Contribution
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Nagaraju, on a fine maiden speech, and I recognise his work in the field of AI. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, for bringing this debate, and I thank her and others for their contributions.
I have listened to the concerns—there are real concerns; we are going through a real energy transition. However, there is a danger of framing clean power as somehow inherently anti-rural or of treating net zero as a threat to our countryside. The evidence and public opinion do not support either of those two stances. The DESNZ public attitudes tracker shows that 68% of people support government actions to reduce the impacts of climate change, and over 60% support our 2050 net-zero goals. The clean power action plan is the backbone of our energy transition to get 95% of our power from clean sources from 2030, and it involves major investment in flexibility and necessary grid infrastructure.
I recognise the concerns. We have heard concerns about the loss of agricultural land from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, although I did not recognise the figures given. Concerns about food security were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and about visual amenity by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. We also heard worries about possible large-scale battery fires from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and fears that infrastructure is being imposed on communities. These are legitimate concerns, and those on this side who support renewable energy need to answer them, but I want to make the other case for renewables as well. The fact that I support renewables does not mean I do not recognise that they will have impacts. It is important that we discuss what those impacts are and how we can best limit them as far as possible.
Electricity demand is expected to more than double by 2050, so major investment is not an option—it is essential. It would have been easier if we had started earlier, but this must be done with our communities and not to them, and with proper regard to the visual amenity of our landscape, proximity to people’s homes and communities, and compensation where it is necessary. We should look at the figures. At the moment, only 0.3% of the UK’s land is used for large-scale solar, and the Government’s land use framework indicates that just 1% of England’s land will be needed for renewables by 2050. This is still less than the land taken and used by golf courses, yet I have not heard them mentioned today as a threat to our future.
I support floating offshore solar. It would be good to hear something from the Minister about that. There is a lot of misinformation in this space; there was a newspaper article last week comparing solar to Chernobyl. The implication is that every solar project is a blight on the countryside, but that is simply not true. Solar can have low visual impacts, increase biodiversity gains and bring meaningful community benefit. Agrivoltaics can help farmers to transition to help to improve crop yields in the face of rising temperatures.
The real threat to our countryside is not from clean power but from the cost of inaction. It is from the rise of fossil fuel markets, escalating bills and the growing damage caused by climate change itself. Our rural communities are more susceptible because they have less well-insulated homes, they need to drive more and they are subject to the impacts of climate change, whether from declining harvests, rising temperatures or increased flooding. The UK has warmed already by 1.2 degrees Celsius since 1884. We have had the five worst harvests since 2000. Inaction on climate change threatens our food security far more than any solar panel ever could.
I want to look at the opportunities to get this right and at what more can be done. We need to use rooftop solar first. I ask the Government what more they are doing to make use of warehouses, car parks and public buildings. Planning is also crucial, so I ask the Minister about the strategic spatial energy strategy. My understanding is that it is coming by autumn 2027. I push the Minister as well on community energy, which has also been mentioned, because people in the countryside should be able to benefit from the energy that they host. I ask the Minister about the community right to generate and what more is going to happen to push onshore wind.
However, the idea that the renewables transition is inherently anti our rural communities and our way of life is simply not true.