Select committee: Energy Security and Net Zero Committee
Recommendation 45
2nd Report - Gridlock or growth? Avoiding energy planning chaos
Published 7 Jul 2025
Addressed to Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
Energy Security and Net Zero Committee National planning for energy infrastructure All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government should review and amend this guidance to: • The Government should reaffirm its commitment to developing solar on developed land, brownfield land, contaminated land and industrial land before agricultural land. The Government should also consider innovative ways to develop solar energy without agricultural land. • Clarify more precisely how applicants and decision-makers should assess land type and agricultural land classification, including the use of BMV agricultural land. 58 • Refer explicitly to food security and explain how decision-makers should take this consideration into account. • Clarify when site surveys are necessary to verify agricultural land classification. • Recognise that BMV agricultural land may not all be clustered in one single area but may instead be located in a patchwork of field parcels, mixed with lower-grade land. (Recommendation, Paragraph 108)
From: Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, 2nd Report - Gridlock or growth? Avoiding energy planning chaos (HC 868), 7 July 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 November 2025 (deadline 7 September 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response says it will provide sufficient time for committee scrutiny of future NPS updates, but it "cannot commit" to a minimum review period, and it sets out amendments and positions on the Committee's wider recommendations.
- On scrutiny timing, the government "notes" the Committee's concerns and says it will "ensure early liaison with Committee" in future NPS reviews, but cannot commit to a minimum review period.
- On Critical National Priority infrastructure, it has amended EN-1, replacing "material reduction" with "significant reduction" and adding that exceptional circumstances may "warrant a small reduction in generation capacity and function".
- On the Centralised Strategic Network Plan, it agrees to remove the term "strategic solution" but will maintain "indicative routes" and "strategic parameters".
- On distribution infrastructure, it has consulted on removing 132kV wooden poles from the NSIP regime and "will respond in due course"; any threshold change would need secondary legislation.