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31 Mar 2009 : Column 233WH—continued
Secondly, I would like the Minister to look at the feasibility of 2-km buffer zones, which have been considered in Scotland and other European countries, most of which are far less heavily populated than England. The IPC could make recommendations on buffer zones,
which would mean that any applications for renewables or waste-to-energy projects were ideally at least 2 km from cities, towns and villages, and certainly as far away from densely populated areas as possible.
The 2-km buffer zone would be a consideration when the IPC designated land for renewables and recycling use. The advantage would be the designation of areas, not the planning application itself, becoming the issue. That would mean that difficult arguments could be resolved before an application even went in, which would leave local authorities to make planning decisions on the merits of the scheme alone, rather than having to deal with the political fallout from applications for unpopular schemes. It would certainly be more time-efficient and far less costly.
I appreciate that I am straying into the responsibilities of the Department for Communities and Local Government, but a 2-km buffer zone would mean applications such as the one for the gasification unit at Sheepbridge, which would be so close to a major town and surrounding villages, never being made.
I am concerned that, unless we resolve the issue of how we implement our national targets, we may end up either entirely failing to meet them or forcing them on to unwilling communities. I hope that the Minister will take my suggestions in the helpful spirit in which they are intended. I look forward to hearing his response, although I will fully understand if he does not want to veer into areas covered by other Departments.
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Mr. Mike O'Brien): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Gale.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) on securing this debate, and on her erudite and constructive contribution to the crucial issues that it raises about renewable energy and ensuring that suitable sites are found for development. She raised a couple of cases that are currently in the planning process. She will understand that, as a result, I cannot comment on them, but she has, with her usual forcefulness, set out the case of her constituents and ensured that it is brought to the attention of Ministers.
Combating climate change while ensuring that we have secure energy supplies is the biggest long-term challenge that this country and, indeed, the world faces. Energy efficiency, nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, and renewables all have a role to play in meeting our commitments to provide 15 per cent. of our overall energy from renewable sources by 2020, and to reduce greenhouse gases by 80 per cent. by 2050. As my hon. Friend said, we are looking for about 35 per cent. of our electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.
To have the best chance of meeting those challenges and ensuring that our actions are not just ambitious but fair to people and sustainable, we must consider all reasonable options. The UK is in the privileged position of having outstanding natural resources for renewable energy: hydropower, onshore and offshore wind, and wave and tidal stream energy. We are starting from a low base of deployment, but we have made significant progress in recent years, with a near tripling of our renewable electricity generation since 2002.
We have been successful in encouraging the market to deliver investment, and there is much more in the pipeline. As of October 2008, more than 2,000 MW of renewable electricity generating capacity was under construction, 6,300 MW has been consented to and 8,700 MW is in planning. The UK is now No. 1 in the world for offshore wind, overtaking Denmark in October last year. At the same time, we passed the 3 GW mark for installed wind, both on and offshore.
However, if we are to meet the challenging targets that we have set ourselves for increasing the proportion of our energy that comes from renewables, we need a contribution from all renewables technologies, not just onshore and offshore wind; for example, from waste, biomass, microgeneration, and heat technologies. Notwithstanding the impacts of the current financial downturn, the Government are committed to meeting their targets for renewables, and we are looking at ways to help companies invest.
To reach our target, we will need to increase deployment some eightfold in just 11 years, but we must be clear that meeting the challenge will require a more rapid deployment of new infrastructure across the UK, and that there will be local impacts from such deployment. Along with our plans for new nuclear power and energy efficiency, that represents a significant change in how this country will use and supply energy over the next decade. Delivering on that national change, our Big Energy Shift means getting the framework right to ensure that schemes are built in the right places, at the right times. It also means engaging with communities at all levels to ensure that not just national benefits but local and community benefits are delivered.
Planning will be key to getting the renewable energy infrastructure that must be built in time for 2020. The planning system is where we ask economic, social and environmental objectives to be integrated, and where potential conflicts between the interests of individuals or local communities and the needs of the nation as a whole are reconciled.
Given the scale of the challenge that we face, each and every decision on a renewable energy project counts. We must be aware of the interests of local communities, listen to legitimate concerns about specific proposals and their location, and give industry as much certainty as possible on whether a project is likely to gain consent and, if so, when. If the risk of development is too great, investment will stop flowing and could move to other countries.
Where and when we get renewable energy developments is dependent on business wanting to invest and having the confidence to do so. Likewise, if local communities feel ignored, they will lose trust in the accountability of the decisions made on their behalf. The planning system must create an attractive environment for the private sector to invest in renewable technologies, but balance that with local concerns. We need to tackle delays in planning and ensure that projects for renewable energy are refused planning permission only if there are sufficient reasons for doing so. That means getting good quality applications through the planning system and looking at ways to improve the system in the longer term.
We are gearing up the planning system to help make the move to a low-carbon economy with much higher use of renewable energy. The reforms that we introduced last November in the Planning Act 2008 will play a vital part in achieving that. The delivery of the reforms set out in the Act will be key to meeting our 2020 goals, and we are on track to produce national policy statements for consultation and parliamentary scrutiny later this year. They will set out for the first time the national importance of energy infrastructure and how the policy interacts with the planning process. National policy statements will be a material consideration for decisions made under Town and Country Planning Acts and will help to ensure that renewables decisions are taken consistently whether they are large or small.
