Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st September 2025 Lords Chamber

This is not a ban on solar—well over half of the land in this country would still be available for it under NSIP, just not the 42% that reliably feeds us. Put simply, the NSIP loophole for solar prevents our nation striking the right balance between food security and energy security, and still less the security of our democratic process. That is why it must go.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 94B regarding permission for energy substations on higher quality agricultural land, I will also speak to Amendment 94A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, which according to the Herald is pronounced “drum-lang”. The amendments reflect the concerns that I and my noble friends have about what is happening on higher quality agricultural land, which, as we have heard eloquently described, is critical to food security.

My noble friend’s amendment reflects quite a lot of the concerns expressed in the House of Commons. I am thinking of my right honourable friend Wendy Morton, my honourable friends Sarah Bool and Mike Wood, and a number of other people who have spoken in debates in the House of Commons who are concerned for a couple of reasons about why battery energy storage systems seem to be not exploding —well, some of them are—but certainly expanding.

There is an important point to understand. We have seen, progressively, the previous Administration and this Government trying to get a grip on managing energy production and to get a proper strategy going. Meanwhile, in the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, the proposal is that we need about 27 gigawatts by 2030, 29 gigawatts by 2035, and a broader estimate—although the Government have not set a formal target—of 50 gigawatts by 2050. But where are we right now?

Figures from a paper from RenewableUK published in December 2024 suggested that there were 5 gigawatts of total operational capacity and 127 gigawatts in the pipeline. You do not need an A-level in maths to add up and find that that comes to 132 gigawatts. Of those, I think it is fair to say that 40 gigawatts have already been consented, 30 gigawatts are in the planning process and a further 48 gigawatts are being developed to go into the planning system.

My concern and that of my honourable friends and right honourable friends in the other place is that, in our process, we have already approved pretty much all that has been wanted by our energy operator. So why is it that, in effect, we seem to be encouraging even more to come through?

I am conscious that not every application will necessarily produce the outcome that is desired—we have seen that with other things—but, frankly, for those who have got the planning consent, we should make sure that they deliver what they say they are going to do. We should do that instead of, yet again, building up, and potentially blocking, land being used for food production to perhaps become an area for battery energy storage in the future, when we will have already achieved our outcome.

We discussed a lot about safety earlier; the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, spoke to that. He spoke comprehensively, but I point out to him there have been some instances where, for example, chemical interactions meant that hydrofluoric acid was produced. I did my PhD in chemistry a long time ago, but HF is one of the chemicals that I used. I can honestly say that, if you get it on your skin, although you will not realise it for a couple of days, your bones are basically crumbling right inside your skeleton. If you get it in your eyes, it is game over, frankly. On a very serious note, it is fair to say that there are significant risks. While the HSE has been cited as having a framework in place and similar, the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, referred to the Defra consultation about bringing these regimes into the EPR. It was published only last week. This is no criticism of the Minister, but what is noteworthy is that it said—I am quoting word for word—that

“it is not the role of the planning system to regulate fire risk and there is limited provision through the planning scheme to ensure that measures are maintained”.

I am sorry, but one of the key features of the planning system is to consider fire and fire risk and the like, so it will be worth the Minister looking at that element again; I am sure his officials will be keen to do so as well. We need to make sure that these things are safe. I shall give way.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

I am reminded to reprise what the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said earlier about the need to have pre-scrutiny and the fact that a national organisation, the HSE, was the competent body. As my noble friend has been speaking, I have been reminded that it is for local organisations, the local fire authority and the local planning authority to make those determinations. National bodies such as the HSE do not have the capacity or the local knowledge to comment appropriately.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I think that is right. The HSE, on its own website, refers to the fact that it cannot comment on every application and, in effect, needs to be proactively contacted only if there is considered to be a major risk.

I am also conscious that the River Test is considered by my honourable friend Caroline Nokes to be under threat. For people who are interested in these things, I commend the speech of my right honourable friend Sir Alec Shelbrooke, who talked about dendrites. It was a very knowledgeable, well-researched speech about fire risk, including thermal runaway and the like.

Coming back to the fundamental proposal of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, he specifically asked me to talk about safety. There is a concern about overdevelopment and the loss of food for agricultural production. We will keep coming back to this on this side of the House, recognising the importance of food security alongside the other elements of national security.

On the amendment that I have tabled, perhaps I should declare an interest as this is about a subject that I have referred to a few times before: energy substations. Again, I am worried. There is an element here of thinking about where we do energy generation or other aspects of interconnection. Frankly, if the Government think the only way they can get these things done is by ripping apart environmental protection law and reducing food production land, they should not connect at those areas that already have these environmental designations or are key producers of food in this country.

