Onshore Wind Energy

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Walker. I represent Beverley and Holderness. The Holderness plain is a flat area with a large skyline on the east Yorkshire coast. Unfortunately, it does not lack wind, so I cannot use that in defence of my constituents. What it does have is a tremendous flat landscape with some of the most productive farmland in the country, the towns of Withernsea and Hornsea and a collection of villages and hamlets. Funnily enough, the people who live there love the landscape in which they live. They appreciate it. It might not be an officially designated area of outstanding natural beauty, but the people who have chosen to live there adore it, and they wish to feel that they have control over it.

We have heard different arguments from different Members about onshore wind. To sum up the central point made by Conservative Members and the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), local people should decide on local wind turbines. There is a qualitative difference, not to mention a quantitative one, between a nuclear power station, which makes a huge contribution to national energy needs, and individual wind turbines. All the components of the coalition Government promised local people that they would have a greater say. We can tell the worm has turned when a Labour Whip starts to say so, as the hon. Gentleman did passionately and vehemently today, although, to chide him, I wonder whether he made the case so forcefully to Labour Ministers, who introduced the appallingly centralised, arrogant and overweening system in which local people’s opinions are routinely overturned. He is nodding to say that he did. I congratulate him on that, and naturally I believe him.

The situation that the Government have inherited in terms of local democracy is unacceptable. It cannot be right, when local councillors, residents, MPs and everybody else in an area agree that a potential wind farm is not correctly sited, that they should be overturned by Obergruppenführers from some inspection regime in Bristol. It is not acceptable. The central thread of the manifesto on which Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members were elected last year was a promise that there would be a change. I believe that we can deliver more onshore wind turbines if we respect local people’s views and do not set up the expectation that their views are meaningless and that they are wasting their time trying to make their voices heard at meeting after meeting. If we tell them that they will benefit and if they can make that assessment without being overturned, we have more chance of developing a greater constituency of people who recognise the need to green our energy supply and are happy to have onshore wind as an appropriate part of an energy mix and not inappropriately sited.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman and others have said about local people’s right to decide on wind farms, but the last thing that he said is the first thing with which I have really disagreed during the 45 minutes that I have been in the Chamber. There are not only good local reasons to stop wind farms; at a national level, they are ineffective and inefficient at contributing to the energy supply. Not only do they require huge subsidies, but they must be backed up by coal-fired stations running at lower efficiency just in case the wind does not blow. On many occasions in this country, although the wind may be blowing, it blows at only 1 or 2 mph, which is not sufficient to power the generators.

[Mr Stuart]

The hon. Gentleman leads me on neatly to the next part of my speech. My point is that it should primarily be a decision for local people and that although onshore wind might have a part to play, the central task in dealing with climate change in this country and globally is to reduce the cost of cleaning up our energy supply. We must live sustainably on this planet with lower emissions, due to the potentially catastrophic impact of those emissions on climate change. I do not know whether the science is right, but the risk that emissions could have deleterious effects on the globe seems sufficient for us to take action. The only way to do so, given economic pressures and the fact that so many people live in poverty, is to drive down cost.

We have a finite amount of money; ever less, since the hon. Gentleman’s party was in Government. Is it best expended in subsidising unpopular, small-scale wind farms scattered around the country that turn people against the green agenda and deliver precious little in return? I suggest that it is not. In line with what he said, we must consider where we can play a leadership role and how our limited resources—financial, intellectual, geographical—can be harnessed for the global good.

We are a global leader in offshore wind. We now produce 1.3 GW of offshore wind, I think—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—and aim to produce 33 GW by 2020, which will keep us narrowly ahead of what the Chinese are planning, although it is worth saying that when the Chinese plan something, they have a tendency to do it, while we have a tendency to talk about it without doing it. However, that aside, offshore wind provides the opportunity for scale and investments such as those made by Siemens, GE and other companies elsewhere if the Government do everything possible with the limited money that they have to develop a supply chain that can drive down the costs of offshore wind. If they do, there is every reason to believe that within relatively few years, the currently high costs of offshore wind can be driven down below the costs of onshore wind and make a long-term contribution. The Minister shakes his head, in which case I would question whether we should have any form of wind energy if we cannot drive the cost down. The central task in tackling climate change is to find ways of greening what we do at an acceptable, lowest possible cost. Everything we do and every time we spend money should be designed for that purpose.

I have some questions for the Minister. I have been led to believe that Ministers are personally committed to making the local voice stronger. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) has said:

“To be successful it is vital to have broad public support and the consent of local communities. This includes giving communities not only a say, but also a stake, in appropriately-sited renewable energy projects like wind farms.”—[Official Report, 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 36W.]

Some people call it a bribe to have something unacceptable, but if something is going to happen and the local community has the final say and decides that the benefit outweighs the disbenefit, who are we to stop it? I support that. When are this Government going to overturn the monstrous inheritance of centralised control and replace it with a local voice? That is what I would like to hear from the Minister.

When will the Minister introduce regulatory protection, which others have talked about? Other countries have a distance limit. Does the Minister see no merit in having a distance limit of some description so that no turbine can be erected within—pick a number—1 km or 1.5 km? Is that possible? That would give reassurance and show that the voices of protest around the country had been listened to by a listening Government. I would love to hear the Minister say that he will consider doing that, so that a wind turbine may not be erected within a certain distance of a domestic dwelling without the permission of the home owner.

