Warm Homes Plan welcome but action needed on islander benefit from renewables – Carmichael

Orkney and Shetland MP, Alistair Carmichael, has today spoken in Parliament on the need for “meaningful support for community benefit” from the government to tackle fuel poverty in the isles. Speaking during a statement on the new Warm Homes Plan, which includes further help for households to secure solar panels and batteries or heat pumps, Mr Carmichael said that the government must renew efforts on community benefit or the merits of an isles tariff to tackle persistent fuel poverty.

Speaking in the House, Mr Carmichael said:

“Orkney and Shetland are home to some of the worst levels of fuel poverty in the United Kingdom, as well as some of the largest onshore wind farms in the country. Solar panels are of limited usefulness to us, because it is coldest in the winter and we might have as little as five hours of daylight in the depths of winter.

“What would make a difference to us is meaningful support for community benefit from or even for community ownership of some of the installed wind farms that we have in the isles, or an isles tariff for communities such as ours and the Western Isles. When will we hear something from the Secretary of State on those ideas?”

Responding, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband said:

“I thank the right hon. Member for his really important question. We will shortly publish our local power plan, which is precisely about the community ownership he mentions. We see that as having a central role. It plays much more of a role in countries such as Germany and Denmark than it does here. We want to expand it, and we want his constituents to benefit.”

Reacting after the exchange, Mr Carmichael said:

“There is genuinely much to welcome in the new Warm Homes Plan, but it will be cold comfort all the same if the government does not get to grips with fuel poverty where it is at its worst.

“The fact that energy prices continue to rise in our communities even as we see the construction of more and more renewables infrastructure is very frustrating. That is not an argument against renewables but it is an argument for proper reform of the energy market, so that areas which generate renewable energy for the country as a whole see some benefit from it locally. I shall await the “local power plan” with interest.”