Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Wind Farms: Protected Peatland.
11:03 Robbie Moore (Conservative)
Before I outline in more detail my concerns about the Calderdale wind farm proposals, I want to be very clear that I am not against wind farm developments or renewable energy schemes. However, I am absolutely against wind farms being developed where they will have a huge impact on the environment, ecology, wildlife, heritage, flooding risk and the very carbon sequestration ability of our peat, which will be hugely negatively impacted.
Peatland is a natural store of carbon, capturing and storing 26 times as much carbon as our forests in the UK. Almost all our UK peatlands have at least some blanket bog, with UK uplands containing around 15% of the blanket bog in the world. The Walshaw moor alone is made up of approximately 16,000 acres of it. Healthy peatlands will absorb and store carbon, and build carbon into the peat. However, if peatlands are damaged, which is unavoidable with huge infrastructure projects such as wind farms, it can release carbon back into the atmosphere, dramatically increasing carbon dioxide emissions. The amount of infrastructure required for the Calderdale wind farm is huge. It includes the foundations associated with each turbine, the complex road network that needs to be built across the peat so that each turbine can be fixed in place, the expansive base areas next to each turbine, the vast cabling routes that need to be buried underneath the peat, the man-made drainage cut-outs that need to be installed, the sub-stations, the weather monitoring and the fencing—I could go on. All of that will have a deeply damaging impact on our protected peatland.
I know that the developers and those supporting the Calderdale wind farm proposals like to say that the benefits of producing renewable energy outweigh the carbon loss caused by the development, but the justifications they have offered have been extremely poor. In fact, Professor Richard Lindsay, a world-leading expert on peatland ecosystems, who I spoke to just last week, has described those making this argument as
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14:40 Robbie Moore (Conservative)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He makes an excellent point: the developers have failed to ascertain that the positives of the project outweigh its negative impacts, including the impact on the ability of the peatland to sequester and store carbon. That is before even considering all the negative impacts on highways, the impacts of the infrastructure that has to be developed and the impact on local communities. The renewable energy scheme will be incredibly detrimental; the peatland will hold more carbon. That is why I am firmly opposed to the development.
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14:47 Robbie Moore (Conservative)
Renewable energy could be an essential part of our future, but not like this—not here, and not at the cost of everything the Brontë country represents. This scheme must be stopped.
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14:47 Anna Dixon (Labour)
As the hon. Member has rightly highlighted, peatlands are crucial in our fight against climate change. They store a whopping 3.2 billion tonnes of CO 2 . They also reduce flood risk—something that particularly impacted constituents during the Boxing day floods over a decade ago—and support biodiversity. The Labour Government are acting to stop the decline in nature depletion.
However, as we have heard, both here in the UK and around the world our peatlands have been degraded and, according to the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, are now estimated to be a net source of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Stopping their degradation must be a really big priority. That is why I welcome steps that Bradford council has taken to scale up peatland restoration on the district’s moorlands. In 2023, some £200,000 of additional funding was committed to rewet areas of the moorland. If someone goes to walk there, they can see blocked drainage ditches and things called leaky dams, which slow the flow of water.
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14:52 Anna Dixon (Labour)
As well as restoring peatlands, which I have dwelled on in the first part of my speech, another key aspect of the comprehensive climate plan is ensuring that we invest in renewable energy. I am proud that this Government have pledged to make the UK a clean energy superpower, and as part of that have set up Great British Energy to produce cheaper and cleaner power for our country.
I will briefly make a political point, as the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley also did, to remind him that his party ended a lot of the support for solar power and blocked the expansion of onshore wind. In its dying days, it seemed to attempt to create some sort of green wedge between the parties, and broke what had been a long-held consensus among at least the main political parties that we needed to tackle climate change. What I have heard from him—I will give my position shortly—is that he is opposed to the development, but he has pledged his support for clean energy, which seems at odds with some Members of his party.
I urge the Government to listen to the arguments made in this debate. There could clearly be major negative impacts on our precious peatlands in this area of Yorkshire, and I ask that the Government look carefully and reconsider the proposals. I agree with the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley that it would be beneficial to extend the statutory period of consultation to allow all significant organisations that wish to feed into it to have their say. I support—as I know the Labour Government do—the protection of our special peatlands. We must tackle climate crisis, but at a local level we must balance our need to drive forward clean energy with the detrimental potential impact.
