Decision on Aquind interconnector put back

Kwasi Kwarteng has postponed a decision on plans for a controversial new electricity interconnector with France.

Correspondence, published last week on the website of the Planning Inspectorate, which is handling the application for the Aquind link, shows that the secretary of state for business and energy has extended the statutory deadline for the decision by six weeks.

The decision was due to have been taken by 8 September but has now been put off until 21  October.

A public inquiry into the project, a 2GW capacity subsea and underground High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) electric power transmission link between the French and UK grids, concluded on 8 March.

The government’s previous minister of state for energy, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, revealed in July that she could not participate in any matters to do with the project because her local constituency party in Northumberland has received a donation from one of the development’s backers.

Alexander Termeko, an ex-head of Russian oil company Yukos who describes himself as a “prominent member” of the Conservative Party on his personal website, has been a director of Aquind since 2016, according to Companies House.

Kwarteng has asked the interconnector’s developer to furnish further information to justify the need for using compulsory purchase powers to acquire land for its project.

Darren Jones, chair of the House of Commons Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy select committee has raised concerns about why the decision on Aquind been delayed and the due diligence undertaken by the department with regard to ministerial commercial interests.

Stephen Morgan, MP for Portsmouth, submitted a 6,200-signature petition to Parliament last week, calling on Kwarteng to scrap the project, which will run from his constituency to Normandy.