Speeches by Wilson.

“I suppose the easiest thing is to do what you have always done. If you have always grown fir trees or whatever, you will always keep on doing that. How is your message disseminated to those who we have been told will be clearing woodlands over the next five years, to ensure that we do not start another cycle of these m…”

“Given the importance of peatlands in your departmental objectives, would it not be something that should automatically be recorded, so at least you know the impact it is having on these important protected habitats?”

“Does your Department keep any records of, for example, the number of deep peat or peatland sites that are being taken over for wind farms? Is there any assessment of the impact of a wind farm being built on those sites?”

“You are not ruling out deep peat sites, even though they have been shown to have huge benefits in flood attenuation, et cetera. Are you saying that, when it comes to the location of wind farms, the last word is really the Government’s renewables policy rather than the protection of important habitats and resources, fro…”

“Last week, we heard about the state of peatlands across the United Kingdom. I think the figure we were given was that 80% of them were degraded in some way or another. One of the most recent concerns is the building of wind farms on upland peat areas. Obviously, it was a good target because they are upland areas, plent…”

“The main thrust of Government policy at present appears, at least to the public, to be dealing with climate change through mitigation and reducing carbon dioxide, while many members of the public are concerned about the immediate impacts of changes in the climate and are looking for adaptations that can be made to try …”

“How much do you feel that adaptation is currently hardwired into Government decisions across Departments, especially when it comes to resource allocation?”

“Will that be cross-departmental?”

“Could you outline some of the major adaptation schemes or projects that the Department is following on this? We hear time and again of flooding schemes that were promised and not delivered, and so on, which would indicate that either the leadership or the financial commitment is not there. Could you outline some of the…”

“Since a large amount of horticultural peat is produced in Northern Ireland, it is a devolved issue. What discussions have you had with devolved Administrations on the ban? Secondly, if it is not UK-wide, does that have implications for the internal market and for the effectiveness of the ban?”

“Currently, you do not measure the number of peatlands, and you do not have a record of the peatland areas that are disrupted as a result of building onshore wind farms. Secondly, you do not have any calculation of CO2 release from the building of those farms. Thirdly, you are considering but have not yet made a decisio…”

“I would have thought that adaptation measures would have been some of the most noticeable things for the public, yet I am not so sure that what the Government are doing on adaptation is actually appreciated and seen by the public. In the next national adaptation programme, do you think it would be helpful, and in fact …”

“Given that one of the reasons for allowing disruption of important habitats is the CO2 reductions, should it not be a compulsory part of any planning application that an assessment is done of the disruption to the landscape and the likely outcomes in terms of CO2 emissions as a result of that disruption?”

“One of the ironies we heard about during the evidence session we had on this issue is that, on the one hand, wind farms are being built in order to reduce CO2 emissions in energy production, and on the other hand, there is massive disruption of peatlands. I have seen in my own constituency three metres of peat being st…”

“In the last session, we were told from the horticultural sector that 0.07% of peatlands were actually used for extracting peat for gardening purposes. Do we have a similar figure for the amount of peatlands that are affected by wind farms? Many of the wind farms—I know that in my own constituency it is nearly all of th…”

“Chair, can I just ask one question? The reason given was that it was complicated. First of all, we have the people who are affected by it saying that they are willing to embrace it. Secondly, they say that there are alternatives—alternatives actually that would give them materials from our own country. Thirdly, custome…”

“Given that, in the future, there are likely to be many more such applications, you have outlined the impact it has on peatlands and the impact that it is likely to have on the targets you are setting. Do you believe this Committee should be making recommendations that, in the future, that should be an essential compone…”

“In your experience, is that information required on every application?”

“Very often when these wind farms are proposed we are told that it will save so many tonnes of carbon. Usually it is calculated on the amount of energy that is generated—that if it was being generated by coal, gas or whatever, so much carbon would be produced and that would not be the case with the wind farm. You have d…”

“In the earlier session, we were told that one of the big problems was that there seems to be no joined-up approach when it comes to peatlands. Let’s take the example we are discussing at the moment. What discussions are there when targets are set for renewable energy by DESNZ and your own Department, when many of those…”