Liz Truss on collision course with Jacob Rees-Mogg over solar power ban
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 from about 41% of the land area of England, or about 58% of agricultural land, the Guardian revealed earlier this week.
But her business secretary, Rees-Mogg, is understood to believe it is “unconservative” to tell farmers what they can and cannot do with their land. Her climate minister, Graham Stuart, said on Wednesday he would be speaking to Defra about the plans as more ground-mount solar is needed to meet renewable energy targets.
In a piece for the Guardian, Rees-Mogg, who has previously decried “climate alarmism”, insists he is convinced by the need to boost renewable energy.
He also reveals new policies including loosening regulations for businesses to put solar power in place and giving homeowners grants to install panels on their houses.
In the piece, he says he is “not a green energy sceptic”, adding that his department would give “unprecedented support” to renewable energy sources. Rees-Mogg also brands coalmines and oil rigs as “dark satanic mills”, vowing to replace them with windfarms.
On solar, he adds: “We are exploring options to support low-cost finance to help householders with the upfront costs of solar installation, permitted development rights to support deployment of more small-scale solar in commercial settings and designing performance standards to further encourage renewables, including solar PV, in new homes and buildings.”
Stuart told the environmental audit committee in parliament on Wednesday that his and Rees-Mogg’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
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