Wind Turbines

Not only does my hon. Friend have constituency experience of this; he is also a senior member of that most powerful of parliamentary committees, the Public Accounts Committee, and he knows only too well the financial and regulatory aspects. The point that he raises fits in nicely with the thrust of my argument. He is right. I am talking about one village and a small hamlet, but the people themselves raised £15,000 for the first inquiry, and the second inquiry cost them £20,000. If it goes to a third inquiry, it will probably cost them £25,000. As he pointed out, it is costing them twice over—first, through the money that they had to raise and secondly through the indirect costs. Through taxation and through their electricity bills, they are effectively funding the developers, as well as having to fund their legal representation. That is wrong and unfair. I bring this issue to Parliament to ask whether the Government recognise that, through their renewable strategy and what I believe are subsidies for developers, they are allowing the developers to bulldoze through applications for wind turbines against the wishes of local planners and local communities. That is undemocratic and unfair. If local communities faced the prospect of those sites producing a massive amount of power locally, they would find their arguments undercut. How are the Government going to address that imbalance, which is down to the law of unintended consequences? Will they consider establishing a legal fund to enable local communities to gain access to legal representation? Taxpayers already fund the developers, so they could also fund local communities. Let us have a level legal playing field. People in Norfolk recognise that something is unfair and undemocratic about the matter. The Minister can expect more widespread opposition to centrally imposed targets. We want a proper renewables strategy and to bring local communities along with us on that, but the way in which developers currently go about it—perfectly legally—is producing widespread resistance and cynicism. I do not want my constituents to face one, two or three more appeals by a developer, which will cost them tens of thousands of pounds, for what they suspect will be a renewables wind farm that will not produce a significant contribution to the national grid.