Speeches by Crichton.

“Angus, what do you think of that zero standing charge, the higher unit cost, and where that balance is, particularly with the lower income groups?”

“The university sector is important for growing the Scottish economy, but so is tourism. Can the Minister enlighten me about the jet safari trips from Clacton to Scotland that have taken place, allowing former bankers to patronise the locals, miss the big picture and be back in England for a pint of warm beer by lunchti…”

“N4, the nearest offshore wind farm to me is offering £4.5 million a year, index-linked, for 35 years to 2,000 people.”

“RWE is onshore and offshore.”

“I can think of specific examples. You are going to be in communities for 40 years, you say. You are going to make a lot of money. You are talking about community benefit. When people hear “community benefit”, they think about five-a-side football strips, astroturf and scout halls. What about giving communities a share …”

“You are saying that it is a technical constraint rather than a planning one.”

“Quite simply, it costs more to put the stuff underground than it does to put it overground. Are there new technologies—and we hear about cable ploughing rather than digging a trench—that might come along and help us?”

“That is an important message for us to hear. It is not just visuals. It is economics as well. People say that this pylon infrastructure will affects farms and arable and tourism businesses. Tourism generates £4 billion a year in Scotland, which is what you look at rather than what you consume in terms of electricity. L…”

“The Planning and Infrastructure Bill is going through, with reforms to the statutory consultation requirements. Would it make it easier for you to make adjustments to design under these proposals?”

“It is not just people who we have to think about. We have to think about the birds and the bats, and other animals. You talked about mitigations that are already taken for wildlife. Would you welcome clearer guidance on how to avoid environmental damage to the bird population?”

“I get that consistency is good, but would you like a more nuanced approach? It seems quite a blunt instrument now: national park, underground; anywhere else, overground.”

“Thank you all for coming in. Just to pick up on what Wera was saying about landscape intrusion with some massive transformation, there may be tonnes of pylons. People do not mind pylons as long as they cannot see them. If they live in a national park, or on the broads, or in a national landscape, the guidance is that w…”

“That is not because of turbines, though, but because of other environmental impacts.”

“You gave a good illustrative example of puffins’ flight paths. Do we need more data like that? Is there data like that? Is there data to show that wind farms affect bird populations?”

“You said something interesting earlier about how under-resourced local planning is. Is there a case for a planning flying squad to go from area to area to back up local councils in the same way as an environmental task force—a more holistic approach to this?”

“Sam, is the country’s love of birds getting in the way of the country’s need to save the planet?”

“Just to assuage your worries, Graham, my suggestion would be that local government be given more resources, not that national Government comes in and imposes its will on local decision making. There are huge challenges facing local government in getting this transition through, and I just think that there should be mor…”

“Thank you all for coming in. I guess what we are dealing with here is the need to build this infrastructure for renewables, for low-carbon, and the impact it has on the environment and the places we live. Peta, the guidance on this infrastructure says that anything deemed to be of critical national priority should not …”

“And finance is one of the big things there, I guess.”

“Graham, in Suffolk County Council, you have had quite a lot of variation on what developers commit to to protect nationally designated landscapes. What changes would you like to see in the planning statement to address that?”