Miatta Fahnbulleh

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. There are many schemes and huge opportunities, and the Government are working with industry to think about what the potential is across the country. New proposals are coming forward, and we are trying to engage with them. Although we see that there is huge potential, it is also important to put that in the context of some of the challenges we face as we try to grow floating solar. We are trying to do our part to work with industry, so we want to ensure that we deal with some of the obstacles and barriers to the schemes that are coming forward—for example, planning or investment certainty. Floating solar projects can apply to the Government’s flagship contracts for difference scheme, and they do. I know that one of the arguments in favour of floating solar, which the hon. and gallant Gentleman put forward, and which was reiterated by other hon. Members, is that it will reduce the amount of land that we need to use. Arguments have been made about agricultural land and constraining the amount of ground-mounted solar panels on them. I gently say, however, that if we look at the statistics, we see that only 0.1% of land in the UK is covered by ground-mounted solar at the moment—a minuscule amount. Even with the expansion that we are actively trying to encourage, we are still talking about a fraction of UK land that will only ever be used for ground-mounted solar, so it is important to put that in context.