David Davis

Unless the hon. Lady is talking about the suntans of the criminals, I am not quite sure what the relevance of that was. She was one of the ones who were picking numbers out of the air, with this small percentage and that small percentage. I am pointing out the actual effect on ordinary citizens, and it is not the bland view that she has put forward. A 3,000-acre solar farm is disproportionate for any part of the country, because it surrounds villages and makes life miserable for people. Multiple towns and villages will be completely surrounded by the East Yorkshire solar farm. Another one, the Mylen Leah solar farm, which would cover another 3,000 acres, is proposed for right next door. That will effectively be 6,000 acres. I am not very optimistic about the attitude of the Government in the approval process. We have also heard slightly sneering references to nimbys. What are we talking about here? We are talking about actual people in my constituency. They range from pensioners who have spent their entire life savings to go and live in a quiet part of the country with a beautiful view, who will instead have a view of black plastic, to people not very far from me who bought a place in the country because they have got a child who is severely autistic and needs the peace and quiet and the rural environment that is provided. We have people who take lower salaries to work in the country because that is what they want. We have people who are committed there in farms and rural industries. They are the so-called nimbys and they do not want their lives ruined. That is what we are here to defend. When I surveyed my residents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) did, I found that 90% were against the size of the farm and against the overwhelming impact. They were not against the idea; they were against the ridiculous way this is being done. I am running out of time, so I will make one other point about the ill-thought-through nature of the policy. It depends on access to the grid. Therefore, the reason I have farms of 2,000 acres, 3,000 acres—probably more—is that we are near Drax on the grid. That encourages a concentration of huge farms in concentrated areas all over the country, where ordinary people will have their lives destroyed by an ill-thought-through, rotten policy.