Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Bool]

I am not debating the National Farmers Union; I am saying that we should not be putting farmers in this position. I would not blame any farmer trying to make a bit of extra money from solar, particularly since the current environment is very difficult for them. The problem is that ground-mounted solar is not the best use of that land in any event. Agricultural land should be used for exactly that—agriculture.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I am afraid to say that I think the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) has completely missed the point, because the reality is that this country is about 60% to 63% self-sufficient in terms of food security. This is not just about land being taken out of production; it is also about the long-term degradation of the health of the soil on which the solar is being mounted, because of issues such as shading, reduced rainfall, construction-related compaction issues, reduced organic matter and contamination risks. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just about taking the land out of production but about the long-term degradation of soil health once the land comes back into agricultural production—if it ever does—after the solar agreement of 40 years or so has elapsed?

[Sarah Bool]

Absolutely, and that is one of the arguments that we were trying to make in the hearing against the Green Hill proposal, which is for 60 years. We cannot see the justification for that. There will be a renewal right, no doubt, and even within those 60 years, the solar panels will be degraded from rain and we will not know what the run-off will cause. There are so many factors that we do not know about, and I want to ensure that we have good-quality agricultural land for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Shanks]

I will not be drawn on golf course membership, because I do not know how many of my constituents are members of golf courses; I can imagine how many Conservative Members are.

I come back to the point about land use, because we absolutely recognise the importance of having a framework for how we use land across the country. That is why the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published the first-ever land use framework in March— I recommend a read of it. It is a vision for all of England’s land use, using the latest data on how much we need for housing, energy and all sorts of things to ensure that we are making the best use of land. Both that and the strategic spatial approach to planning the energy system could have been done in those 14 years, but they were not. That is why we have ended up with a haphazard approach to strategic planning, and why we are now building the grid to connect the renewables that were built all over the country without that spatial plan. It is important that we strategically plan that, and it was not done previously, so we are moving forward to do it.

[Robbie Moore]

I have read the land use framework. The Minister has hit the nail on the head, because its sole beneficiary is his Department—the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero—and not our farmers or our food security. Can he specifically address the issue of land quality? If we are putting ground-mounted solar on agricultural land, will he at least recognise that that will degrade the quality of the soil health, given the amount of time that those solar panels will be in situ?

[Michael Shanks]

I will not be able to go into the detail of everyone’s points, but the hon. Member is wrong about the land use framework. Perhaps he should read it again, because it details quite clearly the different land uses across the country. There is always tension about land use—of course there is. That has been true throughout history, and that is why we are strategically planning it.

We are clear that the planning system recognises best use. Every application is considered on its merits; I am not going to be drawn on individual applications, but we have clearly said that ground-mounted solar should be used, wherever possible, not on the best-used land.