Community Energy Schemes — [Mr Clive Betts in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 3:20 pm on 30 November 2021.

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Photo of Alan Brown Alan Brown Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Energy and Climate Change) 3:20, 30 November 2021

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. Like other hon. Members, I commend Wera Hobhouse for bringing forward the debate. She set out clearly the benefits of community energy and how it would help on the path to net zero and to empower local communities. She also, importantly, set out the current barriers to setting up community energy companies. That was further illustrated by examples in the contributions of the hon. Members for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and Hilary Benn.

One barrier seems to be that it could cost upwards of £1 million to get set up for a generation licence. We have heard that the Licence Lite option under Ofgem simply is not working, so we need alternatives, and the Government must update rules that date back to the electricity network privatisation back at the end of the ’80s and the early ’90s. The hon. Member for Bath made important comments about bringing people on board. We need everybody to buy into the actions that we need to take to tackle climate change. If people get additional community benefits along the way, that is clearly a bonus.