The new business secretary Andrea Leadsom has been put under immediate pressure to reverse the government’s “ideological opposition” to onshore wind.
The chair of the BEIS (business, energy and industrial strategy) select committee, Rachel Reeves, has written today to Leadsom, who was appointed secretary of state as part of new prime minister Boris Johnson’s Cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday
In her letter, Reeves calls for the department to take up a series of recommendations by the committee on the transition to net zero.
This includes easing planning restrictions on on-shore wind, which combined with this technology’s exclusion from Contracts for Difference auctions, “severely limit” deployment of what she describes as the “cheapest form of electricity generation in the UK”.
Leadsom was minister of state for energy under David Cameron’s government which introduced these restrictions on onshore wind.
The letter also calls on Leadsom to put pressure on the Treasury to ensure that that it examines the benefits as well as the costs of decarbonisation when undertaking its review of the transition to net zero.
It says that omitting the benefits, rather than establishing the net costs of the transition, is “concerning” because it will result in a “one-sided” exercise that-could “misrepresent” the economic implications of aiming towards the new target.
Reeves also urges Leadsom to press for a series of further measures, like bringing forward the ban on sales of new internal combustion engine cars and vans to 2032.
Welcoming Leadsom’s appointment, Reeves said: “On the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, it is clear the new secretary of state will need to hit the ground running and act quickly to ramp up efforts on the policies and actions crucial to tackling climate change and capitalising on the opportunities of a low-carbon economy.
“The secretary of state should also seek to overcome Treasury resistance and ensure that her colleague at No.11 examines the potential benefits as well as the costs of the transition to net zero.
“The government should also overcome its ideological opposition to on-shore wind – the cheapest form of electricity generation in the UK – and set out plans to fulfil this technology’s huge potential.”