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Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 26 February 2026

Debate

Fire and Rescue Services: Clean Energy Projects

Contribution

My Lords, I declare my directorship of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. When I was the MP for South Thanet, we had a proposal for one of these battery farms—let us call them that—in the constituency. I wrote to Kent Fire and Rescue Service with my concerns, and it wrote back with its own. As my noble friend Lady McIntosh quite rightly states, fire and rescue services really have very little part in the process. I ask the Government to consider a statutory Section 106 requirement applying to each and every one of these battery farms, so that they have to pay for the specialist equipment that local fire and rescue services need to put such fires out. Once they start to go, there is very little that you can do with usual water systems to put them out. It requires specialist equipment and, not least, a local evacuation, because the fumes that come off these lithium-powered fires are very serious and deleterious to health.

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