My Lords, I strongly support the wise words of my noble friend Lord Ridley. I am one of those who believes that certain types of power are uneconomic, unreliable and unsightly. It is because of the latter point as much as anything else that the Prime Minister made a commitment during the general election campaign, which was given force in the manifesto, that we would not fly in the face of local opinion, as we often have in the past, and build wind farms where they were not wanted. The manifesto commitment is entirely clear, and it is indeed flouting the Salisbury convention to seek to delete it. I very much hope that your Lordships will not do that. We have a duty to examine and scrutinise legislation, and when we believe it is wrong, to ask the other place to think again—but here we are seeking to delete a fundamental part of the Bill.
I am a great admirer of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington; I hope that does not embarrass her. She brings real distinction to our debates, and she speaks from true knowledge—but, by Jove, she was fishing around this afternoon. I was somewhat amused when she tried to call in aid Lady Thatcher; I am not sure that Lady Thatcher would have entirely endorsed her remarks. She then made a lovely remark about Mr Corbyn, saying that he probably did not agree with fracking or nuclear power—but that didn’t matter, because it was not going to be reflected in Labour Party policy. We are clearly in a period of political anarchy at the moment, and it will be interesting to see how long Mr Corbyn lasts, and how long his party lasts with him—but that is not what we are debating this afternoon.
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What we are debating is a narrow issue. We do not need to fish around for strange arguments. I believe that we have a commitment, which was expressed in the manifesto. It was commented on during the election campaign by the Prime Minister and other members of the Conservative Party. I happened to be the president of the Protect Nocton Fen campaign in Lincolnshire. We were threatened with 20 wind turbines, twice the height of Lincoln Cathedral and within six miles of it. I campaigned vigorously and I hope that it played a small part in persuading the Prime Minister and others to ensure that the manifesto said what it said. I raised
that issue many times on the Floor of your Lordships’ House and we had unanimity among the Lincolnshire MPs on it, yet it would have been entirely possible for the local will to be overridden and now it cannot be, which is very important. The fact that the promoters, Vattenfall, a Swedish firm, have now withdrawn their proposal brought enormous joy to people. They do not like their countryside to be defaced in that way. They do not want centuries-old views of one of the greatest buildings in Europe to be ruined or obscured. What we are talking about today is paying some regard to the will of local people, and I very much hope that that argument will prevail if we are obliged to vote on this amendment.