Indeed. The noble Lord is absolutely right. I was going to come on to that point. The UK Warehousing Association says that if we could get solar panels on all its warehouses, we would get 15 gigawatts of energy. The difficulty—perhaps the Minister can comment on this—is that there is difficulty in many cases with connecting to the grid. We need to find ways to help them achieve that for the benefit that the Minister just mentioned. I hope we can hear the Minister’s views on these issues, without him just shrugging them off as he has in the past, saying that this is a matter for the Chancellor.
Just like warehouses, other forms of non-domestic solar are vital; solar farms provide one such example. But we hear from media reports—the Minister can perhaps confirm whether this is true—that the Environment Secretary wishes to prevent new ones being built on the apparent basis that they are a threat to food security. Yet solar farms are a major UK success story that does not require subsidy. The chief
executive of the trade association Solar Energy UK told the Financial Times last week that there is more than £20 billion of private capital in the project pipeline—investment, as well as the jobs and extra finance to support farmers it would bring, that would be lost under the Environment Secretary’s apparent plans. Yet there is no serious evidence to suggest that solar farms present a threat to food security. In fact, the opposite is true. Land around and under solar farms can and does support the UK’s nature recovery and biodiversity targets with wildflower meadows, ponds and wetlands. Solar farms drive investment, create jobs and generate clean electricity. I hope we will hear from the Minister that what we hear about the Environment Secretary’s views is incorrect.
As I said at the beginning, we support the main provisions of the Bill, but believe it is a missed opportunity to, for example, set out a clear strategic plan for addressing energy efficiency and expand and make better use of solar energy.
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