Tory opposition to onshore wind “thawing”

Conservative opposition to onshore wind power is “thawing” but there are “still barriers to overcome” before the government block of new projects can be removed, a leading Tory environmentalist has said.

Sam Hall, director of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), told a breakfast briefing at Energy UK’s headquarters yesterday (Thursday) that concern about climate change issues has increased amongst Tory MPs since the election, pointing to a near doubling in his own’s body parliamentary membership since the general election,

He said that 72 MPs and lords are now members of the CEN, compared to 40 before December’s poll, including 27 from the new intake of MPs.

“Having seen that environment was a really popular issue on the doorstep, they are feeling a lot of pressure from consumers to demonstrate through their work in parliament they are delivering on this issue.”

But questioned on whether this growing eco-enthusiasm may translate into an overturning of the existing block on onshore wind farms, Hall said it was still “really tricky”.

“It is thawing but there are still barriers to overcome.

“The politics of it are improving but remain quite difficult,” he said, adding that the greater than expected success of offshore wind in recent years had “paradoxically” made it harder to make the case for onshore projects.

“We need vast amounts of low carbon capacity: doing it (net zero) without onshore would be a lot more expensive.

“I hope the government will revisit this but it is still tricky and people in government who have been enthusiastic about making progress haven’t been able to because the politics is very hard.”

Hall, who advised Michael Gove when he was secretary of state for the environment, said that other climate change policy challenges for the new government included whether to offer better-off households financial support to replace gas boilers with lower carbon heating alternatives.

“Without that we know there won’t be energy efficiency improvements in that sector.

“There is a lot of overall enthusiasm but the next few months will be crucial in terms of making progress on energy policy.”

Giles Wilkes, former special adviser to prime minister Theresa May on business and energy issues, said that mooted moves to revive the department of energy and climate change(DECC) would not be sufficient on its own to deliver a step change in efforts to tackle emissions.

Mo Hussein, a former special adviser to then energy secretary Amber Rudd, said that DECC had been too siloed from other government departments.

The director of public affairs at agency PLMR said: “It (DECC) felt more like a thinktank than a government delivery department responsible for a lot of investment.

“I don’t feel that having a separate department that does the thinking but none of the practical delivery is the best way of doing things.”