Government will not ‘pass the buck’ on energy to future generations – minister

Energy minister Michael Shanks also told MPs that some areas will have to host “nationally significant” power infrastructure such as solar farms in response to concerns expressed about the “detrimental impacts” on communities.

MPs had a general debate on Friday on making Britain a “clean energy superpower”, with the Great British Energy Bill due to receive its second reading after the summer recess.

Conservative MP for Huntingdon Ben Obese-Jecty raised the East Park Energy solar farm, a proposed project in his constituency, which he said would be “larger than Gatwick Airport”.

He said local residents have “grave concerns” over the scale of the development and asked the minister if he would commit to rural communities having a say on the Government allowing large solar farms to be built in their local areas “given the detrimental impacts”.

Mr Shanks replied: “We’re not in any way going to remove the ability of communities to be part of, of course, a consultation process in the planning system.”

He added: “But at some point, we have to have this national recognition that there is infrastructure that we need that is nationally significant.

“Some communities will have to host that infrastructure and there should be benefits for those communities in doing it.

“But that doesn’t mean that we should stop doing it and I’m afraid the days of Government passing the buck to a future generation to fix these issues are gone.

“We need to tackle this crisis and that means we will be building and there will be projects in communities, with consultation of course, but nationally significant projects will have to go ahead if we want to reach the targets by 2030.”

Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has sold his MPs down the river and that energy bills will not reduce under Labour.

Ms Coutinho said: “The people now sitting on the benches behind the minister will have been telling their new constituents that their plans would save them £300 on their energy bills – they said it in hustings, they said it on local media, they said it on their leaflets. But they will have noticed by now that their ministers are no longer saying that at all.

“And this is the problem, when you get into government, and you speak in the House, you cannot use numbers for which you have no basis.”

This was met with laughter from the Labour benches.

Ms Coutinho continued: “They will learn this, they laugh, but their voters won’t forget that they made them that promise.”

She added: “They all know that their leadership has sold them down the river on this one, because the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State know those savings cannot be delivered. In fact, their approach to energy will add huge costs to people’s bills.

“That’s not us being evil Tories on this side of the House, that’s also the view of the European lead for Mitsubishi Power who said that Labour Party plans would require a huge sacrifice from Brits.”

Former Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden also criticised the Government over its claim that clean energy plans would knock £300 off bills.

He said: “It’s been causing quite a lot of confusion in the national media over the last couple of days when Downing Street have been saying one thing, (Mr Shanks’) department have been saying another.”

Mr Shanks replied: “I think it does take a bit of a brass neck to come here and talk about bringing down bills when the government that he supported for a long time saw those skyrocket.

“We’ve been very clear, bills will come down, we said that throughout the campaign, we said that yesterday and we stand by that because bills must come down, but this isn’t going to happen overnight.”

Elsewhere in the debate, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for climate change Wera Hobhouse said the race to net zero is the “major economic opportunity of the century”.

She said: “The green economy must sit at the heart of economic growth, and the Government has work to do to reverse the damaging narrative of the previous government, that this is about green versus growth.

“And also to reverse the unforgivable failures of the last Conservative government, which delayed, blocked or even reversed urgent action on climate change. Now is the time to move forward.”

Winding up, Tory shadow energy minister Joy Morrissey pointed to plans for a Government-backed company called GB Energy to “accelerate Britain’s pathway to energy independence”.

Ms Morrissey said the plan “is simply the Government subsidising high-risk projects for the private sector on the one hand, whilst decimating our oil and gas industry on the other”.

Ms Hobhouse intervened and said: “Is the shadow minister not aware that exactly this negative narrative from her party has held us back in the way to net zero?”

In his winding up speech, Mr Shanks said: “The rhetoric that we’re now hearing from this Conservative Party is a million miles from that David Cameron conservatism that said we should take the environment seriously.”

He added: “The reason that we’re on this journey is not because of some sort of ideological commitment to net zero, but because we know it is the only way to deliver the energy security that we need to reduce our dependence on volatile gas prices and to deliver the cheaper energy that we know will bring down bills.”