Queen's Speech: Energy Bill to give LAs wind farm powers

[ALEO Admin]

The Queen has delivery her Speech to mark the opening of Parliament on 27 May 2015, mentioning the Government's new Energy Bill, and the forthcoming Paris Climate Change summit.

According to DECC this new Energy Bill will "boost the UK oil and gas industry by creating an independent regulator for exploration and production from the territorial sea and UK continental shelf". Under the Bill, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Amber Rudd, will have her regulatory powers of oil and gas recovery transferred to this new Oil and Gas Authority (OGA).

The Bill will also transfer Amber Rudd's "consenting powers" for all onshore wind farm applications to local planning authorities. However, according to Edie.net, local authorities already have these powers for wind farms below 50MW - there are just two operational wind farms in England with more than 50MW capacity, and the changes are expected to affect only one planning application.

Mention was also made by the Queen of the opportunity presented by the Climate Change summit to be held in Paris this December.

The Government's proposed extension of the right-to-buy to housing association tenants was also covered in the speech.

For a full transcript and video of the Queen's Speech, visit:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/ ... peech-2015

For details of the new Energy Bill, visit:
https://decc.blog.gov.uk/2015/05/27/ene ... ns-speech/

For the report from edie.net see:
http://www.edie.net/news/6/Queens-Speec ... newsletter