National Grid: Pylons

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mrs Latham.

The demand for electricity is expected to grow so much that by 2050 we could be using twice or nearly three times as much electricity as we use today. More and more of our energy is now generated by offshore wind farms and solar, which means that significant new infrastructure is required to connect the vast amount of cleaner energy from where it is generated to homes and businesses across the country. We have ambitious targets for more offshore wind development in the coming decades, but the grid is simply not ready for it.

National Grid has recognised the urgent need for investment, but its great grid upgrade must also confront the challenge of safeguarding our natural environment and consider the views of local people. The recently published UK Government state of nature report confirmed catastrophic landscape degradation and loss of wildlife. Britain is now acknowledged to be the most nature-depleted country in Europe and one of the most damaged in the world, so it is imperative that alongside the modernisation of our national grid, we prioritise the protection and preservation of our natural surroundings and indeed the amenities of our local communities. It is also vital that new energy initiatives bring tangible benefits to the communities in which they are located.

Since 2013, National Grid has had the benefit of strategic landscape guidance from an independent panel of national stakeholders selected by the regulator, Ofgem. The independent chair of that panel throughout the time since then has been Professor Chris Baines, whom I have met on a number of occasions. His views are really inspirational. His visual impact programme emphasised the importance of reducing the visual impact of overhead power lines in some of the most sensitive landscapes across England and Wales. Through a process of close consultation with communities, technical experts and special interest groups, National Grid and its contractors have successfully carried out major landscape engineering work and landscape restoration in several highly protected and varied landscapes. However, that is not the case throughout England and Wales, which is what we really need to point out here today. There is advice and there are protections, but even though the national grid needs to be expanded rapidly, National Grid should listen to experts such as Professor Baines.

Since I do not have much time left, I will also express my concerns about what National Grid is saying about the costs of onshore and onshore connections. I will share some of the thoughts of another group I have met: Suffolk Energy Action Solutions. In its paper, “Britain's Winning Solution”, it presents the idea that an offshore grid could pool energy offshore and use subsea cables to transport energy closer to demand, coming onshore at brownfield sites that can become energy superhubs. The group says that this plan would eventually negate the need for 50% of onshore infrastructure, namely the substations and interconnectors that criss-cross the country.

Carrying energy closer to demand would also help to mitigate the significant costs associated with network capacity issues. The cost to consumers, which has already been mentioned in this debate, from wind power oversupply and the need for curtailment payments was estimated to be £806 million in 2020, and National Grid expects that figure to increase to £2.5 billion per annum by 2025.

This type of offshore solution has already worked abroad, with Belgium and Denmark building more of their transmission network infrastructure offshore by creating offshore hubs and taking cabling onshore at brownfield sites. The UK should at least consider this option. National Grid claims that it would be more expensive, which might be true in the short term, but we must consider that this integrated approach to connecting offshore projects would significantly reduce the physical infrastructure needed to connect offshore wind farms to the grid.

Also, in our transition to net zero, it is vital that we take people with us. If we continue the confrontational approach that we have heard about, we will not get to net zero in 2050. We will not achieve that target if we alienate our communities. I urge the Government to look very carefully at the solutions that I have outlined and I also urge National Grid to listen very carefully to what has been said in this debate today.

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[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) and the Backbench Business Committee for enabling this debate.

I am speaking in this important debate to give a voice to many of my Ynys Môn constituents, such as Jonathan Dean, who are concerned about the impact of pylons on Ynys Môn and the Welsh countryside. They are also concerned about the impact on two of our most important sectors: agriculture and food security, and tourism. It is important that the planning process takes into account the impact of infrastructure on the environment and the unique characteristics and vistas of Wales. It is important we have a plan, that we have joined-up thinking, and that we have transparency.

It will come as no surprise that I rise to speak to the challenge of our future energy supply. After all, Ynys Môn, Môn Mam Cymru—the mother of Wales—is an energy island ready and waiting to be powered back to life. We have wind, wave, tidal, solar, hydrogen and nuclear projects. We have £4.8m from the UK Government for the Holyhead hydrogen hub. Morlais, the wave project, has benefited from the UK Government ringfencing marine energy in the contract for differences allocation round. Ynys Môn’s potential to supply cheap, clean power to cut household bills and strengthen our energy security is being held up by slow upgrades to the national grid.

There are enough low-carbon energy projects planned, such as the Wylfa nuclear site, to meet peak electricity demand nine times over. However, the grid is not being built and reinforced fast enough for developers to connect to it. Some projects are having to wait until 2038 to connect to the system, despite being ready to go.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that, really, this means that developers will go away from the UK and invest in other countries? That is a big concern for investment in renewables in the UK.

[Virginia Crosbie]

I absolutely welcome that debate and how important it is to have developers investing in this sector. I also welcome the action that the Government are taking. Last year’s connections action plan will cut the time that it takes for low-carbon projects to connect to the electricity grid. The Chancellor also announced plans for a strategic spatial energy plan in the autumn statement to set out what energy infrastructure needs to be built, where and when.

Closer to home, I am proud that this Conservative Government grasped the nettle and committed £160 million, through Great British Nuclear, to secure the Wylfa site on Ynys Môn. If successful, that project could create 9,000 construction jobs and 900 long-term jobs, and provide a source of clean, reliable energy for decades to come.

I urge the Minister to finalise the new national policy statement for nuclear to speed up the approval process and announce the outcome of the small modular reactor competition as soon as possible. SMRs have the potential to cut the costs of nuclear, diversify our energy mix and generate steady, clean power. We must not let this opportunity pass us by.

