Sarah Jones

Sarah Jones

Labour — Croydon West

Speaking in the House of Commons on 28 January 2025

Debate

Solar Farms: Agricultural Land

Contribution

I hear the hon. Gentleman’s point. The wider point about farmers being pushed according to EU or local subsidies over the years is of course right, and we need to get the balance right. I will speak to the numbers again: we are looking to go from 17 GW to around 45 GW, which is a trebling of the current land use of 0.1%. We are talking about small numbers, although I appreciate that in some constituencies, such as that of the hon. Member for South Cotswolds, it will feel much bigger because there are more of these products coming along. Of course we need to get our system right for farmers. I am a Member of Parliament in Croydon, where we do not have many farmers, but I am incredibly grateful to them for their role and the work that they do, and we need to make sure that we support them. Where it is necessary to develop agricultural land—and we need to start with the basics of using other land first where we can—we do not think it will have any significant impact on food security because of the numbers: less than 1% of the UK’s agricultural land will be occupied by solar farms. We do not believe that will have an impact on our food security.

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