What does the Chancellor mean when she talks about ending ‘ban’ on onshore wind?

In a speech earlier today Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said the government would end the “ban on new onshore wind in England”, and later spoke of there being a “moratorium” on onshore wind development.

Planning rules introduced by the Conservative government have often been described as a “de-facto ban” on onshore wind power development in England—though to be clear, onshore wind turbines were not formally banned.

Planning considerations for England introduced in 2015 provided that onshore wind turbines (not including small-scale domestic turbines) could only be built in areas already identified as suitable in a local or neighbourhood plan (documents setting out a framework for future development of a local area), and which had the “backing” of the local community. The following year, decision making powers for larger-scale onshore wind farms were put in the hands of local planning authorities (having previously required permission from the UK government).

The 2015 changes set out that what constituted “backing” was “a planning judgment for the local planning authority”. However the Conservative government acknowledged last year that the policy tests had “been applied in such a way that a very limited number of objections, and even at times objections of single individuals, have been taken as showing a lack of community backing.”

As a result there’s been a substantial decrease in the number of applications and approvals for onshore wind sites in England since 2015 (though a limited number have been built).

In 2023 the Conservative government amended the National Planning Policy Framework with the intent to speed up the identification of suitable sites. However some campaigners have said the changes did not have a meaningful impact.

The Labour government today announced that it was immediately amending the Framework to remove the two policy tests established in 2015 entirely, and that it would consult on proposals to reinstate larger scale onshore wind projects as nationally significant infrastructure projects.