Climate change threatens the natural world more than ground-mounted solar panels do, Ed Miliband has claimed.
The Energy Secretary branded himself a “super nerd” in the House of Commons, as he made an urgent statement on Labour’s “clean energy superpower mission”.
The Labour minister has faced criticism from Rutland and Stamford’s Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, after he signed off on the 350-megawatt Mallard Pass Solar project across about 2,000 acres in her constituency.
Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has also questioned the Government’s approach to a proposed 114-mile string of electricity pylons across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, which could help carry electricity generated by offshore windfarms, calling for “a pause while the other options are considered”.
Mr Miliband told MPs on Thursday: “The biggest threat to nature and food security, and to our rural communities, is not solar panels or onshore wind – it is the climate crisis which threatens our best farmland, food production and the livelihoods of farmers.”
On Friday last week, Mr Miliband approved three major solar power projects: Mallard Pass; Gate Burton near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire; and Sunnica near Mildenhall in Suffolk.
He said: “The reason we’re moving at this pace is for one overriding reason, because of the urgency of the challenges we face – the challenge of our energy insecurity laid bare by (Vladimir) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and paid for by the British people in the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, the challenge of an economy that doesn’t work for working people, with too few good jobs and decent wages, and the challenge of the climate crisis – not a future threat but a present reality.”
Conservative shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho described Mr Miliband’s clean energy ambitions as the Government’s “big test” and also its “greatest liability”.
She said: “In government, we had built more offshore wind than any other country bar China, we set out the largest expansion of nuclear power in 70 years and we have said that, yes, we will need oil and gas for the decades ahead, as the Climate Change Committee indeed has said, and we should use British oil and gas where needed, because we are in a global race for energy, and demand will be higher in the years ahead because of data and AI (artificial intelligence).
“And if his plans to set out to decarbonise the grid are in place, we need to know what those plans will do to people’s energy bills, to our energy security and to our reliance on the current dominant player for cables for batteries and critical minerals, which is China.”
The Energy Secretary hit back, and claimed voters rejected “the lurch away from climate action” at the ballot box, which saw the Tories lose 251 seats.
Tory former minister Dame Harriett Baldwin, who represents West Worcestershire, asked the Government what parameters would be put on pylon, wind and solar projects across areas like the Malvern Hills – a protected National Landscape between Worcester and Hereford.
“There are clear parameters in the legislation about consultation that needs to take place with local communities,” Mr Miliband replied.
“We have to make judgments as members of this House, which is: given the scale of the climate crisis we face, given the scale of energy insecurity we had and energy security threat we face, do we believe we need to build infrastructure?
“Now I happen to believe we do – yes with community consent, yes with community benefit, yes with the planning rules I’ve set out.”
He also said: “Anyone who knows me, knows me as a super nerd. And that means that when it comes to all of my responsibilities, particularly my quasi-judicial responsibilities, I take them incredibly seriously.”
Mr Ramsay, who represents the Waveney Valley constituency across Norfolk and Suffolk, told the PA news agency after the election earlier this month: “There’s a controversial proposal going right through East Anglia, including right through my constituency, for a new set of pylons, where there’s huge local concern about the impact on agricultural land, on traffic, on local communities, on the landscape …
“And what Green councillors in Suffolk have been arguing for for a long time now is that an alternative should be properly considered, such as having an offshore grid.”
Responding to Mr Miliband’s decision on the Mallard Pass solar project, Ms Kearns wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “We in Rutland and Stamford deserved due consideration and due process, that has been ripped asunder with apparent glee.
“The impact on food security, biodiversity, (on) human rights concerns and on our local communities warranted the courtesy of meaningful consideration.”
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