Liz Truss is facing a rebellion from Jacob Rees-Mogg’s business department over plans to ban solar power from most of England’s farmland.
The Prime Minister and her environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, want to ban solar power on around 41% of England’s land area, or around 58% of agricultural land, The Guardian revealed earlier of this week
But his business secretary, Rees-Mogg, is understood to think it is “unconservative” to tell farmers what they can and cannot do on their land. His climate minister, Graham Stuart, said on Wednesday he would talk to Defra about the plans as more ground-based solar power is needed to meet renewable energy targets.
In an article for The Guardian, Rees-Mogg, who has previously denounced “climate alarmism”, insists that he is convinced of the need to boost renewable energy.
It also unveils new policies, including loosening regulations for companies to install solar power and giving homeowners subsidies to install panels on their homes.
In the piece, he says he is “not a green energy skeptic,” adding that his department would give “unprecedented support” to renewable energy sources. Rees-Mogg also brands coal mines and oil rigs “dark satanic mills”, promising to replace them with wind farms.
On solar, he adds: “We are exploring options to support low-cost financing to help homeowners with the upfront costs of solar installation, permitted development rights to support the deployment of more solar in small scale in commercial environments and designing performance standards to further encourage renewables, including solar PV, in homes and new buildings.”
Stuart told the environmental audit committee in parliament on Wednesday that his Rees-Mogg Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy opposed the ban.
He said his department would speak to Defra about its plans.
“We will work closely with Defra, and the UK Energy Security Strategy set out an expectation of a fivefold increase in solar,” he said. “It is clear that we need significant growth in both solar and rooftop to achieve this ambition.”
The rebellion comes after reports that Truss has criticized his cabinet ministers for reporting on his most unpopular policies, including rumors that he considered linking benefit rises to wages rather than inflation.
Truss’s spokesman confirmed on Monday that plans to ban solar power on agricultural land were going ahead. This is despite analysis by the Financial Times showing that by doing so, England would lose £20 billion in investment, which critics say would harm its growth agenda.
Asked about the Guardian report, Truss’ official spokesman told reporters: “I can point you to what the Prime Minister said, I think at the beginning of September, when she said she doesn’t think we should put solar panels to productive agriculture. land, because obviously, in addition to the question of energy security, we face a question of food security. So we have to strike the right balance.”
The Prime Minister has always had a personal ambivalence towards ground-based solar, falsely claiming when she was Environment Secretary that solar panels harmed food security. During his leadership campaign this summer, he dismissed the panels as “paraphernalia,” adding: “On my watch, we’re not going to lose swaths of our prime farmland to solar farms.”
Truss is understood to be supported by Jayawardena, who is expected to present plans to change the farmland classification system to the Rees-Mogg department and the Department for Leveling for approval.
It has asked its officials to redefine “best and most versatile” (BMV) land, earmarked for agriculture, to include medium to low category 3b, on which most new solar projects are built. The terrains are graded from 1 to 5, and currently BMV includes grades from 1 to 3a. Planning guidance says development on BMV land should be avoided, although planning authorities may take other considerations into account.
Rees-Mogg’s pro-renewables comments may surprise green campaigners, who have been alarmed by her previous climate comments.
Last month, he told department staff that Britain “must get every cubic inch of gas out of the North Sea”, a leaked video shows. Critics at the time accused the business secretary of “putting his ideology ahead of the climate” and “fossil fuel greenwashing” by prioritizing gas over renewables.
Jacob Rees-Mogg claims ‘domestic’ gas is green in leaked footage of first BEIS address: video
He has also been a strong supporter of fracking, with a leaked email showing he was trying to avoid scrutiny of new energy projects, including those using the controversial method. Sources close to the company secretary later clarified that he wanted to be able to rapidly build all energy methods, including renewables and fracking.
An email to officials, seen by the Guardian, said he had pointed out that parliamentary legislation was not subject to judicial review and could be used to fast-track new projects.
Rees-Mogg has also said he would be “delighted” to have fracking in his back garden and branded those opposed to shale gas extraction “Luddites” and “socialists”.
Rees-Mogg tells Tories he would welcome fracking in his back garden – video