Solar Farms and Battery Storage

Debate between James Gray and Matt Rodda

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great considerations that we are currently battling with is the question of food security. Post-Ukraine, or during Ukraine, we are facing a real crisis in food production in this country. Why we are taking perfectly usable agricultural land and covering it with vanity mirrors and industrial battery storage units, I simply cannot imagine. It is extraordinary.

Just yesterday, we had a debate in this Chamber on a similar subject—the question of housing in planning—and, to some extent, we are discussing the same thing. Developers should, of course, be encouraged to reuse brownfield sites in town centres, but, given the choice between a brownfield site in a town centre or a greenfield site in the countryside, they are going to go for the greenfield site. We therefore have to change the planning system to focus house building on previously used land. A little off the subject, Mr Paisley—thank you for not picking me up on that.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating speech. Does he feel that there is a need to prioritise brownfield land and particularly to look at brownfield in urban areas, as well as in rural areas?

[James Gray]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. We have car parks that are good places to put overhead solar farms, as they do in many other parts of the world. Every factory that is built should have solar panels on the roof. Massive areas in town centres should have solar panels attached. However, those solutions cost developers quite a lot more money, and they are not going to do that if they can just buy a nice greenfield site and stick the solar farm out there. It is much easier for them to do that. That is why the planning system has to constrain what they do, so that they are forced to come back into our town centres and use the kind of solutions he describes.

We ought to move on to the central question, which is about planning. Wiltshire Council is being particularly targeted at the moment because it is being a little too cautious. The council is very concerned that, if it turns applications down, unless it can demonstrate that the application absolutely did not fall within the current planning guidance, the inspector will overturn that decision at appeal, and the council will then be faced with substantial barristers’ costs.

Wiltshire Council is saying, perfectly reasonably, “We need to be guaranteed that we are within planning law when turning down these applications.” That is why the detailed definition of planning law and the NPPF is incredibly important in order to give some comfort to councils such as Wiltshire Council when they say, “This is going to be turned down. Here’s why.” The wording of the NPPF should therefore be clear. I have been saying to my council that, at the moment, it is clear. Paragraph 155a of the NPPF says that local plans should provide a

“strategy for energy…while ensuring that adverse impacts are addressed…including cumulative landscape and visual impacts.”

The guidance says:

“It is for each local authority to determine a planning application to include the consideration of intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside, as well as whether the best quality land is being used for agricultural purposes. Large-scale solar farms can have a negative impact on the rural environment, particularly in undulating landscapes.”

There is not one inch of Wiltshire that is not undulating, so, if that were to be applied in detail, there would be no solar farms in the county of Wiltshire.

As has been said, guidance also states very clearly that solar farms should be focused on

“previously developed and non agricultural land…that is not of high environmental value”.

The guidance actually says that at the moment, leaving aside the upcoming review.

On 9 March, in this Chamber, the Science Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), confirmed that interpretation of the NPPF. He said:

“In 2021, the Government set up a national infrastructure planning reform programme,”

which will be reviewed

“later this year”.

We would be interested to hear when that happens; we want to know the outcome. He continued:

“As part of that, the Government are reviewing the national policy statements for energy.”

Importantly, speaking as a Minister from the Dispatch Box, he said:

“It seems to me that”

we need

“a clearer national policy statement…The draft revised national policy statement for renewables includes a new section on solar projects, providing clear and specific guidance to decision makers on the impact on, for example, local amenities, biodiversity, landscape, wildlife and land use…It requires developers to justify using any such land and to design their projects to avoid, mitigate and, where necessary, compensate for impacts”—[Official Report, 9 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 127-8WH.]

on agricultural land.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Debate between James Gray and Matt Rodda

Committee stage & 3rd reading
Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda]

I want to speak to the new clauses tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden).

As we heard on Second Reading, there are a number of important areas that the Government seem to have overlooked. Those failures and omissions are part of a pattern of behaviour by the Prime Minister and his Government. They show a casual approach to their responsibilities. As a result of that behaviour, they are undermining trust in the Government. The Government’s approach could have a damaging effect on millions of pensioners and indeed on the public as a whole.

Before turning to the amendments, it is worth considering the fact that the Government have still not offered any reassurance on their commitment to the triple lock in the long term. It is still not clear whether Ministers are leaving the door open to scrapping this important policy. I ask the Minister and the Secretary of State to set out a meaningful commitment to the triple lock, justify the decision to remove the earnings link, and explain why the Government have not found a way to keep the link, such as by providing a link to earnings over a longer period of time. With three broken promises in just a few short weeks, the Government have little credibility left and they now need to rebuild trust in this important area of policy, and in their work as a whole.

On the new clauses, colleagues from across the House are right to raise concerns about pensioners, particularly those on lower incomes. Recent research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reiterates this. While there was a “dramatic reduction” in pensioner poverty between 1997 and 2012, the last few years have seen that progress “unravel”. House of Commons Library research shows that before housing costs, 19% of pensioners were living in poverty. After taking housing costs away, 18% were living in poverty. The problem is much worse for women than for men. Women make up—

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

On a point of order, Dame Eleanor. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I am just a little puzzled. I understood, looking at the Annunciator, that we were discussing clause 1 stand part, rather than amendments to clause 1. I just wondered precisely what we are doing here.