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14:57 David Chadwick (Liberal Democrat)
Clearly we need clean energy. We need renewable energy and there are huge possibilities across Wales. Sir Alec, I know that you are a keen engineer and that you will be interested in the opportunities to develop tidal energy in Wales, and the bountiful opportunities to develop our offshore wind capabilities. However, destroying one of our most important natural climate defences in the process of developing onshore wind is reckless and irresponsible. That is the contradiction at the heart of wind farm development on peatland. Peatlands are not wasteland. They are among our most valuable ecosystems. They store carbon, regulate water and support biodiversity. When damaged they can release the very emissions that we are supposed to be preventing.
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15:02 Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour)
Its beauty and the curlews, however, are not in and of themselves a reason to block the development of any renewable energy project. I subscribe to the view that we face a climate and nature emergency. Climate change is real and man-made. Our energy use makes it vital to ramp up the building of green energy infrastructure for the future as quickly as possible. For that reason, there would have to be clear and compelling evidence for me to question the development of a wind farm or any other renewable energy project.
As I have said in multiple representations to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the fundamental problem that we face is, unsurprisingly, one of joined-up Government. Too frequently under the last Government, the environment and climate change were treated as an afterthought and not as central to the business of Government.
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15:06 Robbie Moore (Conservative)
I know that on 30 March the hon. Member wrote to the Secretary of State asking for clarity on the guidance associated with the national policy statement for renewable energy infrastructure, EN-3, and its relationship with peatlands. I hear him speak about the importance of protecting peat, but I am less certain about what his position is on the Calderdale wind farm. Is he for or against the development of the Calderdale wind farm in his constituency?
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15:08 Josh Fenton-Glynn (Labour)
I think my position is fairly clear from what I am saying, but my point—this is the very clear thing—is not about a development in Calderdale, but about the principle of trying to tackle climate change and looking at that in the round with regard to developments on peat and whether any developments on peat make sense. I am more interested in the broad principle. I was never going to look for an outcome and find evidence to support it. I followed the evidence where it led me, and it led me to the concerns that I have expressed to Ministers fairly constantly, to the point where I have made clear my view that building on protected peat is counterproductive to our climate change aims.
In all seriousness, I thank the hon. Member for securing this important debate, because many Members across the House appreciate the need for a green energy revolution and agree that we have to move at speed to respond to the scale of the climate crisis. I recognise the urgency to meet net zero, but we have to get it right. We have to accept that green energy that comes at the cost of our environment is not in fact green, and we must be clear that projects that will dig up peat are wrong, even if that is for homes or wind turbines. I urge Ministers to make clear our position on this and how we are looking at that, so we can come to a position that does not undermine what we are trying to do overall in our climate aims.
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15:09 Jim Shannon (DUP)
Peat removal has taken place over many years. At the turn of the 19th century in Northern Ireland, peat was the heat source for many cottages and houses, but in the last 60 years, there has been a change and a different focus. I adhere to and support what the hon. Member puts forward in relation to wind farm development on protected peatland. In Northern Ireland, we are currently working towards an ambitious goal of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2030. We understand that this is a mammoth task, one that the Northern Ireland Assembly recently debated. Regardless of where the target is set, we need renewable energy and a sensible way forward.
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Sammy Wilson (DUP)
I believe this problem will only increase because the Government, in their pursuit of net zero, have now proposed another 27 onshore wind farms across the United Kingdom, and they are giving incentives. Despite our being told that the price of wind power is going down, it actually went up in the last auction. Of course, wind farms are most suited to a certain type of upland, and it is very attractive to put them there. There is good wind, and the land itself is probably not all that valuable to farmers because it has quite a low agricultural value. Therefore, there is an economic incentive for farmers to allow, encourage and accept the locating of multiple wind turbines on such land. This problem has been caused, first, by Government policy, and secondly, by the kind of areas we are talking about and their suitability for these kinds of developments.
We have already heard about the value of peatlands, especially in upland areas. We have heard about the impact on drainage, wildlife, river systems and—this will be more important to others than to me—the release and storage of carbon dioxide. I take a different view from many others on the causes of climate change. It happens, but for multiple reasons, so we cannot identify only one cause.
