Contribution
I congratulate the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) on securing the debate. Although I disagree with some of what he said, the tone of his remarks is welcome. I will respond to some of his points, but given the time I will not be able to respond to them all.
On a general point, I appreciate that many issues, and planning issues in particular, are contentious. As Members of Parliament, we all know that as such issues are raised regularly. Although we might take decisions as a Government that people will disagree with, I hope that I have always given the impression that I am always keen to hear the points that the hon. Gentleman raises, and that other hon. Members raise, and I want to continue those conversations.
Helpfully, the hon. Gentleman said at the outset that I will not be able to comment on the specific application that he references, and it is worth being clear about why that is: the application will come before my Department for a decision. As the Minister with a policy interest in this area, I personally do not see the papers for such decisions and I am not engaged in that process. My noble friend Lord Whitehead usually makes these decisions, or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. It is important that no Minister who has a role in decision making speaks about the specifics, and I know that the hon. Gentleman understands that. However, I can talk in more general terms about how we ensure that solar projects, which are really important, are rolled out sensibly and sensitively, which is at the heart of many of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks.
To start, I will take us back slightly to the bigger picture about why solar power is so important in the first place, and why it is at the heart of the clean energy mission. We know that far too often energy bills are still being set by the cost of gas, and that deploying renewables faster than we have before is a way that we can reduce our dependence on volatile fossil fuels, protecting bill payers now and in the future. That deployment also provides an economic opportunity to create thousands of jobs in communities across the country. In addition, the Government cares deeply about tackling the most existential crisis that the planet faces. I will return to this point, but the effects of climate change, which we see all too often, cannot be put off until tomorrow. It is hugely important that we tackle them now, so this mission is critical.
Solar is at the heart of the mission—and critical to it—because it is one of the cheapest renewable energy sources that we can deploy, and it can be deployed at scale. The aim of our clean power mission is to achieve at least 45 GW to 47 GW of solar by 2030. We are at around 22 GW today, so if we are going to deliver that goal, we need to rapidly deploy a combination of ground-mounted solar and a roof-top revolution, which I will return to. At the same time, we have a commitment to doing that sensitively for the communities that host that infrastructure, and to ensuring that those communities gain a benefit from hosting it on behalf of the country.
I will pick just some of the hon. Gentleman’s substantive arguments. The way in which we balance the need for this infrastructure across the country—the fact that it has to be somewhere—with the adverse impacts, as well as the potential benefits, that communities face from hosting the infrastructure, is exactly what our rigorous planning system is about. The views and interests of local communities are key to that. I know that the hon. Gentleman has engaged in the process in this specific case—he has already made representations, and will obviously encourage his constituents to do the same. That feedback is hugely important; people should feel that it has a serious role in the decision-making process, because it does, and therefore it is worth participating in that process. Making those submissions and turning up to those meetings really does matter.
Obviously, the planning process itself considers many of the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised, including visual amenity, protected landscapes, land use, food production, safety, and traffic conditions during construction. The system for nationally significant projects requires that considerable community engagement be undertaken before a decision is made. The level and quality of engagement is considered during the decision-making process, and these projects are marked down if that is not taken seriously.
The hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of cumulative impact, which is a really important one for us to wrestle with. I do not pretend that we have a single answer to this, but the idea that we should plan holistically—I think the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) made this point—to make sure communities do not face multiple projects, with all the cumulative impact that comes from that, is something we want to tackle. We are doing that in two ways.