Lord Whitehead (Lab)

I am happy to write to the noble Baroness to clear up that exact point, but what I quoted from, as I am sure she will know, is the actual land use framework and not the precursors to it. At the final point when it was published by Defra, it came to the conclusion that I have mentioned. It is in table 1 on page 19 of that land use framework, so it can be looked at. I am very happy to write further to the noble Baroness on that particular point. What is absolutely right, though, as indicated in the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Gill, is that we are basically all in this together. It cannot be the case that we can exempt parts of the country from the energy revolution taking place in front of us. But what we can do is make sure that, where it has effects on those areas, they are mitigated as far as possible: for example, as we are planning at the moment, they will have community benefits coming their way from those changes. Community investment through the discount schemes is also coming forward. A new electricity bill discount scheme will provide £2,500 over the next decade to households living within 500 metres of new and significantly upgraded transmission infrastructure, with the first payments expected in 2027. We are also looking seriously at community benefit from upcoming changes to grid systems and various things. The SSEN’s upcoming Tealing to Aberdeenshire transmission line, for example, could mean funding of more than £23 million for local communities. There is assistance for communities that are associated with those changes, but also an understanding that, while those changes have to be made very carefully—with full consultation and appreciation of the difficulties that may stand in the way of some of those schemes—where those schemes go ahead, they have done so on the basis of our Planning and Infrastructure Act. That means full scrutiny and consultation, full arrangements for remediation and a full consideration of what, among other things, the cumulative effect on the landscape may turn out to be. With that, I hope I have addressed the points made by most noble Lords. If I have failed to do that because of time constraints, I am happy to write, particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, to go a little further on the question of hydrogen for the future. I can assure him that it plays a very substantial role in the process, along with other non-variable things such as biomethane and biogas, for the future of the energy economy. Overall, the Government are doing a responsible job in trying to match the requirements of the clean power action plan with quality of life and the future, particularly of rural communities. We will certainly continue to take that very carefully into consideration as the plan develops and, indeed, as clean power goes beyond 2030 and into the next decades.