The irony is that those who believe that the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is important are the very people who now encourage activities that release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. As has been pointed out, we cannot have wind farms on peatland areas without causing significant disruption through the digging of holes to put in huge amounts of concrete—the making of which also generates a lot of CO 2 —the putting in of roads and the disruption to drainage. There is even the fact that the power must be taken through electricity cables that run across landscapes. All those things unavoidably lead to the release of CO 2 , which is the very thing we are told that net zero policy is essential to prevent.
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Sammy Wilson (DUP)
To the Minister, and to those who support the whole policy of net zero and what must be done to achieve it, I say let us at least be honest with ourselves. Do these projects achieve what we want to achieve? If they do not, whether in our constituencies or somebody else’s, there should not be any hesitation in saying that they prevent us from achieving the goal that we want to achieve.
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15:32 Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat)
Peatlands such as the Avalon marshes and the Somerset levels and moors are globally rare ecosystems. They make up less than 3% of Earth’s surface, yet they hold 30% of the world’s soil carbon. They have been described as the UK’s Amazon rainforest. They constitute 12% of our land area and play a critical role in mitigating climate change, supporting biodiversity and regulating water flow. They also support important habitats of rare fauna and flora, such as sphagnum mosses, roundleaf sundew, cottongrass and invertebrates such as the large marsh grasshopper, micro-plume moths and various damselflies and dragonflies. The peatlands of the Somerset levels and moors host breeding waders such as snipes and curlews, plus bitterns, adders and the recently reintroduced beavers. Somerset’s county emblem is a dragon rampant on a yellow background, so my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) can keep his Welsh dragon, which I understand inhabits the Radnor forest.
I thank the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee for its recent inquiry on this exact issue. It highlighted the inconsistencies and weaknesses in a Government policy that, on the one hand, recognises the importance of peatlands, yet on the other refuses to take action to manage the increasing infrastructure demands on them. Current Government guidance states that onshore wind farm sites in England may be proposed on peatland. However, any application should rule out other locations before siting developments on peatland.
I want to be clear that investment in renewable energy is a must. It will make homes healthy and cheap to heat, and it will support green jobs and economic growth. Another consideration is whether the development of wind turbines on peatland undermines the green energy transition, and whether the carbon lost from degraded peat outweighs estimated savings from renewables. There is planning guidance and a carbon calculator to address the issue in Scotland, but why not in England? The Government have also stated that they will publish an equivalent to NatureScot’s guidance on peatland habitat management for England, but we need to know when that will be.
That leads me to a broader concern regarding the Government’s approach to protecting our peatlands. In December, DEFRA published an updated environmental improvement plan, which included a commitment to restore approximately 280,000 hectares of peatland in England by 2050. However, recent analysis indicates that we may be significantly off track to meet those targets, and the Climate Change Committee has called for the UK Government to prioritise ramping up peatland restoration. Currently, the Government plan to spend £85 million by 2030 on peatland restoration. Although that funding is welcome, we must question why we still allow peat extraction to continue.
We need a joined-up approach to peatland protection and restoration, which recognises that both extraction and the placement of unsuitable infrastructure on peatland undermine our net zero objectives. We must instead focus on win-win solutions through strategic and spatial planning that can deliver for society and nature. That is why the Liberal Democrats want to invest in renewable power, so that 90% of the UK’s electricity is generated from renewables by 2030. We believe that with carefully planned development, we can achieve those goals while avoiding significant harm to nature and actively furthering its recovery. Rather than stripping local authorities of local decision making, we would give them a key role to cut emissions in their own area, including more powers and funding.
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15:34 Greg Smith (Conservative)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) on securing this important debate. Since this Labour Government came to power, they have been recklessly zealous in their commitment to net zero targets over all else, not least their willingness to trash our countryside for wind turbines, ground-mounted solar and more, when far less land-intensive energy solutions such as small modular reactors would deliver our energy needs in a much more sympathetic way to our landscape, food security and natural environment.
In January 2026, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published guidance permitting wind farm development on peatland. The national planning policy framework states that development on irreplaceable habitats, which includes a quarter of England’s peatland, should be refused, yet the Government have chosen just guidance over prohibition. It is shocking but unsurprising of this Labour Government—we find contradictions in their policymaking at every corner. Crucially, the new guidance on construction practices for wind farms on peatland has not even been published yet—the bulldozers may arrive before the policy framework lands.
