Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)

My Lords, I am delighted to have secured this debate and I look forward to hearing all contributions, particularly the maiden speech. I declare my interest as honorary president of National Energy Action and the UK Warehousing Association. I also serve on the Environment and Climate Change Committee. The impact of clean energy on rural areas is potentially devastating, yet I would like to start off positively and look at the alternatives that would prevent this happening. The first is North Sea oil. Why are we importing oil and gas from Norway when we could produce from our own oilfields, which are entirely adjacent to theirs? Drilling for oil in the North Sea is good for UK jobs, tax income and the balance of payments. With a developed renewables sector, Denmark—I am half Danish and fairly closely follow developments there—has the largest oil and gas production in the EU. All sources of energy are joined up, which brings community benefits to residents. Nuclear power is another alternative, and I look particularly favourably on smaller nuclear power stations, which are relatively quick to build, safe and efficient. Energy from waste would tackle two issues at once: disposing of household and light commercial waste, as well as heating homes and hot water for households and businesses. Solar panels could be built on rooftops, car parks and brownfield sites; I am very proud that the UK Warehousing Association is leading the way in this regard. The future also could contain floating solar. Clean energy entails major concrete and other installations: it involves wind turbines and pylons, solar farms and battery storage plants, including inverters, transformers, substations and control rooms, and connection to the grid. It is often built on prime agricultural land and causes tensions between farmers and developers. A judicial review is under way, involving around 500 Welsh farmers and landowners, many of whom face losing farmland, homes and livelihoods to a proposed 200-kilometre pylon scheme stretching across several counties and into the West Midlands. These facilities amount to creeping urbanisation. Currently, applications for North Yorkshire alone include East Cowton, Light Valley Solar in South Milford, Hillam, East Appleton, Masham and Swinton, East Rounton, and Scotton and Lingerfield. Many of these are integrated BES schemes, with a horrendous array of solar panels, integrators, battery storage and all the things referred to above. This is an unacceptable cumulative impact of various forms of clean energy. In one instance, that of Scotton and Lingerfield, the developers acknowledge the very real risk of a fire and a need for evacuation, and a real risk of a smoke plume reaching a nursery. These facilities are inherently unsafe as they are highly combustible and flammable, with fire risks from solar panels themselves and even more so from battery storage units. In many cases, these are positioned simply too close to residential homes, schools, nurseries and other businesses. It is staggering that fire and rescue services are not statutory consultees. They are not formally consulted on site engineering and the positioning of facilities, or the resources in terms of water, equipment and manpower required in the event of a fire. This is despite the intrinsic unsafety of such flammable sites. In addition, these sites require wind turbines and overhead pylons criss-crossing the countryside to bring the energy generated to London and the south-east. These are highly intrusive, environmentally unfriendly and wasteful, as energy is lost in such transmission. In any event, pylons transporting energy long distance via vulnerable overhead power lines are environmentally challenging, can be damaging to birds and wildlife, and are wasteful and hideous. This is an ecological scandal in the making. In particular, when it comes to the end of life of clean energy infrastructure, how will it be decommissioned and disposed of in an environmentally safe way? Will a bond be taken out from the applicants in each case to cover the cost of restoring the site after 40 years, or in the event of a developer failing before that time? Many environmental groups, including the CPRE—the Campaign to Protect Rural England—deeply regret the impact on the countryside, residents and livestock. Offshore wind farms threaten the marine life that is the very lifeblood of marine areas. Many argue that, in view of the potential damage, there is a strong case for a moratorium on new applications for offshore wind farms until there is a better understanding of these issues. One of the worst aspects of these facilities is the impact on farming, food and production. The Government have admitted that it will potentially take 10% of farmland out of food production. What assessment have the Government made of the impact on food security and food production of their clean energy proposals at this stage? We are roughly 60% self-sufficient in food, but this is challenging. We are only 18% self-sufficient in fruit and only 55% self-sufficient in vegetables. The majority of these are imported. Moreover, current levels of debt per household are high and increasing, amounting to a total of £5.5 billion in February this year. The arrears represent around 75% of the total of all unpaid energy bills. Energy spending by households and businesses is increasing. We are paying for infrastructure use in advance before it has even been constructed. This is the only utility to do so, piling costs in the form of energy levies and high standing charges over which households have no control. Continuing the Danish theme, in the fairy tale by HC Andersen, as we call him in Denmark, the emperor has no clothes. Everyone feared the emperor and wanted to display loyalty, so they praised his garments, but, in truth, he was wandering around in his underwear. Only a young boy was brave enough to tell the truth: that the emperor was indeed wearing no clothes. I am being very brave today in saying to the Minister and the Government that this is wrong. The Minister will respond by saying that clean energy is safe, sustainable and reliable for our energy. I disagree. Many of the clean energy sites are intrinsically unsafe, highly flammable and combustible. They are not reliable, as when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine we are left powerless. I urge the Government to look closely and positively at the alternatives. Renewables are, in practice, potentially wasteful, lose energy in transmission and bring no significant community benefits. They amount to the creeping urbanisation of the countryside. The proposals contained in the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan are premature, ill-thought-out and potentially devastating for rural communities and their residents, livestock and nature. The proposals are unravelling rapidly. They need to be revisited.