My amendment refers specifically to 1, 2 or 3. I am conscious that the best and most versatile land is traditionally grades 1, 2 and 3a. However, Defra, through Natural England, does not publish where grades 3a and 3b are, because apparently that is too difficult to do, as it requires individual local site surveys on determining whether a particular field is grade 3a or 3b, so for comprehensiveness I have put in grades 1, 2 and 3.

However, as my noble friend Lord Fuller has pointed out, there is an element here about the fact that, frankly, a lot of this stuff was—in effect, with a light touch—reconsidered only in 2010. Fundamental parts of our land have not been assessed in terms of their contribution towards food production or food security for probably the best part of 40 to 50 years. As a consequence, recognising the targets set by the Government and the challenges that we face, I am conscious of the land use framework. Admittedly, I did a draft of that nearly three years ago, and I am sure everyone is frustrated that we still have not seen it yet. One of the challenges is this competing element of what we do with the land that we have.

Let us be straightforward about this: once agricultural land is gone, it is gone for good. I am not blaming farmers or landowners, who, candidly, the policies of the last 12 months have given even more reason to get a secured income on the basis of the value or use of their land. One of the foibles, in a way, of doing things such as leasing out land for solar is that it does not adjust in terms of the agricultural elements of inheritance tax. However, when farmers can get a guaranteed income for a proportion of their land, while other things are so uncertain, I do not blame them for wanting to make that choice.

My honourable friends—apologies, I am still earning about this place; I should have said my noble friends—have eloquently put some of the issues around solar. There definitely has to be a place for solar across our country, but one final point that I want to make on battery energy systems is that we really need to target where they are going to be. There is no point in having batteries in parts of the country that are nowhere near the grid or near where most of the energy is going to be used. That is why I have proposed the amendments I have today.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I simply want to agree with Amendment 89 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger. I prefer it to the amendments from my noble friends Lord Fuller, Lord Forsyth and Lady Coffey, although they all have merit. We have heard from my noble friend Lady Coffey that we may already have enough solar farms under consent already, although I am not sure what the Minister thinks of that.

As the House of Lords, we can take a longer-term view and, unfashionable though it may be, I believe we should protect the highest-quality agricultural land for farming and food and prohibit solar farms on that land. It is of course less costly for the developers, who want flat sites, but that is not a good reason to sacrifice the best land needed for food security.

Government is about balance. Our population is growing. We live in a dangerous world that could one day jeopardise imports of food, and the most productive land should be devoted to growing crops.

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Moved by

[Baroness Coffey]

94C: After Clause 28, insert the following new Clause—
“Electricity infrastructure: consentConsent may only be granted for any electricity infrastructure, including generation, transmission through interconnectors, and any associated infrastructure including substations, within a 50 square mile area where the cumulative capacity is less than 10% of the country’s total electricity capacity.”

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, we are in the final stretch, and I will not be at all insulted if people choose to vacate at this stage of proceedings, recognising that we are past the usual hour. But the future of energy infrastructure matters. It matters where it is in the country; it matters for national security. That is why I have tabled Amendment 94C.

It is no secret to those people who have been in this Chamber or the Moses Room when I have talked about energy that I have recognised that part of Suffolk has a huge number of NSIPs relating to energy. I will talk about various issues in the three different groups; I have done this somewhat deliberately to try to make sure that Ministers and officials from each of the different departments really consider what they are signing up to and what is happening with the progress of electricity infrastructure across this country.

I am not in any denial that we need to consider carefully the transition to a different sort of grid. This needs to be considered carefully in recognising what is happening on concentration. In about 10 years’ time, it may have gone down a little, but about 30% of the country’s electricity will be generated in quite a small part of the country or it will act as the host point for interconnection from the continent. That will be concentrated in an area not of 50 square miles, as I referred to in my amendment, but considerably smaller. That is happening through the continuing generation of Sizewell B, the future generation of Sizewell C and interconnectors coming in at various points along the Suffolk coast—interconnectors to the continent and to the offshore wind farms that are already operational and currently being expanded.

One of my concerns—I appreciate that this is another issue of which I never managed to persuade my former colleagues, but I am hoping that the Government will listen—is that it is a huge matter of national security that we are concentrating so much of the energy in this country in a very small part geographically. I will not call that overemphasis a sitting duck, because I am very conscious of all the security that goes into nuclear power stations and the like, but it is an overconcentration. We think about the impact that a breakdown of resilience can have, and it could end up depriving the rest of the country of desperately needed energy.

It is for that reason I genuinely believe that, strategically, the Government should be thinking about spreading our principal electricity generation around the country. I will come to other reasons why I think the cumulation does not help, but it is that sort of threat which we should be considering right now. I am aware of the concerns in continental Europe about the deployment of certain grades of weapons by foreign actors. I am aware of the risk that has to be monitored and assessed, and we should be doing that in this country as well. That is why I genuinely believe the Government should reconsider their accumulation of projects and be far more strategic in where all these different energy sources are being placed in the country.

