Locals will have to ‘suck it up’ regarding wind and solar farms on farmland 

Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves warns Britain would otherwise be ‘at the mercy of dictators’ like Putin for energy.

Locals who object to solar and wind farms being built in the countryside under liberalised planning rules will just have to ‘suck it up’, Chancellor Rachel Reeves suggested today.

Sir Keir Starmer’s finance chief warned that failing to make the UK more energy self-sufficiency would leave it ‘at the mercy of dictators’ like Vladimir Putin and keep bills high.

In a TV interview this morning she was asked about controversial permissions granted given by Energy Security Secretary Ed Miliband, including one covering 2,500 acres of farm land on the Cambridgeshire/Suffolk border.

Asked by the BBCs Laura Kuenssberg today whether Labour was telling opponents of the schemes they were ‘just going to have to suck it up’, she replied: ‘We can’t carry on like we are. We can’t carry on not building energy infrastructure, and not building housing.

‘Because if we carry on like we are, energy bills are going to continue to go through the roof, we’re going to continue to be reliant on Putin and dictators around the world for our basic energy needs. And I’m not willing for our country to be at the mercy of dictators in that way.’

Two weeks ago, Mr Miliband approved three major power projects: Mallard Pass; Gate Burton near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire; and Sunnica near Mildenhall in Suffolk.

He later branded himself a ‘super nerd’ in the House of Commons, as he made an urgent statement on Labour’s ‘clean energy superpower mission’.

The Labour minister has faced criticism from Rutland and Stamford’s Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, after he signed off on the 350-megawatt Mallard Pass project across about 2,000 acres in her constituency.

Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay has also questioned the Government’s approach to a proposed 114-mile string of electricity pylons across Norfolk, and Essex, which could help carry electricity generated by offshore windfarms, calling for ‘a pause while the other options are considered’.

Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt today appeared to back Labour’s hardline approach to planning.

Appearing on the BBC after Ms Reeves he said: ‘I wish Rachel Reeves well on a personal level.

‘I think she has qualities that could make her a good Chancellor and there are things that she said that I welcome. I welcome what she wants to do on pensions … I welcome what she wants to do on planning reform’.

But last week Conservative shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho described Mr Miliband’s clean energy ambitions as the Government’s ‘big test’ and also its ‘greatest liability’.

She said: ‘In government, we had built more offshore wind than any other country bar China, we set out the largest expansion of nuclear power in 70 years and we have said that, yes, we will need oil and gas for the decades ahead, as the Climate Change Committee indeed has said, and we should use British oil and gas where needed, because we are in a global race for energy, and demand will be higher in the years ahead because of data and AI [artificial intelligence].

‘And if his plans to set out to decarbonise the grid are in place, we need to know what those plans will do to people’s energy bills, to our energy security and to our reliance on the current dominant player for cables for batteries and critical minerals, which is China.’

The Energy Secretary hit back, and claimed voters rejected ‘the lurch away from climate action’ at the ballot box, which saw the Tories lose 251 seats.