“be offset by…the green energy generated.”
As ever, I would like to be charitable, but it is hardly surprising that the Government have been slow to draw a firm line when their approach to net zero treats all means as justified by the end.
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15:40 Anna Dixon (Labour)
Will the shadow Minister clarify his own party’s position? Does it remain committed to net zero, and does it acknowledge there will be a lot of nature damage if we do not make the transition swiftly to generating clean and renewable energy by 2030?
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15:41 Greg Smith (Conservative)
The Conservative party has been very, very clear on that. We believe in decarbonisation, but we need to do it in a way that people can afford and that does not trash our country in the process, in the way that ground-mounted solar and these wind farms do. The points I am making in arguing that damaging untouched peatland ends up causing more environmental damage than the supposed benefits of the wind farms that those who argue for them want to put there should make every Member of the House pause. They should think whether, in getting to decarbonisation, we are not creating more problems than we are solving by simply taking the first technology off the shelf or going for the convenient bit of land that might be available to build this on. It is a totally false economy to go down the rabbit warren of saying, “It looks green, so we must do it,” rather than doing a whole-system analysis, from the manufacture of parts to the destruction of habitat, land and place across our country. That may actually reveal that the results are not as green as they look on the metaphorical packaging.
The guidance does little to help the communities living along these landscapes, the wildlife that depends on them, or indeed the climate if carbon storing habitats are destroyed in the name of carbon reduction. In contrast to that inaction, there is a straightforward solution: prohibit wind farm development on protected peatland across our country—full stop. Despite the Secretary of State holding responsibility for both energy and net zero, it is preposterous that no such ban has been enacted. It is either that the Government do not wish to constrain their ambitions or are displaying sheer negligence towards the natural environment they claim to champion.
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15:43 Chris McDonald (Labour)
The Government’s ambition of clean power by 2030 is critical for moving all of us off our costly reliance on fossil fuels and for protecting consumer bills. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), rightly said that we need more investment in small, modular reactors. That is true, but we also need to invest in our cheapest form of energy, which is solar; our second cheapest, which is onshore wind; our third cheapest, which is offshore wind; and full scale nuclear and small modular reactors. We need to do all those things for our energy security, to bring bills down and, of course, to tackle climate change.
Recent events in the middle east have reinforced the importance of producing home-grown clean energy. Delivering our clean power mission will help to boost Britain’s energy independence, protect bill payers, support high-skilled jobs and tackle the climate crisis. Onshore wind is a critical component to delivering those goals. Getting more low-cost renewables such as onshore wind on to the system reduces our exposure to volatile global fossil fuel markets, protecting British families from the effects of future price shocks. This Government will continue to support onshore wind. We have removed the damaging de facto ban in England that has been in place for almost a decade and reintroduced the technology into the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime.
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15:46 Chris McDonald (Labour)
I hope the hon. Member will recognise that as I continue my remarks I will address many of the points that he made in his speech, including the point about peatland. From the contributions we have heard today, I would say there is strong agreement in this room on the need both to tackle climate change and to care for our special environments in the UK, including peatland. He will hear more on that from me shortly.
We heard earlier about EN-3, the national policy statement for renewable energy, which makes clear that, although onshore wind is permitted on peatland, applicants should seek and rule out other locations first. EN-3 guides developers to avoid peatland where possible, particularly areas of deep peat. Where that is not possible, developers are required to mitigate or compensate for peatland impacts. We are now going further to give decision makers and developers more tools to assess and manage the impacts of onshore wind on peatland. We committed in EN-3 to publish additional guidance regarding wind farm construction on peatland in England, something the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) asked about in particular.
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15:53 Robbie Moore (Conservative)
My third point is that as far as I can see, my neighbouring Members of Parliament have not put forward a position on the Floor of the House on whether they will join me to campaign as strongly as we can against this application. Concerns have been raised, but there is no formal position. It is deeply worrying that some of the Labour Members of Parliament I wrote to—I gave plenty of notice—did not feel it was worth turning up to this debate. It is clear that this Government’s policy in pursuit of net zero makes absolutely net zero sense.
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