Solar Panels on Agricultural Land

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, as I will call him. The Government have been blinded by their net zero zealotry. They need to open up their eyes and listen to what the public, and we as the public’s representatives, are saying.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I applaud my right hon. Friend for her speech and for securing the debate. I want to say something vital. We finally managed, against Government pressure, to get an amendment into the Great British Energy Act 2025 to stop the Government buying solar arrays made in Xinjiang in China, where slave labour is practised, but we know that they simply do not check enough. We have clear evidence that cheaper solar arrays are still made using slave labour. It is all very well to talk about 300 years ago, but right now we are allowing slave labour to take place. The Minister needs to get to his feet and give us a pledge that he will put in proper checks to stop that filthy trade being part of the disaster that my right hon. Friend is eloquently describing.

[Esther McVey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that issue. He spends a lot of time and energy investigating and pursuing it and I am glad he has brought his expertise to this debate.

The Government have made it clear that solar energy will be central to their clean power mission, with solar capacity expected to increase from 17 GW to between 45 GW and 47 GW by the end of the decade. However, meeting that target should not come at the expense of the country’s agricultural land.

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[Sammy Wilson]

rose—

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Michael Shanks]

I give way first to the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson).

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Shanks]

I give way to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith).

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The main point I want to make to the Minister is that China thwarts all the rules around commerce. It subsidises all its industries, including the solar industry. It uses slave labour, which we have mentioned. The thing about slave labour is that America does this in a much cleaner way: it assumes that the companies are using slave-made solar panels and leaves it to the company to prove, using serious checks including forensic science, that it is not. The Government should look at and adopt that process; it would kill the supply of slave-made solar panels tomorrow.

[Michael Shanks]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman; he made similar points during the passage of the Great British Energy Bill. We continue to look at and review that across Government in relation to procurement and Government investment in these projects. We want to incentivise, as much as possible, supply chains to be here in the UK.

I do not accept the point from the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) that cost alone is the reason why we do not have supply chains here in the UK. We must use the mechanisms we have to encourage manufacturing in the UK. That is why such things as the clean industry bonus are about saying that, alongside contracts for difference to build renewable energy in the UK, companies can also get investment to make sure that manufacturing is here in the UK, too, and the jobs that go with it. We also need security at a time when supply chains are critical. No doubt this is a challenge and I accept that point, but there is more we can do.

I want to come back to what the right hon. Member for Tatton said about net zero zealotry. I think there is quite a lot of anti-net zero zealotry in this debate. At the end of her speech, she said something that I completely agree with. I hope there is recognition that solar is part of an energy mix, not the entirety of it. We need a mix of technologies, but the quicker we can get off fossil fuels, the better it is for our energy security in a very uncertain world, as we are all experiencing, and in terms of bringing down bills. Solar is a crucial part of that, and although we absolutely want to see solar panels on as many rooftops as possible and to support innovative projects such as floating solar, we also recognise that ground-mounted solar plays a critical role in this.

The right hon. Lady also made a number of points about food security, and of course, I absolutely agree with her. Food security is national security. We need to back British farmers and agriculture is really important in this country. I understand that it is important that we work to preserve the beauty and character of rural areas, but that is precisely what the planning system exists to do. It weighs up different impacts with opportunities, looks through specific projects and takes account of local views, all of which are considered in these processes.

The planning system is also really clear that a number of projects in a particular area will have cumulative impacts on the nationally significant infrastructure project pipeline, and that is taken into account in these processes. Whether it is visual amenity, protected landscapes or the natural environment, all of these things are taken into account. As the right hon. Lady said, the planning system already steers developers to use brownfield sites wherever possible, and the development of agricultural land can take place only where it is absolutely necessary, and even then, lower-grade land should be used first.