Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the impact of converting productive agricultural land to solar farms on food security.

The Government does not believe that the accelerated roll-out of solar generation poses a threat to food security. The total area used by solar farms is very small. Even in the most ambitious scenarios, we only expect up to 0.4% of total UK land to be occupied.

The analysis carried out in the Land Use Framework suggests there are opportunities for renewables (including solar) to be built on some agricultural land in England while maintaining food production nationally. This is partly through safeguarding our most productive agricultural land from change, and through introducing multifunctional land use such as agrivoltaic systems, combining food and energy production.

All solar projects are subject to a rigorous planning process, in which the views and interests of the local community and impacts on the environment and land use are considered, including any impact on food production.

Planning guidance makes clear that, wherever possible, developers should utilise brownfield, industrial, contaminated, or previously developed land. Where the development of agricultural land is shown to be necessary, lower-quality land should be preferred to higher-quality land.