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Lord Cromwell (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 1 September 2025

Debate

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Contribution

I just underline that the missing ingredient in this debate is actual numbers on the costs. There is a lot of theoretical toing and froing this afternoon but what we really need in this discussion is a hard number cost for, say, 100 metres of buried cable as opposed to, say, the cost of a pylon. I asked a Written Question about a pylon some months ago and got a wonderfully “Yes Minister” Answer: “Of course, all pylons are different and some pylons are more equal than others, but it is all very difficult so I can’t give you an answer”. I hope that we can do a bit better than that. It would be great to know the cost of, say, 100 metres or 500 metres—whatever is the right metric—of buried cable and pylon with the equivalent cable. Until that answer is before us—I suspect that it will be a lot more expensive—we are not going to lay this debate to rest. I think that everybody, on all sides of this Committee, would like to see the cables buried. The question is at what cost and whether that cost is worth it. Until we have that number, we are just talking theory.
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