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Keep onshore wind ban or risk Britain’s food security, Tory MPs say

Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm, near Lydd, Kent - PA
Little Cheyne Court Wind Farm, near Lydd, Kent - PA

The Government must keep the onshore wind ban or Britain’s food security would be at risk, two dozen Conservative MPs have warned.

Rishi Sunak is under pressure from rebels to remove the Cameron-era prohibition on new turbines to tackle the energy crisis amid a growing party split on the issue.

Backbenchers including former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have signed an amendment laid out by Simon Clarke, Ms Truss’s former levelling up secretary, that demands an end to the ban.

But 24 Tory MPs and two peers have now written to Mr Sunak urging him to stand firm, arguing offshore wind is more efficient and that it is too dangerous to change direction.

“A change of policy would undoubtedly result in high grade farm land being permanently affected at a time when we are acutely aware of the importance of food security,” their letter reads.

“The environmental costs of turbine construction and fitting means that the ‘payback period’, the time before they become environmentally beneficial, is frequently underestimated and invariably unstated by their advocates.

“In practice, the majority of people who don’t want wind turbines to destroy their locality would be powerless to stop them.”

‘Not a solution for the long-term’

The group – which is led by senior backbencher Sir John Hayes and includes former Cabinet ministers David Davis and David Jones – proceeded to note local opposition to wind farms was “likely to be intense and politically damaging”.

They argued that while onshore wind may appear economically desirable amid high gas prices in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, gas shortages would inevitably be followed by gluts.

“The communal cost for generations to come that such industrialisation of the countryside brings is surely too great for Conservatives to bear,” the letter concludes.

Craig Mackinlay, the MP for South Thanet and one of the signatories to the letter, told The Telegraph: “The problem with expanding wind farms is you expand your intermittency of power. It is not a solution for the long-term.

“In a country that has limited land for food production, to devote ever-increasing square miles to wind farms and solar seems to me a completely mad enterprise.”

During the summer leadership contest, Mr Sunak pledged not to build any new wind farms and argued a massive expansion in offshore wind would be more effective.

However, Mr Clarke’s amendment – and his reference to wind farm opponents as “anti-growth” – has reignited a fierce debate among the parliamentary party thought to extend to the Cabinet.

Michael Gove, the Housing Secretary, has told allies he supports an end to the ban and is understood to have been joined by Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary.

Limits on new onshore wind have been in place since 2016, when David Cameron excluded them from government green energy subsidies.