To that end, I believe that we should be looking to reflect the fact that we have opportunities in different parts of the country where, by the way, the Government already have land—they do not need to acquire more land. Too often, it is the Ministry of Defence refusing to take on some of these projects, because it wants to do various practices and different things like that. At the same time, plenty of agriculture is being sacrificed, but I am conscious we have already had that debate, so I do not want to dwell on it.

It is for those reasons I hoped that, by tabling this simple amendment, DESNZ would consider, with other parts of government, whether it is really treading down the right path in concentrating energy production and whether it should be more strategic in its thinking. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for bringing this matter to the attention of the Committee, in particular the issue of concentration of power supply and potential implications. This amendment would limit the consent for electricity infrastructure within a 50-square mile area where the cumulative capacity is more than 10% of the country’s total. This raises several important questions for the Government. What assessment has been made of the cumulative impacts on a local area already hosting significant infrastructure? Additionally, how will fairness between different regions be measured and maintained? What mechanisms are in place to prevent overconcentration in certain areas at the expense of others, given, as my noble friend mentioned, the potential strategic risks to the country? I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

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The CSNP will include environmental and community impacts as key assessment criteria in determining recommendations and it will also include a strategic environmental assessment that considers the cumulative effect of multiple and combined options. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, with respect to the Minister—I appreciate the answer he has given me— there is one point that perhaps it would be worthwhile DESNZ genuinely looking at. There is no doubt that there is a small part of Suffolk that will be responsible for more than 10% of the capacity in the future. But I appreciate that is not the remit of the Minister speaking tonight.

Of course I am disappointed. I am concerned. But, recognising the late hour, which is why I have truncated my comments, I will withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 94C withdrawn.

Moved by

[Baroness Coffey]

94D: After Clause 28, insert the following new Clause—
“GEMA: funding constraints based on planning consentIf an electricity project has not received planning consent, the GEMA must not grant or consider any grant—(a) of Early Construction Funding, or(b) relating to Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment.”

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[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I specifically wanted to speak to the funding of issues such as energy projects. This issue, probably more than anything else—perhaps the fact that the national grid is part-owned by American private equity owners may wind people up a little bit more—is the one that, fundamentally, makes communities around the country, and I have seen it much more locally, consider the planning system, when it comes to energy projects, a complete and utter joke.

It is already decided, regardless of what happens in the planning system, that these projects will go ahead. It does not matter if they do not quite fit the planning law, because a few tweaks could potentially be made. It does not matter what the community thinks. It does not matter what Parliament thinks, because Ofgem has already made the decisions and determinations that these projects can go ahead and money can start being spent on them before planning has even started.

I give your Lordships the example of Norwich to Tilbury. Ofgem came up with its early construction funding in April 2025. Its planning submission was submitted only on Friday. Sea Link, a project that I will continue to fight for as long as I can, had its ECF announcement made. Normally, Ofgem’s policy is that only 20% of the funding can be granted, in effect, through early construction funding. Ofgem has given 48% to the national grid—NGET—to proceed with Sea Link. Planning had to be delayed because there was an error in the planning process, so that got going only last month as well. This is what the people in communities in various parts of the country see. What is the point?

That is my huge frustration: in effect, there is a predetermination that planning applications are going to be made. I am still slightly surprised that people have not been successful in certain aspects of getting this JR-ed at some point. So here we are. We have projects going when they have barely started, or in some cases have not even started, the planning process.

I have proposed this new clause to restore some credibility to planning, to restore some credibility to the idea that it is not just a commercial deal or a done deal. Ofgem should be restrained from granting this sort of funding process until at least the planning document has been submitted and ideally been given consent. For what it is worth, a lot of this kind of scepticism would go away if there was a genuine belief that the planning system meant anything at all.

I am conscious that, to try to get to 2030 on this accelerated timetable, we need to get on with these projects. I have already referred to previous ones where planning processes are still under way when we have already reached the consented capacity for a series of energy projects, and yet they keep coming.

No wonder people are desperate and tabling JRs, or pre-action protocols and the like. They are so frustrated with a machinery that says, “Yeah, we’ll sort of do the basics, but it is done”. This is the reason that I felt particularly strongly and wanted to table Amendment 94D: just to be a voice for people who want to believe that our country respects law and respects that there is not a predetermination. God alone knows how many consultations I went through as a Secretary of State when I was told, “Be very careful, you can’t come to a predetermination in all of this”. Yet Ofgem, of course, gives the game away.

