Conservatives to promise ban on new onshore windfarms
Manifesto will
focus on solar power and offshore wind instead in attempt to show Cameron is
not abandoning green agenda
Nicholas Watt, chief political
correspondent
The Guardian, Friday 4 April 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/04/conservatives-promise-ban-new-onshore-windfarms
The Conservative party is planning to
pledge in its manifesto for next year's general election that it will introduce
a moratorium on future onshore windfarms from 2020 on the grounds that they
have now become "self-defeating".
In an attempt to show that David Cameron is
not abandoning the green agenda, the Tories will also pledge in their 2015
manifesto to press ahead with an intensification of offshore windfarms.
The manifesto will also focus on greater
use of solar power, a point highlighted when the government unveiled plans this
week to encourage England
The decision to refocus the emphasis on
offshore wind – and to abandon support for future onshore windfarms – follows
an intense debate among senior Tories and between the coalition partners over
the future of Britain's renewable energy resources.
A senior source close to the prime minister
told the Guardian this week that Cameron is supportive of opponents of onshore
windfarms and wants to "go further" in cutting financial aid to them.
A move by Cameron and George Osborne to
push for a cap on the electricity output of onshore windfarms, which would in
effect amount to a cap, was rejected by Nick Clegg.
The Guardian understands that Cameron has
brokered a compromise between warring Tories by agreeing to include measures in
the manifesto for next year's general election that will in effect rule out the
building of onshore windfarms from 2020. "We are likely to see that in the
Conservative manifesto," one senior Tory said of the measures, which would
amount to a moratorium.
The Tories will be working out the details
of the pledge, which could involve an absolute cap on the output from onshore
turbines. Lesser measures, which would all come into force in 2020, would
involve lower subsidies or introducing tighter planning restrictions.
The senior Conservative said it was
important to act because onshore windfarms had become so unpopular.
The Tory source said: "We are not
going to allow the Lib Dems to characterise us as anti-clean-energy just
because we want to control the number of onshore windfarms. If anything we are
mindful that uncontrolled expansion of onshore wind is alienating people from
the whole clean energy debate. We think it is self-defeating."
The government believes it is on course to
meet its energy forecasts outlined by the Department of Energy and Climate
Change. But the source added: "After 2020 we really want to see the
emphasis on offshore wind. The emphasis will shift but not completely.
"We want to deliver the wind that's
obviously been built already, that's currently in the planning system, that's
currently in construction. But when that current pipeline is deployed by 2020
we want to see the emphasis shift to offshore wind. Solar can also help take up
the slack."
The revelation that the Tories will abandon
support for onshore windfarms comes after Michael Gove, the education
secretary, and Greg Barker, the climate change minister, outlined ambitions to
encourage all 22,000 schools in England
Schools would fund the installation of
solar power, which can cost around £10,000, by accessing feed-in tariffs which
would be used to pay off the capital costs, which could take up to 10 years.
Barker said: "This ambitious new
roll-out of solar on our schools is another example of the coalition walking
the walk, not just talking the talk on the green agenda. Schools have a
particularly iconic role at the heart of communities so as well as joining the
clean energy transition and helping lower our emissions, schools and their
pupils can help inspire thousands of others to take action too."
Gove said: "Solar panels are a
sensible choice for schools, particularly in terms of the financial benefits
they can bring. It is also a great way for pupils to engage with environmental
issues and think about where energy comes from."
Friends of the Earth welcomed the
announcement. Andy Atkins, the executive director, said: "It's encouraging
to see the prime minister's Conservative colleagues promoting a positive solar
vision for the UK
David Cameron's Conservatism: blowing in the wind
The prime
minister's once-determined proclamation of a newly progressive Conservatism is
now scarcely audible
Editorial
The Guardian, Friday 4 April 2014 / Editorial
The Guardian, Friday 4 April 2014
A tiny change in the North
Kensington skyline was perhaps the first sign that the Cameronian
overhaul of the Conservative party had run its course. The Tory leader had
talked for months about putting a turbine on his roof, but after the
mini-windmill arrived it almost immediately disappeared, because neighbours
complained of an eyesore. Whether a more determined stand against the town hall
would have allowed Mr Cameron to keep his green gadget we may never know. But
in setting out his wider environmental agenda, he put the best face on this
personal setback by cheerfully conceding that it was "obvious that
windmills in open rural spaces do better" than in his own urban lowland,
"Notting Dale".
Five years on, and Mr Cameron risks
becoming the type to pick up the phone to the planning office when a green
neighbour tries to do their bit. As we report, the plan seems to be for the
Conservative manifesto to impose some sort of cap on onshore windfarms. Yes,
there will be triangulating words about expending (vastly expensive) offshore
capacity, and yes – too – a few committed Tory greens are still plugging away
on substantive details, as Greg Barker's solar strategy demonstrated yesterday.
But the wider sense is of the early concern with the climate evaporating into
overheated air. The 2010 Tory manifesto vowed to "increase the proportion
of tax revenues accounted for by environmental taxes", but after holding
down petrol prices for years, the chancellor used the budget to cut the levy on
long-haul flights and freeze carbon price rises which the coalition had
previously precommitted to.
Greenery aside, if there were ever a
propitious moment for assessing what became of compassionate Conservatism, this
ought to be it. For, in the last seven days, two of its promises have been
honoured – gay marriage and the pledge to devote 0.7% of national income to
overseas aid. These are genuine achievements and things that would not have
been done by Mrs Thatcher, whose administration threw bullying legislation at
homosexuals, and squeezed aid. And yet the man who made these things totems of
how he wanted to change his country is no longer leading from the front. While
the PM has held firm on the principle of the marriage reform, far from making
it the emblem of a wider movement to modernise, he whispers to his party that
he will not try anything similarly divisive again.
As for aid, it is almost as if Mr Cameron
has become embarrassed by what is, without doubt, a remarkable humane
accomplishment in cash-strapped times. It was not the boss, but his Lib Dem
deputy who tweeted out news that the target was hit.
Glancing backwards towards his
Ukip-inclined reactionary rearguard, Mr Cameron's once-determined proclamation
of a newly progressive Conservatism is scarcely audible now. Far from ceasing
to "bang on about Europe", the referendum pledge guarantees that Britain
Change, hope and optimism ran the early
Cameron tricolon. British politics would be healthier with a centre-right party
that could do hope as well as fear. Sadly, that does not seem to be the way the
wind is blowing.
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