MP Angus MacDonald during a Westminster Hall debate on Community Benefit

Highland News & Media

Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire MP Angus MacDonald calls for answers during a Westminster Hall debate on Community Benefit from Labour’s energy minister Michael Shanks.

Transcript

00:00Thank you for allowing me to intervene, Minister. I wonder if the Minister would spare a minute

00:07to talk about community benefits. Thank you very much.

00:14I wasn't expecting that under Rodin himself. I saw him in his place earlier and I knew that I

00:20would talk about community benefits, and it is important. I want to turn to both of those points

00:25about community energy and about community benefits, both of which are important.

00:30Firstly, on the question of community benefits, in all of this we want to bring communities with

00:34us on this journey. That is important. We have made a very clear case that this Government

00:40intends to build the energy infrastructure we need, build the transmission infrastructure we

00:45need, build the homes that people need, build the industry that people need to grow our economy. It

00:50is important, and for far too long this country has not built the infrastructure it needs.

00:55But in doing so, yes, we want to streamline the planning process so that applications are

01:00dealt with far more efficiently and far faster, but we want to bring communities with us,

01:05and this is absolutely vital. We'll be saying much more very soon about community benefits

01:12on several fronts. Firstly, on how we expand some of the community benefits for particular

01:18technologies, which is already well established in Scotland, for example around onshore wind.

01:23Clearly, because of the absurd policy of the onshore wind ban in England, that has not developed

01:27as much, but we can look to Wales and Scotland for advice on that. Also, to expand that to other

01:36technologies, particularly to solar, which does not have the same community benefits at the moment,

01:40but also to network infrastructure, so that if we are building network infrastructure,

01:44if you host this, which is essential for the country, you are essentially, and I've always

01:48said this, you are doing a favour for the rest of the country by hosting that infrastructure.

01:52You should feel some benefit from it, and we'll announce a package of community benefits for that

01:58shortly. The wider point around community ownership is that not only do we want communities

02:03to benefit, but we want them to actually own the infrastructure that gives social and economic

02:09benefits as well.

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