I will not say any more. To be candid, I do not expect a huge response from the Minister. I am not trying to be rude in advance; perhaps I am predetermining what I am expecting to hear. Nevertheless, I am saying this for people right across the country: let us do the right thing; let us make sure that we are not allowing money to be printed for developers who have not even started the actual planning process. I beg to move.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to talk to Amendment 94D, tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey. This amendment concerns constraints on grants delivered by the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority. I simply ask the Minister whether he can clarify how the Government intend to ensure that such grants are awarded in a way that is both transparent and consistent across different technologies. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 94D tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to prohibit the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority—GEMA—from granting or considering early construction funding or accelerated strategic transmission investment unless planning consent has already been secured.

While I understand that network companies should not be given excessive funding for projects where procurement or construction costs are not yet incurred, I must urge noble Lords to consider the unintended consequences that this amendment would have for our energy infrastructure and our collective ambition to deliver a net zero-ready grid.

Let us be clear: the mechanisms in question, early construction funding and ASTI, are not blank cheques. They are carefully staged investments, including stages designed precisely to support the preparatory work that enables planning consent to be sought in the first place. This includes environmental assessments, route design, stakeholder engagement and technical feasibility studies. These are not luxuries; they are prerequisites for any responsible and successful planning application.

To deny access to funding before planning consent is granted creates a paradox. Planning consent cannot be obtained without preparatory work, and preparatory work cannot be funded without planning consent. This amendment risks trapping vital transmission projects in a bureaucratic cul-de-sac.

We are not debating theoretical infrastructure; we are talking about the backbone of our future clean energy system—projects that will connect offshore wind, solar and other renewables to homes and businesses across the country. These are the arteries of our economy. Delaying them risks not only our clean energy mission and net-zero commitment but the security and affordability of our energy and wider economic growth as grid capacity is needed to power new investments.

Moreover, GEMA already operates under a rigorous framework of accountability and oversight. Funding decisions are not made lightly; they are subject to scrutiny, cost-benefit analysis and alignment with strategic national priorities. To impose a statutory constraint at this stage would not enhance that process but hinder it. I therefore kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 94D withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Baroness Coffey]

94F: After Clause 28, insert the following new Clause—
“Energy infrastructure projects: publication of environmental principles duty assessmentWhere an energy infrastructure project requires assessment by either—(a) the Secretary of State, or(b) the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority,the individual or body making that assessment must publish its assessment of the environmental principles duty in full, including advice provided and considered.”

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, again, I have split this amendment off from the other consideration of energy infrastructure projects. To cut to the chase, we need to make sure, bearing on some of the debate that we have had earlier about how we are going to achieve joint objectives, not only that we have a fit-for-purpose grid but about how we move the transition along. I have consistently tried to make the case that that cannot be done at the expense of the natural environment.

Arising from the Environment Act 2021 is a duty on Ministers specifically to consider policy in terms of environmental principles, but I think I am right in saying there is also a requirement to consider the genuine impact of projects when a Minister is giving consent to them. One element will be thinking about biodiversity as well as considering the natural capital accounts of the country—on which we do annual balance sheets which are put forward by the Treasury—and a key consideration should be what is happening as a consequence of the environment to any particular project. One of the things that I am afraid is somewhat shrouded in mystery here is that normally there is just the response, “Yes, we have considered this”, and nothing is shared with the country. My amendment is intended to ensure transparency.

I am conscious that the sub judice rule might apply, and there is already a legal case against the Deputy Prime Minister over her Section 20 statement regarding the Bill—I am assuming that, by extension, that applies to the Minister as well. However, it is important that not only Ministers but the wider country understand quite what is happening in this balance. The reason I say that is that primary legislation is already in place where the primary indicator is about the recovery of aspects of nature, particularly thinking of species. As a consequence, transparency is vital, and the OEP has been regularly pushing for a lot more transparency on exactly this sort of information so we have a sense of whether we are going to be anywhere close to hitting the targets that this Parliament has already agreed to in both primary and secondary legislation. On that basis, given the time of the evening, I simply beg to move.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for bringing Amendment 94F to the attention of your Lordships. It would ensure that the duty relating to environmental principles was published in full. I ask the Minister: how are the Government going to monitor compliance in relation to environmental principles? As importantly, how will Parliament be kept informed of progress in this area? I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for tabling her amendment and allowing us to ask those questions, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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In respect of planning, the principles apply to policies such as the national policy statements, which set the framework for decision-making on nationally significant energy infrastructure projects under the Planning Act 2008. The Government are currently updating the national policy statements for energy and expect to publish these before the end of 2025. Ministers will therefore give due regard to the environmental principles policy statement when considering updates that have been made to the national policy statements ahead of publication. For these reasons, I kindly ask the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, we will return to a lot of this in Part 3 of the Bill, so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 94F withdrawn.