Many others wish to speak. I hope that the Government will allow the local voice to be dominant. We should let local people who take a wind turbine to have a share in it, but we should also make sure that we focus what little resource we have on that which will make the greatest contribution to reducing emissions and to leading us all to live sustainably.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I have given way enough, and others want to speak. The point is that I find it nauseating to hear politicians for ever bleating on about how terrible fuel poverty is when those very same politicians advocate policies that entrench fuel poverty in this country and make it worse. They should be honest about what they are doing. They cannot in one breath say, “I want to see more wind power in this country; it will add this amount of money to people’s bills,” and in the next breath say, “Isn’t it terrible how bad fuel poverty is?” I find that nauseating.

At the moment, Britain is only obtaining a fraction of its electricity from renewable sources. That will have to be expanded massively to hit these targets. The wholesale price of that quantity of electricity is about £1 billion. However, on the renewable obligation, the complex subsidy paid to generators but drawn indirectly from bills adds a further £1.4 billion to those bills. That more than doubles the cost to the British consumer. If 30% of UK electricity is to be renewable in 2020, an ongoing annual subsidy of £6 billion a year or more is required. That is before all the hidden costs of major grid expansion and so on.

[Graham Stringer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I need to press on because other hon. Members want to speak.

What is worse is that the National Audit Office has identified wind power as being one of the most expensive ways of reducing carbon emissions, with recent reports claiming that abating 1 tonne of carbon costs between £280 and £510, compared with £10 to £20 per tonne in the European emission trading scheme. There seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. When I asked the Minister a parliamentary question about these issues, he replied that the Government have spent £2.2 billion supporting wind energy between April 2002 and March 2010 and that, despite that huge outlay, they have found it impossible to predict when the energy source will prove profitable without grants. The Minister stated:

“We expect that over time we will be able to reduce support for wind power and other renewable energy technologies as they become more economic, but it is not possible to put a specific timescale on this.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 185W.]

I was also struck by the comment about wind speeds and the extent to which they are brought to bear on planning decisions on wind farms. I asked the Government about that last year in a parliamentary question that states:

“what guidance his Department issues to planning authorities on taking into account prevailing wind speeds in determining planning applications for wind farms.”

I would have thought that that would be pretty obvious to most people. I was appalled—although perhaps I should not have been surprised—to be told in the answer that the advice is that

“local planning authorities should not make assumptions about the technical and commercial feasibility of…projects and should not reject planning applications simply because the level of output is small.”

The answer goes on to state that local authorities

“should not question the energy justification for why a proposal…must be sited in a particular location”.—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 818W.]

Basically, wind speeds are not to be taken into account whatsoever when determining planning applications for wind farms. You could not make it up, Mr Walker.

Wind farms are very inefficient. In fact, during the chilliest periods, when demand is often greatest for electricity, most of the 3,000 wind turbines were virtually stationary. They were working at less than a 100th of capacity and producing electricity for fewer than 30,000 homes. A report by the John Muir Trust—one of Scotland’s leading conservation bodies—found that wind turbines are 25% less effective than claimed. For a total of nine days during some of the coldest periods, output dipped below 10 MW, which is barely enough to boil 3,000 kettles. The situation is absolutely ludicrous.

I could talk about many other issues. Noise is certainly one problem. I reiterate the comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness about having distance guidance on where these things could be sited. Scotland has guidance on such matters, as does Wales. I hope that the Government will introduce such guidance for England, too. There are also concerns about wildlife.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire made a great point about the problems in Denmark, but I do not think she mentioned this point, although she may well have done. As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) mentioned, the conventional power plants have to keep running at full capacity in case the wind does not blow sufficiently. As a result, the increasing demand for coal needed to plug the gap in Denmark left by underperforming wind farms meant that Danish carbon emissions rose by 36% in 2006. That was when Denmark was massively expanding wind farms. It seems bizarre to say the least. Reports have shown that Danish gross domestic product is approximately 1.8 billion krone lower than it would have been had it not embarked on such an energy policy.

The hon. Member for Ogmore asked for international comparators. In Spain, in 2007, a law passed by the Prime Minister guaranteed producers a so-called solar tariff of as much as 44 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity for 25 years, which is about 10 times what they would be able to get on the wholesale market. That has nearly bankrupted Spain, which has obligations of about €126 billion to meet.

There are alternatives, one of which I want to draw to people’s attention briefly. Calor has developed a liquefied petroleum gas fuel cell boiler that has the potential to deliver 50% reductions in carbon emissions in existing homes. It does not require huge subsidies or place a huge burden on the economy, and it reduces fuel bills, rather than increasing them. The technology is practically and commercially available. The boiler is based on clean technology—cleaner than oil, coal and biomass—and I urge the Government to consider some of the other options, rather than pursuing a blinkered approach that results from the belief that wind farms must be good because they sound green. They are doing huge damage to not just our local communities, but local households, which are faced with increasingly big bills to pay for the policy. Such an approach is also damaging our manufacturing industry, as it simply cannot afford it.