It is also thanks to this Conservative Government’s leadership that we have seen the creation of the new £26 million Anglesey freeport. With spades in the ground at Prosperity Park, the Anglesey freeport is expected to create 13,000 new jobs and generate £1 billion of investment across the island and north Wales. Celtic freeport in south Wales and Teesside freeport show the potential of freeports to boost our manufacturing base for new renewable technologies. Last year, we saw the power of this net zero economy, with £74 billion in gross value added to the economy as a whole and more than 765,000 people employed. The people of Anglesey are ready and waiting to play their part.

Building on that model, I would like to see the Government target a new wave of business rates reliefs at areas with low-carbon industries that need to invest in skills training. That could create thriving enterprise hubs across the country like the one at Menai Science Park—M-SParc—and unleash a new generation of skilled workers ready to power Britain.

But, of course, our new power generators and the jobs that they bring with them will be rendered redundant if we do not have the grid connections in place to put them to use. Where new transmission lines are needed to deliver the wind power of the Irish sea, or Ynys Môn’s new nuclear site at Wylfa, it is important that developers engage with local communities and ensure that they are properly compensated for the disruption that the construction will cause. To achieve that, the Government should extend and mandate community benefits for transmission and generation.

Last year, the Chancellor committed to giving communities that host transmission infrastructure discounts on their electricity bills of up to £10,000. That package also included extra benefits that could be transformational for some communities, with schools and village halls refurbished, educational bursaries created and improvements made to local healthcare provision. That is a sound investment for developers and bill payers alike. By building out the grid, we can make the whole system more efficient and reduce the waste of constraint payments, in which renewable generators are paid to switch off when the system cannot cope. That could save a staggering £1 billion a year and help in the push to decarbonise our electricity supply by 2035.

By increasing the capacity of the national grid in a way that takes into account the beauty of our countryside —especially of places such as Ynys Môn—we can realise Ynys Môn’s promise as the mother of Wales, supplying clean, home-grown power to our United Kingdom. I now call on the Government to give us the tools that we need to do the job.

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has done the House a service by bringing forward this matter for our consideration. I want, in the time available, to speak about three things: utility, beauty and legitimacy.

T. S. Eliot said:

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.”

Such people invariably use utility to justify their claim: “This must be done. There are no other options. There is no choice. This is necessary.” But the truth is that very often there are competing necessities. Certainly, it is necessary to think strategically about a grid fit for the future. I try, as a matter of a mix of good taste and good judgment, to resist the arguments of Liberal Democrats, but the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) is frequently irresistible, and today the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) made an excellent point about the relationship between supply and demand. This is too rarely considered, and because it has not been considered enough—I first encountered the argument when I was the Energy Minister —transmission and distribution costs have grown and grown, so that they are now roughly 15% of every electricity bill. We do need a grid that works; that is a necessity. But there are other necessities too. In terms of utility, let us just think about the point that my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) made about sites of special scientific interest on the Wash —a unique habitat for migrating birds. Is that really compatible with 87 miles of 50-metre-high pylons? Of course it is not. That is a competing necessity.

Let me say a word about beauty. Those who do not know the fens will not necessarily appreciate the glory of the open landscape and the big skies that are justly celebrated. They have never been filled by tall structures, apart from churches—of course, churches are about God, in a way that pylons could never be. Let us not fill those big skies and destroy that precious, unique landscape in this way. It would be a crime, in my judgment, to do so. Let us believe in the beauty of the fens and the glory of our countryside—our green and pleasant land—and defend it. I hope that that is what my hon. Friend the Minister will do when he winds up this debate. National Grid does not seem concerned about that and, when challenged on cost—because cost-effectiveness is of course important—it frequently insists that no other option is viable, yet the Germans are looking at just such another option.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, given that I was so nice about her earlier.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I will be very quick. Should National Grid not recognise that all these objections actually increase the costs, because the timelines get much longer, and that is usually where the costs increase dramatically?

[Sir John Hayes]

Absolutely, and as Lincolnshire County Council has pointed out, National Grid’s calculations underestimate the compensation that would be paid, the damage to the environment—all the other additional costs that are associated with putting pylons on land, but that will be avoided if cables are put under the ocean. That is what I gather the Welsh Government are now considering, and it is what the Germans have already taken as their default position. And yet we are told that pylons are the future. My goodness, when that was said, I could not help but laugh—without meaning to be impertinent in any way, Mrs Latham—because they are anything but the future. Surely that is yesterday’s approach to tomorrow’s problems.

Let us glory in beauty, in the way that the planning system now increasingly does. The new national planning policy framework, I am delighted to say, states:

“Planning policies and decisions should contribute to and enhance the natural and local environment by…recognising the intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside, and the wider benefits from natural capital and ecosystem services”.

Furthermore, when I asked the then Minister of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), about the fens in particular, she said:

“Special consideration will…be given to preserving the landscapes of, for example, the Somerset levels, Romney Marsh and the magnificent fens of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2022; Vol. 724, c. 1013.]

That is precisely what we want.

The third thing that I said I would speak about is legitimacy. I have a petition, initiated in my constituency and beyond, which has already attracted 1,200 signatures against the pylon proposals. Popular consent is essential if we are to get the support that we need for an energy policy that works. People do not want this. It is not necessary, it can be avoided and we expect the Minister to do just that, in the name of the people, of utility, of beauty and of legitimacy.