Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives

Debate between Michael Shanks and John Hayes

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) on securing it, particularly because I unfortunately missed his Adjournment debate, which I heard was one of the most enthusiastic Adjournment debates we have ever had on this topic. I was delighted to hear him repeat much of that same speech, because I did of course read it in Hansard. The map joke was there in the Adjournment debate, and it was there again today. We appreciated it all the same, and it was great to hear it in person. I thank him for securing the debate, and I genuinely thank him for the enthusiasm he has shown for floating solar. I will come back to that in a moment.

I was also pleased to hear the hon. and gallant Member say that he believes in climate change. That should not be breaking news to anyone, but when we hear Conservative Members stand up and confirm that science is in fact science, it is none the less a relief to me. I was delighted to hear that. However, the challenge—and I will come back to this point—is that, as much as there is a recognition that climate change is a threat, there is also a distancing from any of the actions that would help us to tackle it, and that is simply not a sustainable position for anyone to hold.

If we think about food security, water security and national security, all of them would be put at huge risk by not tackling the climate crisis. This is a very real challenge for us to deal with at the moment. That more dangerous and insecure world is exactly why we are embarking on the clean power mission.

[Sir John Hayes]

While the Minister is on the subject of science, would he turn his attention to agronomy? He will know that only around 15% of the land in the United Kingdom is grade 1 and 2. Much of that is in the east of England and, indeed, in my constituency in Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire has been targeted by solar developers, with countless large solar plans in the offing. Will the Minister recognise that those two things cannot be squared? We cannot have the most productive and versatile land being used up for solar at the cost of our food security.

[Michael Shanks]

I was going to come to the trading of statistics later in my speech, but let me do it now, because there is a fundamental point around the disingenuous trading of statistics on land use. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) made a valiant effort at trying to correct that, but let me give Members some sense of this. At the end of 2024, ground-mounted solar panels covered an estimated 0.1% of the total land area of the UK. Even if we achieve the ambitious targets that we have set out in the clean power action plan, they will be expected to cover 0.4% of the total land area and 0.6% of agricultural land. That is if we achieve our hugely ambitious targets.

The arguments that I will make in this speech are exactly those that the previous Government made when they spoke from the Dispatch Box. There was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Energy Minister who spoke about the dramatic rise in global energy prices following the invasion of Ukraine, the urgency of building a renewables-based system, and how critical it is for us to meet our 70 GW target for solar in the UK by 2025— the previous Government’s target was a fivefold increase.

The now shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), pretends that that was not the Conservatives policy for 14 years, and we now hear a litany of ideas—roadside solar, rail solar, floating solar—but none of them was driven forward in the 14 years that they were in government. Forgive me if I think that it is a little bit rich for them to be oppositionist, not having driven any of it forward when they were in government.

Cost of Energy

Debate between Michael Shanks and John Hayes

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)]

Good morning; it is a pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Western. May I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this debate and, actually, for all our engagements over the past seven months? She always helpfully challenges the Government from a place of real passion and commitment, and I appreciate her words of wisdom, even if I do not always entirely agree with them. In fact, we have had countless debates on energy policy with a number of people in this room—it is beginning to become a bit of a weekly club here in Westminster Hall—and I appreciate all the points that have been raised.

May I say to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that I just cannot get enough of his contributions? Having not spent enough time in the Commons yesterday, we are back again today, but I am appreciative none the less. I will come to his points about Northern Ireland later.

I will start where the hon. Member for Bath started: on the public’s view about the cost of energy. She made an important point about how central energy costs are not just to the cost of living crisis that our constituents are still living through, but to their belief in the Government’s ability to change things, so it is important that we tackle these issues. As the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) rightly said, this Government were elected on a manifesto that contained pledges on energy. I am privileged to have the job of Energy Minister, because for the first time in a very long time we have a Government with a key mission to fix the energy system in this country. The truth is that it needs to be fixed because of what we inherited from the previous Government.

The energy crisis in 2022 was just the peak that highlighted how vulnerable we are to the rollercoaster of the fossil fuel markets. The cost of energy continues to have a devastating impact on our constituents and communities right across the country. Although consumers are protected to a certain degree by the energy price cap, our energy costs are determined by volatile markets outwith our control. As long as we remain exposed to that, the risk to our constituents is that we will face yet another price spike in the future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) made the point well that after 14 years of Conservative Government, we have to not just turn around one bit of the energy system, but deal with the whole series of occasions on which the previous Government failed to make decisions that would grapple with the scale of the problem. That is why I announced yesterday in the main Chamber our transitional support for Drax and biomass. The truth is that we got a good deal for consumers and for sustainability, but we had to make that decision. We had no other options because the previous Government left us with no long-term plan for energy security.

That is why we believe so firmly in our clean power by 2030 mission, which, by creating home-grown renewable energy, will help us to reduce our dependence on volatile fuel markets and will protect bill payers for good. Great British Energy will play a vital role in that mission by accelerating our deployment of clean energy so that Britain can become a clean energy superpower. Crucially, it will also invest in the supply chains that bring manufacturing jobs for renewable energy to our country.

[Sir John Hayes]

I understand the Minister’s desire to create more economic resilience by ensuring energy independence. By the way, I should refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in respect of this contribution and the previous one. The key thing is transmission and distribution costs, which make up 15% of every energy bill. No Government have looked at that seriously. If we distribute energy production to small solar plants spread right across the kingdom, we will maximise the costs and damage the resilience that the Minister seeks. Will he focus on the concentration of energy production and bring it as close to consumption as possible?

[Michael Shanks]

I will come to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about transmission costs later, because it is important, particularly when it comes to how we grapple with constraint costs. The truth is that we will have to build more network infrastructure. I hope he will support the construction of that, although I suspect he will not. We also want to review energy market reforms to look at how we deal with some of these issues. I will come back to the important point, which a number of hon. Members raised, of how we build an energy system for the future. The question of balance is key. We do not want a renewables-only system, although renewables will be incredibly important. We announced last week our commitment to rolling out much more nuclear to provide the baseload and the security of supply. We have the ability to place small modular reactors across the country near centres of demand, such as the data centres that we will see in the future.