Yesterday, our Editor told some home truths to those Conservative MPs aiming to amend the Levelling Up Bill to end central housing targets. Call them NIMBYs, short-sighted, or over-active members of the anti-growth coalition if you so choose. The simple fact is that failing to build – amongst all the other pressures on house prices – makes the Tory dream of a property-owning democracy even more unobtainable for sprogs like me dreaming of our own little patch of Metro-Land.
It is not all doom and gloom. Whilst they may not be repealing the despicable 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, one MP is at least hoping to amend the bill in a rather different direction. Simon Clarke – the George Lazenby of Levelling-Up Secretaries – has tabled an amendment to overturn the ban on new onshore wind farms. His logic is that if “we’re going to have some anti-growth amendments on the bill, we might as well have some pro-growth ones too.”
Unlike myself, Clarke was a firm Liz Truss supporter. In an article for this month’s issue of The Critic, he has argued that Truss’ faults in governing should not obscure the value of her central diagnosis: that Britain is growing too slowly, and that this is a very bad thing indeed. I wholly agree. The problem with Trussonomics in practice was the Eric Morecambe one – all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order. That does not mean we should not still try and play that pro-growth take on Grieg’s Piano Concerto.
So Clarke’s amendment is a welcome attempt by a new backbencher to fight for what he believes in. It is also an effort to give some of his colleagues a sharp kick up the backside. We do only have two or so years until the next election. It would be a nice thing to see the natural party of government actually use some of that time to deal with a few of our myriad national challenges.
In that vein, the ban on wind turbines has been in placed since 2015. Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng floated over-turning the ban, somewhat obscured by their simultaneous efforts to loosen the rules on fracking. Sunak dropped any talk of doing so in his hasty retreat away from Trussonomics.
Clarke has consistently been arguing in favour of removing the ban since 2017 – including on ConHome. The case he makes for onshore wind remains strong. Whether Net Zero, energy security, or cost-effectiveness is your priority, onshore wind will have a vital role to play. We can all nod along to an aspiration to be the Saudi Arabia of wind, especially if it means humiliating Argentina.
There are a few potential snags with Clarke’s proposals. His idea is that, where local support exists for granting onshore wind applications, it should be able to go ahead. How that support would be expressed is unclear. Clarke hopes to ensure the local element is enshrined through an alteration to aforementioned (and evil) Town and Country Planning Act. This would be to make sure no means no. If a development is refused, that is the end of the matter.
Setting such a precedent – even in the narrow context of wind turbines – might be leapt upon by future NIMBYs to make it more difficult to build the homes we need. Empowering the opponents of development – however hypothetically – is playing a risky game. Furthermore, whilst 64 per cent of 2019 Tory voters might support lifting the ban, one wonders how that figure changes when the actual proposals for building a turbine a mile or two away emerges.
One solution is that proposed by Octopus Energy, which promises 20 per cent off the unit rate to those living near turbines in use. We could call this the Bevan approach: stuffing the NIMBYs’ mouths with gold. It may work in a few areas. But for all their ability to cut cost and look after the polar bears, I imagine the passing of Clarke’s amendment would not herald any revolution in our energy supplies. England’s green and pleasant land would remain largely free of turbines.
Moreover, whilst we already, theoretically, have enough wind and solar capacity to match our annual consumption needs, we remain a slightly damp and gloomy nation off the North Atlantic. Some times it is not windy, and the sun does not shine. So renewable energy – of any kind – cannot act in isolation, and other forms of energy remain essential. We also need to vastly expand our battery capacity, and that costs around three times as much as any introducing new turbines.
We may have retreated on fracking. But the Chancellor’s support for a new nuclear power station is welcome – even if it does exist in a long tradition of governments over-promising and under-delivering when it comes to splitting the atom. In a perfect world, it would be all hands to the pump. Fracking, nuclear, onshore, and offshore wind: whatever it takes to end the dangerous over-exposure to international markets that the war in Ukraine has highlighted.
Nevertheless, as with the ban on grammar schools, the principled case for this amendment is also the simplest one. Why should central government stand in the way of local communities where there is support for building new turbines? If removing the ban also brings us a little closer to being energy-independent, then all to the good.
Clarke’s amendment is a small step in that direction. But small steps come before giant leaps. So if NASA can circle the Moon again, Tory MPs can start to liberalise planning regulations. The fight against the anti-growth coalition continues, one amendment at a time.