The planning policy statement on climate change already encourages regions and local planners actively to plan for and support renewable energy generation, including by allocating and safeguarding sites. That is an important part of encouraging a proactive approach to increasing the amount of renewable energy but also helps to ensure that there are more benefits for local communities. However, we need to do more.
In our renewable energy consultation last summer, we set out a range of ideas for increasing local and regional ownership of planning applications for renewable energy, for increasing capability in the planning system, and for improving the quality of applications. The Government are committed to publishing our renewable energy strategy this summer, in which we will set out our views in the light of consultation.
In our heat and energy saving strategy consultation published last month, we further explored how to engage with local communities and householders on energy use and supply, and in particular how we can ensure that consumers, businesses and communities are able to realise the benefit of lower energy bills and reduced carbon emissions.
My hon. Friend put forward a number of suggestions, and I shall deal with them now. She asked us to consider the idea of designating, within each region, certain areas where planning applications for renewable energy projects would be encouraged. There is already an expectation that regions will set some targets for renewable energy in line with national policy. Planning policy statement 1, in its supplement on climate change published in December 2007, asks regional and local authorities to identify broad areas that they consider appropriate for renewables development, and sites. We set out a range of possible measures in our renewable energy strategy consultation, which was published last summer, to ensure that regional and local authorities plan positively for renewable energy.
Although we are not quite doing what my hon. Friend suggests, we can look at her ideas with great care, because they fit in with the broad strategy that is being adopted. We want local authorities to plan positively for renewable energy, and, in the renewable energy strategy this summer, we will set out our views on how that can be taken forward.
Natascha Engel: When my hon. and learned Friend talks about designating areas, does he mean local authority areas or specific sites within those areas?
Mr. O'Brien: The general idea is that local authorities will identify broad areas either where renewable energy projects will be encouraged or considered for development, or where concerns are low. To some extent, the companies that bring forward the projects will decide where they want an application to be considered. They will make the application, and we need to ensure that the planning process determines it in the most appropriate way.
We are looking for areas, within each local area or region, where local and regional authorities can take a view on the location of renewables. We are not necessarily saying “This is the field,” but, more broadly, “This is the area where applications will be considered.” The local authority and the applicant will then decide on the application’s location.
My hon. Friend also asked about the role of the infrastructure planning commission. It will deal with major infrastructure projects and decide on onshore renewable electricity projects of more than 50 MW in scale. Smaller project clusters of cumulatively more than 50 MW will be called in to the IPC, too. We firmly believe, however, that it is important for local government to maintain its role in deciding on 50 MW projects and lower. That is our view on relatively small projects.
My hon. Friend asked about 2 km buffer zones, and that issue is addressed by the current planning process—in a sense. Local authorities and planners can determine the buffer zone for an application. She says that, generally, there should be a 2 km buffer zone, but, although separation distances are needed for a range of impacts, such as noise, health and safety and so on, they tend to depend on the specificities of the project, such as the number, height and location of the turbines, the general topography of the land and more. We therefore consider that, currently, separation distance can be dealt with case by case—in line with PPS 22, on renewable energy, and its companion guide.
My hon. Friend suggested something broader with a general application, but the issue depends on the area. Some urban areas may want wind turbines of a significant size. For example, they may be located in an urban estuary area, and the local authority may take the decision. We would not want to do anything to prejudice the local desire to locate a project in their area just because it did not happen to fit in with the 2 km suggestion. The planning system currently has to consider in each case the idea of a reasonable distance between villages, towns and larger urban areas and the location of a planning application.
Natascha Engel:
The issue is normally wind turbines, and, in all the documents that I have read, a lot of consideration is given to areas of outstanding natural
beauty, but densely populated areas are not discussed much at all. On the issue of a 2 km buffer zone, those areas ought to be top of the agenda, but I did not see them anywhere.
Mr. O'Brien: When we introduce feed-in tariffs, local communities will see the benefit to them, because the tariffs mean that a certain amount of money could come out of the generation and go into the local community, providing not only energy but financial resource. The tariffs come in next year, and we expect them to have a significant impact on people’s views. It is all very well locating a number of wind turbines in a community, because they generate electricity for the rest of the country; however, the community has to have the turbines and, if, like my hon. Friend, it quite likes them, that is fine, but if it does not, it has a problem. Each person tends to have a different view, so it is best if we find a way for local communities to see that they could benefit from wind turbines.
In Germany, for example, feed-in tariffs mean that local communities often welcome a turbine in their area, either because they want it to generate electricity from which they will benefit, or because they see that the turbine will generate beneficial funds for the community as a result of its location. Such feed-in tariffs may affect the attitudes of some local people: if they see a positive local benefit, they may take a different view. In a democracy, people always take all sorts of views and, in many ways, the joy of living in a democracy is that people are entitled to do so.
We agree with my hon. Friend that local and regional authorities must begin to consider their areas and plan for renewables proactively, rather than simply consider applications as they come in. They will have to do that in any event. If they have a view about where they think it right and permissible to locate wind farms or other renewables, they should ensure that local communities know the expectations for that area. That is true in relation to renewables, but it would not necessarily apply to other applications. To some extent, local communities, and local authorities in particular, must decide what is best for themselves. We do not want to centralise everything. We want local communities to have their say, and we want to ensure that, in a democracy, people who are directly affected by something have the right to voice their view about it and to make sure that that view is not only heard but, in many cases, listened to, resulting in the decision being made as they want it to be.
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