone says, ultimately the consumer will not benefit from lower prices; the rewards will go into very few pockets indeed.

The excellent report refers to—I like this phrase—

“a clean and endless supply of wind blowing across the North Sea.”

In Lincolnshire, I can stand behind my house, on the top of the Wolds, and see in the distance huge arrays of wind farms in the North sea. They are built with virtually no objections, and we are becoming—perhaps already are—world leaders in this regard. However, when it comes to onshore windmills, while I assure the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) that I understand what she is saying, the ones for which there have been applications in my constituency would be taller than Lincoln cathedral, which for 400 years was the tallest building in the world. None of these huge windmills will be built in Brentford and Isleworth, I am afraid. If they were, there would be such fantastic opposition that it would never happen, so they will all be built in rural constituencies.

[Ruth Cadbury]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I mentioned the hon. Lady, so the least I can do is give way to her.

[Ruth Cadbury]

There are actually at least two windmills in my constituency, one on Ormiston Wire in Isleworth and the other, a large one that a great many people see when they see drive in or out of London on the elevated section of the M4, on Sky Studios.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Well, if I am wrong I am wrong, but I do not think there is much enthusiasm for building windmills as tall as Lincoln cathedral in urban areas. We can say that in theory we are in favour of onshore windmills, but I assure the hon. Lady that every time they are proposed, there is a gruelling process of public inquiries and fierce opposition lasting many years. How much better it would be to concentrate our resources offshore. As I have said, we are world leaders in offshore wind, and there is never any objection.

The report also refers to achieving net zero through better public transport. It talks of the importance of getting more people to use sustainable public transport rather than making individual car journeys. When I am down in London I hate using a car; I would much rather use the tube, the bus or even a Boris bike. However, it is different in rural areas such as Lincolnshire, where we have been calling for better public transport links for decades. Little has been done; indeed, the services have become worse and worse. Too often, we have fallen victim to service cuts when budgets from central Government have been reduced.

If services for people who live in less built up areas are only two-hourly, or even once a day—or indeed, in the village where I live, non-existent—those people have to rely on cars, not just to socialise but for essential activities such as working and shopping. If the Government are serious about net zero in public transport, they must radically upgrade our rural transport links, and that includes the frequency of service. However, that is never going to happen, because it is so fantastically expensive, so I am afraid we will be reliant on cars for decades, or perhaps forever in rural areas such as Lincolnshire. By all means reduce the carbon footprint of buses—put solar panels on them if you want—but a net zero bus that arrives only once a day will not be of much use to you.

It is now 2023, but the sale of all conventional cars is to be banned from 2030, and the sale of hybrids by 2035. Lincolnshire measures 2,687 square miles, or 1,719,600 acres. The Government need to make clear how they are going to roll out charging points across such a vast area, because it is simply not going to happen by 2030. Are they in touch with the energy supply companies? Have they had discussions with rural councils about the transition? I put it to the Minister, who represents a Scottish constituency, that this is simply not practical in rural counties, and we need to think very seriously about it.

The excellent report by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood points out that the UK’s housing stock is much older than that of most similar nations. More than 50% of homes in England were built before 1965, and almost 20% before 1919. As the report says, that has a huge impact on energy efficiency. I live in an old house, and I know very well how difficult it is to heat such houses. Nearly 50% of low-income households in England are in homes with energy performance certificate ratings of D or lower, and on average they use 27% more gas and 18% more electricity than higher-rated homes. These are the least well-off people, but there is no point in our preaching to them about the value of heat pumps, which they cannot afford. Lower-income households simply do not have the disposable income to pay for this kind of investment, unless we are prepared to devote massive resources to helping them.

We are also paying the price of decades of failure to invest in clean nuclear energy. In the wake of OPEC and the oil crisis in the 1970s, France’s Gaullist Prime Minister Pierre Messmer realised how vulnerable his country was, and ordered a huge upscaling of French nuclear energy. As a result, France now has a cheaper, cleaner energy supply, and is selling the surplus to needy countries such as ours.

As I said, we need to approach this issue holistically. The UK’s contribution to carbon emissions is minuscule on the global scale. I am not saying that is an argument for doing nothing, but it is a fact. If we achieve net zero, the gain for the planet can be wiped out by a tiny percentage increase in China’s or India’s huge carbon emissions. These are growing developing economies. Let us be realistic about it: they look at us telling them to cut their emissions and think we are cheating them. They both have complex relationships with the west. We are very friendly with India, but we are the former colonial power there. The rise of Hindu nationalism makes that relationship even more complicated and difficult.

As for communist China, it views us with distain. Judging by China’s actions, it is not wholly convinced by environmentalism. If people view the world from a totally materialist utilitarian perspective, as a communist Government do, why would they be as environmental as we claim to be? They would see all the leading developed and industrialised nations such as ours, which were totally reckless when we were industrialising, lecturing them. Now that we are on top, we tell developing countries to toe the line and not do what we did to get to the top—that is their view. They view our preaching as hypocritical on the one hand and patronising on the other.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am about to finish, but I will give way to the hon. Lady.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Is the right hon. Gentleman not making an excellent argument for why we should lead by example? We cannot tell others what to do unless we show leadership ourselves.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, of course we should lead by example. I accept everything that is in the report and we must lead by example, but I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood, who was an excellent Minister and has written a wonderful report, accepts that some of the points I have made about being realistic, particularly in terms of rural areas, should be taken into account. That is the point I wish to emphasise.