Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Sustainable Energy.
Full text: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2014-09-04/debates/14090411000011/SustainableEnergy
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
3. What his Department’s policy is on promoting sustainable energy sources; what estimate he has made of future UK generating capacity from such sources; and if he will make a statement.
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The Minister for Business and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
We have a range of measures in place to promote sustainable energy sources, including reforms to the electricity market to support nuclear, renewables and carbon capture and storage. The percentage of electricity generated from renewable sources has doubled from 7% in 2010 to 14% at the end of last year.
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Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
The people of north and west Wiltshire strongly support renewable energy, but we are besieged by hundreds of planning applications from London-based commercial operations for solar farms, not on roofs of factories or brownfield sites, but on greenfield sites across the county. Will my right hon. Friend reiterate the strong message that our right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) previously sent out, which is a strong presumption against the use of agricultural land and a strong presumption in favour of industrial roofs and other places?
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Matthew Hancock
There are opportunities for solar, where appropriately sited, in many different places on roofs and on land. In fact, land can be combined with agricultural use and solar. One other advantage of solar is that it can effectively be masked from being seen from elsewhere because it is low-rise rather than high-rise. This has to be done sensitively. There is no point in destroying our green and pleasant land in order to save the global environment. We have to tackle security of supply and climate change in a way that also protects the local environment.
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